Fast Food Not Fast Enough: Take Time Out for Dinner

opinion by Jim Matorin, contributor

A recent month in France reminded me that the French are passionate about their food. Yet while culinary delight is a mainstay of French culture, so is dining together and chatting over a meal. People often start their day at the café, have an espresso and a smoke, mingle with friends and then head off to work. After Sunday lunch there’s the Sunday promenade, a leisurely stroll that often includes three generations. For the French, mealtime is not just about eating. It’s also about conversing and reconnecting with the people around them.

But while the French live to eat—and to experience all that mealtime entails—it seems Americans mainly eat to live. We tend to fuel up on food when we run out of gas, eating on the run by catching bits and bites whenever we can. We eat any time, anywhere as we race against the clock. We eat while we work, we power-lunch (sometimes twice a day) and we eat while we drive, often with a cell phone in the hand not clutching the burger. For Americans, eating has become just another aspect of multi-tasking.

Statistics show that we spend roughly 18 percent of our disposable income on dining out compared to 30 percent spent by the French. We can deduct that not only do they spend more at restaurants, but they also take more time out to enjoy the food and the people sharing it.

Why don’t we take more time out to savor the foie gras?

One reason is that it’s tough enough for two-income families to manage work and children’s schedules, let alone set the table and enjoy each other’s company. Based on the busy-ness of our daily routines, who has time or energy to cook dinner for a family these days? Kids themselves are overbooked with homework and after-school activities, and their busy parents are in no position to tell them to slow down.

A friend recently told me that the last time his family ate together turned out to be a less than warm, fuzzy, happy family experience at Applebee’s. His kids insisted on rushing through dinner so they could slip back into their world of email, online chats, computer games and MP3 listening options in between an occasional blast of homework. It was as though sitting calmly around the dinner table wasn’t enough activity for them.

As if in response to our cultural chaos, acronyms like HMR (Home Meal Replacement) and OTG (On the Go) have become leading topics in the food business. The snack industry has mushroomed to $16 billion in annual sales. Fast-food restaurants now report that 50 percent of their sales are at the drive-by window. Does this mean that even fast food isn’t fast enough for us?

Taking time out to enjoy eating together may not solve society’s ills, but we do need to slow down, disconnect from cell phones and computers, stop stuffing and start savoring our food and the people around us. By sitting down to eat with family, friends and neighbors, we can at least create camaraderie, one of the building blocks of a sound community.

Jim Matorin is a widely traveled foodservice and marketing expert.