Food and the ontology of being in family

a collaborative writing

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on food as a constitutive dimension of family life, seeking to understand how the daily sharing of food during family meals transcends mere nutrition and becomes a gesture of belonging, memory, affection, and recognition. The work is the result of collaborative writing among three authors, using Collaborative Autoethnography as a method, which allows for the intertwining of voices and the valorization of personal and family journeys. The accounts presented explore "hunger" in different temporalities, revealing how food deprivation, whether historical (immigrants fleeing pogroms) or marked by scarcity and the struggle for land (quilombola community), internalized the moral imperative of "not leaving food on the plate." In contrast, the experience of scarcity emphasizes the full use of food and the act of sharing the little that is available as a maxim of solidarity and affection, with the Grandmother as the central figure in the careful distribution. The text also addresses food as an object of power and control (locked pantry), generating a riot over food, which shaped how the family deals with food and affection. It concludes that the act of eating as a family not only satisfies a biological need, but reaffirms identities and the sustained bond of being-with-the-other. The narratives woven together show that the relationship with food is social, political, and affective, constituting an ancestral legacy against waste in a scenario of coexistence between widespread hunger and massive waste.