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The aim of this paper is to visualize, communicate and understand the vocational knowledge of a waiters craft, including how to perform table-setting and serving. The underlying theoretical perspectives are Culinary Arts and Meal Science, Craft Science, and Time-Geography. Basic time-geographical concepts used in the study are project, log, notation and constraint. The empirical data consist of two postulated serving methods wherein different procedures are identified. The data are based on the first author’s vocational experience and are described by logs of procedures. Questions in the logs concerning capacity, coupling, or authority constraints indicate limits to what is possible. Additionally, one of the serving methods is shown by a notation, displaying the waiter’s and the guests’ actions in relation to the procedures. The notation, complemented with a drawing of the room, provides knowledge about when, where, and for how long a serving procedure lasts. Through the use of time-geographical tools, the waiter’s craft procedures can be described and interpreted. Thus, it became possible to visualize, communicate, and acquire a deeper understanding of how the waiter in her vocational craft predicts and masters how time and materiality together with spatiality affect a meal event.

A meal consists of both tangible and intangible dimensions. Menus and photos may be the only documentation from a meal, but experiences are rarely saved beyond memory. The aim of this study is to design a method for documenting intangible aspects of the professional experience of a meal craftsman, based on the memories associated with the files in an archive. By sorting the archive according to a specific process of documentation we managed to revive and document also the intangible aspects of these meals. In order to access the intangible aspects, a version of the Socratic method of dialogue was developed and used. This is exemplified by a case. The dialogues reunited intangible aspects from the memories of the designer, such as motives and drivers, with the tangible archive documents.

The increasing age of populations throughout the world means that healthcare services are faced with new challenges, not least regarding the provision of food during hospital stay. There is a lack of knowledge of how hospital mealtimes are experienced by older patients, and so the aim of this article was to review current knowledge regarding mealtimes in hospitals from the perspectives of older patients. A literature search was performed using seven databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Sociological Abstracts, SweMed+, ASSIA and CINAHL with no limits regarding publication date. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed articles in English or Swedish that used qualitative methods to examine older patients' (>65 years) mealtime experiences. The Five Aspect Meal Model (FAMM) served as a framework for understanding the complexity behind a mealtime experience. Qualitative content analysis was used as a guide when analysing the material. The search produced 415 studies, 14 of which were included in the review. The findings generated three main themes for understanding how older patients experience mealtimes while in hospital: (1) the food and the food service, (2) mealtime assistance and commensality during mealtimes and (3) the importance of retaining one's independence. The review also clearly indicated a shortage of studies that solely focus on older patients' experiences of their mealtime. More research is therefore needed to be fully able to understand the complex task of providing meals in hospitals.

In response to calls for increased professionalism in the restaurant industry, this paper aims to show how it is constituted in the daily practices in the industry, and to clarify ideas of professi ...

Hierarchical manners and taxing work complicate the picture of the restaurant industry, a sector in great need of personnel. There is little scientific research on daily work in restaurants. Through interviews and observations in restaurant kitchens, three head chef practices were detected: “Master the materiality” is a stipulation for leading kitchens, but does not imply leadership aspirations; “show and guide” is teambuilding through which standards are reinforced by the presence of leaders while allowing coworkers some freedom; and “overview and foresight” involves nonhierarchical supervision by head chefs during service. These practices make sense to head chefs as they enhance product quality and their reputations as professionals. The study points to a horizontal leadership in the restaurant industry and a possible new order for growth and development.

Sustainability is a key concern within the restaurant industry, which offers a variety of initiatives and approaches to it. This, in turn, creates different shared understandings, what we here call sustainable cuisine imaginaries. The practices fostered by these imaginaries are now facing unforeseen challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic, creating a dissonance in the way restaurants normally operate. By using storage and preservation practices as an entry point, this ethnographic study of six Swedish restaurants uses the concept of imaginaries to explore the different beliefs and ideals for restaurant sustainability and the practices fostered by those ideals. Three distinct imaginaries of sustainable cuisine were identified: locality as a quality, reducing meat in favor of vegetables, and the creative and knowledgeable professional. These imaginaries are materialized through different storage facilities, like root cellars, wine cellars, or meat aging fridges. This study shows how disruptions in restaurants, triggered by unexpected situations, exposed the fragility of these imaginaries. We argue that the sustainable cuisine imaginaries, as a complexity reducing mechanism, help restaurant professionals manage the intricacy of sustainability. However, they also demonstrate an array of simple solutions very susceptible to external factors. Sustainable practices can thus easily become unsustainable.

Since restaurateurs can benefit by analyzing the production of meals, particularly with the dominant framework for meal experiences, the five aspects meal model (FAMM), this study examined FAMM’s r ...

