I’ve written before about the French concept of convivialité—a term that doesn’t fully translate into Romanian because, although it refers to people gathered around a table, it also encompasses much more than just tangible elements like food, wine, and table settings. It includes the company, conversation, and atmosphere, highlighting the connections that form between people when they share meaningful moments through taste.
Humans are, as philosophers have described, social animals—and, as far as we know, the only beings that gather around a table and cook their food. In this sense, conviviality is an inherently human trait. Etymologically, the word conviviality comes from the Latin convivialis, itself derived from convivere, meaning "to live together" or "to eat together"—with the key word being "together." Long before Brillat-Savarin wrote about conviviality, humanity was living it (the Romans, who coined the term, surely knew a thing or two about it).
Yet, conviviality is a concept as old as civilization itself—or at least as old as the moment when humans started living and eating together intentionally, not just out of animalistic survival instincts, but because they found joy and pleasure in doing so.
Beyond the early days of human history, when people gathered in groups and shared food out of necessity, there came a turning point. At some moment, humans chose to do this consciously, realizing that eating together was an act of *bien-être*—they discovered that gathering voluntarily around a table brought them happiness and well-being.
Conviviality, then, implies sharing. The term “con-viviality” (con meaning"together with") refers to something inseparable from a collective experience and shared social values. Through its emotional dimension—joy, enthusiasm, shared experience—the meal becomes a celebration. And this emotional dimension is highly active: convivial people engage, share, participate, and help create and live the experience.
Conviviality is made possible through involvement, not isolation. It is cultivated, built moment by moment, with everyone playing a part in creating it. And this is how meaning is born.
Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, conviviality doesn’t happen by chance; it requires intention. People gather with purpose, by their own choice. They are there because they want to be, because they choose to build and experience something together (try placing people with no common ground who don’t want to be there, and the experience will inevitably fall flat).
Conviviality is built through relationships—it cannot exist in isolation, just as humans cannot truly thrive in isolation.
Recent neurobiological studies have shown that a lack of social connections triggers the same response in the brain as hunger—a response tied to a vital human need. In this way,
we experience a “hunger” for being with others, just as we feel hunger when we need to eat. Furthermore, it has been shown that regular social interactions—like sharing meals with others—have a positive effect on our sense of balance and even contribute to healing trauma or easing anxiety, while isolation amplifies fear, anxiety, and the effects of trauma.
Examples abound: in recent years, researchers have increasingly focused on the role of shared meals in our lives, conducting numerous studies that measure the impact of communal dining. These studies have scientifically demonstrated what humanity has long known through experience: that sharing food and dining together significantly strengthens social cohesion. In other words, conviviality leads to co-vitality—it fosters the creation and maintenance of social bonds. This is because conviviality, from the very beginning, has encompassed warmth, atmosphere, conversation, pleasant company, and a welcoming environment—an overall shared sense of well-being.
“The dread of eating alone seems universal. It feels like a curse, loneliness in its purest form,” wrote Roland Barthes in How to Live Together. And while he mentions the narcissistic pleasure of eating alone while reading (or, I would add, watching Netflix, for a modern touch), eating alone still represents the essence of solitude. At the opposite end of the spectrum lies hospitality—the act of giving combined with the act of receiving—an exchange of human warmth that enriches us. Because if eating alone can bring us personal pleasure in certain contexts, being and eating together with others—that is what gives us meaning.
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