Oh my, Bruce. I think we have to agree to disagree! The socialized
production of food, that is, meals, is a vision too frightening for me to
comprehend. Perhaps the school cafeteria is an example? No, I still favor
privatization, division of labor and all that. But I still maintain that the
system of serving food portrayed in Rose's piece is nuts. Self service is
certainly an alternate model, but even in the case of food prepared to order
and served, do we really need the Byzantine (if not older) rituals we
currently follow?
To link this with Laszlo's paper, perhaps we should explore the "transfer by
cannibalism" model?
djc
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Robinson [mailto:bruce.rob@btinternet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 10:11 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Eating in restaurants
> I was thinking more specifically about the activities of the
> waitress/waiter, cooks, bus people. WHY do waiters and waitresses carry
our
> orders to a cook, bring us our food, take our money, clean up after us. It
> provides work and an income, of course, and allows customers the
experience
> of being "waited on", but as a means of consuming food, whether alone or
> with others, its a damn silly way to do it.
>
> Kind of like modern classrooms. If I were TRYING to design an inefficient
> and ineffective means of schooling children, I don't think I could do
better
> than what we have today......djc
I disagree. What is efficient about having millions of families each with
their own means of production spending vast amounts of time on an activity
(cooking) many of them are not very skilled at, which requires them to spend
lots more time buying the raw materials. There are other compensations to
being able to cook for oneself (primarily choice and control), but generally
I think socialised production of food is more rational. To state another
obvious point - it doesn't necessarily require anyone to wait on you. There
is such a thing as self service!
Bruce
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Diane Hodges [mailto:dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 11:00 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Eating in restaurants
>
>
>
> anthropologically speaking, eating together has always signalled a kind of
> ritual or celebration,
> that urban folks do it wih strangers and intimate friends or lovers
> doesn't,
> i don' t think, remove the value of ritualized eating. rural diners are
> as much a social gathering place as they are a convenient eating place.
> diane
>
> "I want you to put the crayon back in my brain."
> Homer Simpson
>
> diane celia hodges
> university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
> instruction
> vancouver, bc
> mailing address: 46 broadview avenue, montreal, qc, H9R 3Z2
>
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