ABSTRACT
Hospitality is the friendly and welcoming behaviour towards guests. Frequently it includes sharing food and drink (and accommodation) and thus establishes and maintains relationships. Mennel, Murcott, and Van Otterloo (1992), following Van Gennep, suggest that sharing food is held to signify togetherness, an equivalence among a group that defines and reaffirms insiders as socially similar. Lashley (2000) suggests that in the private domain, the sharing of food and drink between hosts and guests is based on mutual obligations and on reciprocity ‘the guests becomes a host on another occasion’ (p. 9). Furthermore, hospitality converts strangers into friends Selwyn (2000).
