‘We ate bread and salt together’: communal cooking and eating as a model for developing trust between hosts and asylum seekers in London, UK

This paper explores the ways in which communal cooking and eating can offer an environment in which trust can be built between asylum seekers and host nationals. The pervasive culture of generalised mistrust towards refugees and asylum seekers that currently exists in the UK compels us to find ways in which trust can be (re)built. Trust is conceptualised as a two-part journey that begins from a starting point of a ‘posture of mistrust’ that is transformed into one of trust. This posture then lays the foundation for an ‘assessment of trustworthiness’ that can lead to a reciprocal trust relationship. These two stages represent two broad approaches to trust in the literature. First, that of trust as a pre-conscious, emotionally-driven, largely intuitive process and, second, that of trust as a cognitive, information driven, deliberate decision. Features of cooking and eating together were identified in the literature, mapped onto the components that have been identified in the literature as being necessary for trust, and explored in interviews and observations across several communal cook-and-eat events in London, UK. The offerings of communal cooking and eating include social contact, routine, normality, physical and emotional safety and a sense of home. Meals are also explored as a means to reclaim autonomy and personal and cultural identity in a universally acceptable context, in addition to having the power to evoke strong memories. In exploring the overlaps between trust and food, this paper concludes that communal cooking and eating can offer a rich sensory and social environment in which trusting relationships can form between asylum seekers and host nationals. In addition, it is proposed that shared meals offer a simple, accessible and culturally-appropriate context in which trust can be fostered between asylum seekers and those conducting research with them.