The Culture Code (14 page)

—a twenty-seven-year-old woman

I used to love coming home from school and watching reruns of old TV shows. Once, when I was ten or eleven, the station playing
The Honeymooners
moved it to 6:30. I was totally hooked on that show and asked my mother if I could eat dinner in the den rather than eating with the rest of the family. I could tell this hurt her feelings, but she told me I could do it, so I did. That night, sitting in the den with my food, I found the show wasn’t that funny. I could hear my parents talking in the dining room and I felt like I was missing out on something. The next night, my mother asked me if I was eating dinner in the den and I told her I was going to eat with the family. When we sat down together, my mother patted me on the hand and said, “Welcome back.”

—a forty-one-year-old man

Everyone had a specific place around the table. My little brother sometimes tried to sit in my chair and I would nearly tear his head off. We ate off of plates we made at one of those paint-your-own pottery places and we always ate at 6:45 because my dad came home at 6:30. When my brother and I got older, we didn’t eat together as often, but we still did it whenever we could. When I went off to college and I ate at the dorm cafeteria for the first time, I got incredibly homesick.

—a nineteen-year-old woman

My father was a traveling salesman, so we didn’t have family dinners all that often. When Dad was home, though, dinner was a big deal. My first memory of dinner was of being maybe five or six. My dad was in a great mood and everyone was joking around. My older brothers were teasing me, but not in the mean way they sometimes could. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I felt bigger than life because I was surrounded by people who loved and cared for me.

—a fifty-three-year-old man

Every few months, my father would drive the whole family from Oakland, California, to State Line, Mississippi, to visit my grandmother. All of my uncles and aunts would be there and about twenty cousins and ten from my family (brothers, sisters, mom, dad). The house would be so noisy and everyone would be talking about the old times and we’d eat until everything was gone.

—a forty-eight-year-old man

Some spoke about life getting in the way:

It seems that my kids got older and my husband started spending time on the road at just about the same time. For a while, I tried to make dinner, but then I realized I was kidding myself. My most powerful memory of dinner is me eating out of a Tupperware bowl at the kitchen table with magazines and mail on it. My dinner companions are mail-order catalogs and bills.

—a forty-five-year-old woman

My two kids are out of the house now and I don’t do much for dinner now that I’m alone. If I could change anything about the past, it would be that I would have provided a more “traditional” meal for my children. I would have insisted they eat with me rather than doing all the stuff they were doing. Time with our children is so short.

—a fifty-year-old woman

I took a job on the night shift because the money was much better. Unfortunately, that meant I could no longer have dinner with my wife and kids. A sandwich in the cafeteria isn’t exactly the same thing as a hot meal at home. One night, my wife surprised me by packing up the kids and dinner and coming to see me at work. The five of us sat around the cafeteria table and it was the best meal I’d had in a long time. I took a little longer than my usual break and my boss wasn’t too happy about that, so we couldn’t do it very often, but I loved it when they came.

—a thirty-nine-year-old man

Some spoke of the sadness associated with permanent absences from the dinner table:

I’ll never forget the first family dinner we had together after my mother died. Dad cooked—it was his job now—and he did the best he could considering how upset he was. Still, when we sat down, it was like someone had cut a huge gaping hole into our kitchen table. The room felt dark and empty. Nobody talked. And the food didn’t smell as good, and not because my dad couldn’t cook as well as my mom. I remember feeling like the family was going to fall apart.

—a twenty-five-year-old woman

I truly miss the big gatherings and the love and fun that used to be part of the big family gatherings. Unfortunately, money has broken the family into parts and it doesn’t seem that the whole family will ever be together again.

—a thirty-six-year-old woman

When my mother and father divorced and my father moved to Indianapolis, Mom did everything she could to keep a regular dinner time and to pull us together for dinner. But I could tell that she was really upset that Dad wasn’t there anymore. She never really got over it, and dinner was never the same again.

—an eighteen-year-old man

Sunday dinner was a huge event in my household. It was the one time during the week that my father insisted I be around. My older siblings would come over with their kids and we’d put the extensions on the dining room table, everyone would sit around, and there would be huge plates of food in the middle of the table. My parents spent all day Sundays cooking. Then my brother-in-law got a job in Cleveland and moved my sister and two nieces out there. It was weird, but I knew right away this was the beginning of the end. Six months later, my other sister moved out of town, and a couple of years later I went off to college and then settled in the Bay Area. The only time we get the whole family together now is for Thanksgiving, and it just feels forced.

—a thirty-four-year-old man

These third-hour stories were filled with deep emotion: the joys of camaraderie, the satisfaction of a warm family environment, the sadness and regret of loss. While Americans might not have family sit-down dinners together very often any longer, these meals have a cherished place in our hearts.

One notion that came up repeatedly was the gathering. “Everyone got to sit around and talk to each other.” “Everyone had a specific place around the table.” “The five of us sat around the cafeteria table and it was the best meal I’d had in a long time.” “When we sat down, it was like someone had cut an enormous gaping hole into our kitchen table.” “Everyone would sit around, and there would be big plates of food in the middle of the table.” The image that showed up in a huge percentage of the stories was the idea of coming together
around
a table. There is a sense of community generated by this act, the sense that you are surrounded by people who support you and are there for you. You can go out into the world, but when you return for dinner and you sit around the table, you are truly home.

The American Culture Code for dinner is
ESSENTIAL
CIRCLE
.

