How to be a good host and a good guest

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Head shots of Megan Dean and Matthew Smith — Megan Dean (left) and Matthew Smith (right)

Venn diagram showing the intersection of gluten intolerant, allergic to nuts, lactose intolerant, allergic to eggs and vegan as the worst dinner guest ever. World Philosophy Day happens later this week, which makes it a good time to be asking what constitutes good behaviour in a host and, equally, in a guest. I’m prompted by a recent article that took the rise in food allergies and intolerances as a starting point to ask how a host should act when faced with a guest whose professed allergies seem a tad suspect. Is it OK to ignore guest requests as snowflake signifiers? What should guests do when faced with intolerable food that they failed to inform their host about? In a perfect world, hosts and guests would accommodate one another’s needs; the world, however, is not perfect.

Notes

Megan A. Dean’s article The “Worst Dinner Guest Ever”: On “Gut Issues” and Epistemic Injustice at the Dinner Table appeared in Gastronomica 2022.
The books Megan Dean mentioned were Elizabeth Telfer’s Food for Thought and Karen Stohr’s On Manners.
Matthew Smith has an article in the same volume and has written about the rise in food allergies.
There is, of course, a countervailing view to all this mutual respect of hosts and guests, the idea of dinner party as revenge. For an entertaining take on that, I recommend you start with Jesse Browner’s Shark Bait, also in Gastronomica.
Here is the transcript.

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6 thoughts on How to be a good host and a good guest Even The “Worst Dinner Guest Ever” deserves respect

D A N I E L C H E U N G liked this post 3 years ago.

D A N I E L C H E U N G commented 3 years ago.

World Philosophy Day is on Thursday, so a good opportunity to ask what is required of a good host and a good guest, in this week’s episode eatthispodcast.com/worst-guest/

Gastronomica mentioned this post 3 years ago.

Check out this episode of the @EatPodcast which takes inspiration from Megan A. Dean’s @gastronomica 22.3 article The “Worst Dinner Guest Ever” as well as @mpcsmith ‘s thoughtful response in the same issue, featuring both authors
#foodstudies #histfood #food

twitter.com/eatpodcast/sta…

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