Introduction

Eating a meal is a biophysical activity that draws from and affects ecosystem services, but it is also very much a social and cultural affair. Food cultures in different contexts relate to habits, rituals, preferences and tastes when it comes to preparing, eating and sharing a meal. These can hardly be considered static, as local and global flows of food, people and ideas also influence what food is available in different contexts, how it is stored and prepared, and what is considered tasty or revolting. The daily practices related to preparing and eating a meal unveil how food consumption continues to evolve in different food consumption spaces, when eating at home or when dining out. Urbanization, increased affluence and market liberalization are typically singled out as the main factors contributing to changing food consumption patterns, yet these changes are usually understood as involving an understanding of consumers as individuals, acting rationally in relation to a changing marketplace. The dynamic relation between people and food provisioning systems is far more

complex, revealing an interaction between social norms, institutional context, time pressures, everyday routines, competencies, the material dimension of consumption and how all of these evolve over time and across spaces. This perspective has led to a growing body of literature in recent years that seeks to understand eating as a social practice (Plessz et al. 2014; Warde 2013; Halkier and Jensen 2011), and food waste as embedded in social and material contexts (Evans 2012).