Eat Design

Why do we eat with cutlery? Why we are doing that in specially designed dining rooms or restaurants and not in parking spaces, for example? In doing so why we are usually sitting on chairs or benches and why we dress up for dinner?

»eat design« by Sonja Stummerer and Martin Hablesreiter is a design book about eating tools, table utensils, and dress codes. It explores the historical and social background of our eating behavior and shows how design issues about food and eating can determine the lifestyle of entire societies.

The book documents that completely ordinary things like dishes and cutlery not only influence how we eat and with it our common behavior, but also have a deep impact on our life in general. Besides that the book reveals that in designing silverware or dining room furniture unwritten laws of daily routine will be created.

The use of a napkin, a fish knife, or a soup spoon shows who we are and where we come from. When with patient effort we teach our children the perfect way to handle a knife and fork, we are at the same time instilling in them the basic principles of our social order.

224 pages, 24 x 24 cm

four color print

hardcover