Shopping and cooking: the organization of foodpractices, at the crossing of access to food storesand household properties in France

Severine Gojard and Berangere Veron

Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, 2018, vol. 99, issue 01

Abstract: This paper explores different ways of organizing food practices in shopping, cooking, and managing leftovers and shows how these relate to sustainability. We conducted an ethnographic study in France based on in-depth and repeated interviewswith around 30‘ordinary’consumers aged between 30 and 87 years. We analyzed the interviews using a practice–theory approach and distinguished meanings, materials, and skills linked to food products and eating. We identify four patterns of everyday foodpractices, each coherently linking specific ways of provisioning, storing, cooking, waste sorting, and other practices. We show how households adopt patterns according to their social characteristics and place of residence and how they switch from one pattern to another according to circumstances. Each pattern comprises some sustainable practices, although not always at the same level. We highlight not only the role of material infrastructure in framing access to food products, but also the necessity to consider temporal organization, financial resources, household size, and social position to understand food practices. Food practices also differ according to definitions of proper eating, which may vary in the long run according to life course events, and in the short run according to the context of meals. We conclude by discussing different ways to promote more sustainable eating.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/290192/files/G ... kingTheOrganizat.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:frrfes:290192

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.290192

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies from Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().