Thanksgiving and the Importance of Commensality

With our lives moving at a break-neck pace day in and day out, the time we spend genuinely unplugging from our demands and replugging into personal interactions is limited. Fortunately, every once in a while, a holiday meal comes along and provides the perfect opportunity for kicking back, cooking, sipping, tasting, talking, and connecting.

Commensality is the word for it; the act of eating together. It's the founding of a fellowship, an opportunity to learn more about those around you through their likes, dislikes, tastes and toasts. It's a continuation of tradition, a transmission of culture, with recipes taught and retaught through generations. It's a resurgance of memories, a time to reminisce, and a time revel in the present. It is a demonstration of altruism as a sharing of table and bounty.

It's a chance to shift the focus from ourselves to others, and a chance to silence the incessant chatter of our inner monologue. It's a nourishment of the body, spirit and mind, for all involved.

There are many things to be thankful for in any given year, but if this Thanksgiving you find yourself drawing up a chair to a table full of family and friends, know that you are participating in a tradition that is older than the pilgrims and is more than just a meal.