Public meals in schools, hospitals, social, and elderly care play an important role in Swedish welfare. This article analyzes texts concerning the public catering sector, following up government directives that meals should provide enjoyment. The aim was to study a discernible shift towards enjoyment in the approach to public meals. The method is qualitative, with data from functional texts related to the public meal sector in Sweden, using the Five Aspects Meal Model/FAMM as a qualitative framework used by dietitians to add soft values in the public catering sector to the average nutritional values. The result is described in terms of important meal situations: new values, hospitality and service, environment, experience, and food quality as related to how and in which way to make changes. The question of public meals is important in an international view with elderly and multicultural populations.

This paper contributes to research on restaurant work, which plays an important role in culinary arts research. The aim of this study was to make visible and elucidate the daily work practices in eight small restaurants in a seasonal tourist destination on the Southeast coast of Sweden. The central methods used were observations and participant observations and interviews, along with an e-mail questionnaire and examination of published information concerning all the restaurants. By means of practice theory, three central elements were used to identify and understand the configuration of the activities involved in daily work in small seasonal restaurants. These three elements, knowledge/competence, technologies/materiality and creation of meaning, formed four practices. The practices identified in this study were managing time and seasons; planning, strategising and controlling; knowing and having skills; and dreams and lifestyle. The conclusion of the study indicates that small restaurant practices may be conflicting, as they involve an extremely time-consuming workload, vague planning and lingering knowledge growth in contrast to the ideas of creativity and development that are a part of the restaurant owners’ dreams and lifestyle.

The professionals in the commercial catering sector are challenged by a large number of demands in their daily work. The aim of this study is to extend the concept of The Conscious Meal and to develop it, enabling professionals in the catering service to meet needs, demands, and desires in the public and private meal sectors. This study highlights the complexity of making a meal in a commercial context as well as the importance of including ethical reflections in culinary education.

The aim of this study was to examine how men and women behave together working in restaurants and how they cooperate with one another (both in the kitchen and in the dining room). An a la carte restaurant situated in one of the largest cities in Sweden was chosen for investigation. The project is an explorative ‘intensive field study’ using conversation and observation as the method of data compilation. The team met four employees for individual conversation: the owner, the restaurant manager, a chef and a waiter. Key concepts found towards understanding stance and cooperation among staff on the floor of the restaurant were mentorship, occupational nomenclature, working clothes, and expertise in food and wine. In our restaurant study, we met both positive and negative feelings among the staff. The rewards included the pleasure of working in a ‘fine restaurant’, moving among well-known people and handling good food and fine wines, all status symbols for a life among the upper classes. Those who made for the hotel and restaurant area were on the hunt for the good life but were dependent on seasons, irregular working hours and insecure forms of employment which were difficult or impossible to combine with family life, and the work developed into a lifestyle. Several left the sector after a few strenuous years.

The word taste has several meanings: biopsychological, and cultural and social. Taste also influences food choice, though there is a widespread belief that tasty food is not synonymous with healthy ...

The aim of this study was to provide increased understanding of what 'feeding the family' means to Somalian women in Sweden. Focus group interviews were carried out with Somalian women, analysed by ...

In this chapter eating out at restaurants, i.e. meal experiences outside home, are discussed. Dining out in upper-class restaurants is a worldwide trend nowadays and includes an extensive range of consumer groups. Internationally, there is a large number of solitary customers, both male and female, for whom lone dining is not as easy as they would like it to be. Furthermore, women, and naturally also men, today wish to take their place in urban settings, for instance by eating in restaurants, even if they are alone. They should be seen as a potentially important clientele group worthy of the attention of the restaurant branch.

Immigrants in Sweden have on average poorer health than native Swedes, including the risk of nutritional problems. In Sweden's multicultural society there is a need for increased knowledge about eating habits in public health work within health and education. A survey of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina living in Sweden was undertaken to describe the choice of food and food traditions in pre-war Bosnia. The purpose was to introduce the subject of food, health and migration into public health work and develop culture-adapted food and health advice.Focus-group interviews were undertaken with a total of 20 women refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina.Qualitative data analysis identified a large consumption of bread as a staple food with meat, vegetables, milk, cheese, legumes, egg and fish as additions. Self-sufficiency was noted with milk souring, jam making and the production of sweet fruit drinks. Home made cheese and drying or smoking of meat were common methods of food storage. In child rearing, breast-feeding for 6-8 months was most common. Home made breast milk replacements were made from semolina, rice and 'petit biscuits'.Several important factors need to be taken into account when giving culturally adapted food and health advice to Bosnian families, such as encouraging bread, vegetable and legume consumption and giving advice on substituting sweet fruit drinks for natural fruit. One should be conscious of how religious beliefs as well as socio-cultural, historical, ecological, economical and psychological influences may guide food choices.