Response to Eating at the Edge

In Horwitz’s article, the author pointed out the changes of eating style because of the change in people’s life. Several years ago, people were always chatting with others while eating on the table, but now they eat alone and quickly without talking to others instead. We live in a “timeless time,”(42)This sentence clearly showed the main idea: Eating faster with simple style. The author showed an example of soup to support his idea: the soup was fit in a big bowl in the past but changed into the individual small bowls for per person instead. This shows that people eating together with friends or families so that they share the large size of food together and people on the table get the same food. However, by changing the size to individual small size, people only get their own food and eating alone and this shows the meaning of “Eating at the Edge”. In this process of change, it’s like people have more choices of food because they can go and eat for their want while ordering. Everyone only have to think about himself and order his favorite dishes and favors because they don’t have to eat the same food. On the other hand, because of the individual meal and the eating style, this will lead to the lack of communication and reducing of people’s relationship. In my opinion, having meals is one of the best ways to reduce the distance between people and improve their relationship. It is beneficial not only for making or meeting good friends but also in daily life or business meeting. In China, people used to have their whole family eating together at home for dinner or eating with a lot of friends or partners of working. "Taking time to share food, as part of a daily routine (not a special occasion), is becoming less common in the u.s. as unstructured eating patterns become more familiar and varied."(45)The author shows the fact that american people changed their eating habit into the unstructured style. By the appearance of the fast food specially the food from the US, the people in the working class just get some food there and go because of their busy work. This is like an influence of it and it also make the Chinese eating habit into the same as the American one. Then, even some Chinese fast food restaurant comes up like “the old uncle” and get popular quickly. I think this is a part of the food culture which we should protect them. Even someone thinks the fast food style is really suitable for some people but I believe the existence of the traditional style are more significant even just make a mixture of this kind of food culture, otherwise, the eating style in China, for example, may totally change into the American fast food style in a period of time.