This notion of a circle expresses itself in multiple ways in the American culture. A common American practice is to serve food “family style,” with large plates of food set at the center of the table (creating a circle of sorts, even if the table is rectangular), after which diners pass the plates around the circle so everyone can share. In addition, dinner completes the circle of the day. You wake up in the morning, you leave the house, you go out to do battle in the world, and then, at dinnertime, you return to the family and close the circle with your loved ones.

Dinner has a very different structure in other cultures. A Japanese family rarely eats dinner together. Commonly, the men work all day and then go out to drink with their friends. When they get home, their wives may serve them a little soup before they go to bed, but the children will have been fed long before. The notion of the family meal is relatively foreign in Japan. Even when a married couple goes out to dinner with friends, the men and women eat separately.

In China, dinner is all about the food. Food is cooked in multiple locations (the kitchen, the fireplace, outside, even the bathroom) and it has a hugely prominent place in any Chinese home. Food is hanging, drying, and curing everywhere. While the Chinese are eating dinner, they rarely speak with one another. Instead, they focus entirely on the food. This is true even at business dinners. One may be in the midst of a spirited conversation about an important deal; when the food comes, all conversation ceases and everyone feasts.

Dinner in England is a much more formal experience than it is in America. The English have very clear rules of behavior at the table, including how one sits while eating, how one uses one’s cutlery, and even how one chews. One would never see English diners in a restaurant offer a taste of the food on their plate, as Americans commonly do. While Americans see this as convivial, the English see it as vulgar and unsanitary.

IT’S
DINNERTIME
AND
EVERYONE’S INVITED

Gathering together at dinner, completing the essential circle, is absolutely on Code. The desire to do it was stated emphatically in the discovery sessions. Yet if you ask any head of household about dinnertime in her family, you’re likely to hear about one or both parents grabbing something on the way home from a late night at the office, one kid pouring a bowl of cereal for herself, and another heating something in the microwave on his way out the door. This is reality, right? We’re very busy Americans.

Equally interesting is what
is not
implied by the Code. Looking back at the stories, one notes that participants mentioned food itself infrequently. In addition, they put no premium on gourmet quality or on long preparation time (we’ll discuss why when we get to the Code for food). Even the woman who referred to her mother as a “great cook” said things “tasted fantastic” even if her mother “just threw something together.” The very strong message of the Code is that the
circle
is the important part of dinner. Food is secondary. That take-out pizza is perfectly fine as long as everyone is eating it together (interestingly, DiGiorno, a Kraft brand, promotes its pizza as being as good as takeout, not as good as homemade). Pizza is, in fact, an ideal, perfect on-Code dinner because it is circular and everyone shares it.

Once they received the Code, Kraft launched a marketing campaign using the catchphrase “Gather around.” They even animated the Kraft logo to morph into a family sitting around a dinner table. They positioned themselves as facilitators of the on-Code American dinner experience.

Another thing not implied by the Code is a sense of duration. Few participants talked about lingering over dinner with family. Again, the important thing was the circle. The on-Code dinner is a time when everyone can gather around the table and reconnect. A fast meal with the entire family together and the television off is on Code.

A dinner doesn’t need to take place around one’s own table to be on Code. Restaurants that promote bringing the family together are very much on Code. McDonald’s did a great job with this when it introduced the Happy Meal. By offering kids something specifically for them, the company made it easy for families to eat together, even if the meal itself was something less than elegant. All “family restaurants” are on Code because they promote gathering the family together for dinner, they offer something for everyone, and they create a casual environment that promotes fun and conversation.

Restaurants that promote community tap into the Code in powerful ways. The Melting Pot, a chain of fondue restaurants with nearly a hundred locations in the United States, does this especially well. Patrons sit in booths that simulate a household dining table, and the food is served in the middle of the table. Fondue is an especially on-Code meal because diners are always reaching into the center of the circle to get food. This produces a sense of sharing even more potently than passing plates around the table does.

Products that promote single servings are off Code for dinner, though they are of course not off Code for our busy lifestyles. Kraft takes a twofold marketing approach with its macaroni and cheese. It sells its Easy Mac brand of single-serving packages as an after-school snack that kids can make for themselves, while it sells its classic Macaroni & Cheese as a dinner that the entire family can enjoy. Stouffer’s has an interesting way of keeping the single-serving concept on Code. In its recent advertising for Lean Cuisine, it shows a woman bragging to her female friends about the sumptuous low-calorie meal she had the night before. Essentially, by spreading the word about Lean Cuisine, she’s inviting these women into her “circle.” Even if these friends don’t eat dinner together, they form a community when they eat the same frozen dinners.

HOME
IS IN
OUR
HEARTS

We need shelter and we need to eat. As Americans, we elevate these basic requirements into something involving family and ritual. When we think about home, one of the first images to come to mind usually involves a big family meal. When we go home to visit our parents, we go home for dinner. Just as the ritual of making dinner is on Code for home, creating a strong home environment is on Code for dinner, even if, in these busy times, dinner itself comes out of a box.

The Codes for Work and Money

“W
hat do you do?”

When someone asks you that question, you could offer any number of answers. You might discuss your role as a parent. Or you could talk about the various things you do to maintain your household. You might respond with a list of your hobbies. In America, though, the question really means “What
job
do you do?” and the only expected answer involves your work.

There is something very powerful and revealing about the way we ask “What do you do?” in American culture. It’s another way of asking “What is your purpose?” as though one were looking at an unfamiliar machine and asking “What is it for?” We usually ask it almost as soon as we meet someone. “Where do you come from?” is the first question, followed by “What do you do?” The answers enable us to size someone up, as well as providing an evening’s worth of small talk.