Breaking Bread

One definition of family is "those who eat together."

"Eating together helps people get over fights. Since friends and families share food, the action of eating together can ritually express what is held, shared, and enjoyed, after all, in common; it therefore signifies the dropping of hostilities."

"In many cultures, two people do not feel they can talk in a friendly way with each other unless they have first eaten together."

"Eating together in private entails and 'means' marriage: it involves sharing the same house. Ceasing to eat together is tantamount to divorce . . . . [eating togehter] contains the suggestion of sharing the same private space."

(taken from The Rituals of Dinner by Margaret Visser)