Is communal eating fading away in our homes?

Communal eating involves several people sitting together, to eat from the same plate or table and share available drinks among themselves. This goes to create a picture of unity, spirit of togetherness and strengthens relationships among the people. Communal eating has been the tradition of many ethnic groups in Nigeria especially, the Tiv people of […]

Communal eating involves several people sitting together, to eat from the same plate or table and share available drinks among themselves. This goes to create a picture of unity, spirit of togetherness and strengthens relationships among the people.
Communal eating has been the tradition of many ethnic groups in Nigeria especially, the Tiv people of Benue State and constitute significant percentage of the population of other states like Taraba, Nasarawa, Niger, and Plateau among others.
The kindred head of Ukum (Ortaregh u Ukum) in Ananum community, Donga Local Government Area of Taraba State, Chief John S. Aondona popularly called Zaki John God, told our reporter that the act of people eating and drinking together is a practice that should be cherished and sustained in the interest of unity and peaceful-coexistence.
“In Tiv land, we believe in unity of purpose and togetherness. People who don’t eat together with their brothers in our land are regarded as selfish people who don’t want others to eat their wives’ food. We have enough food and we eat together to appreciate what God has given to us as a people and to show that we are united,” he explained.
Zaki John God said eating together builds a sense of togetherness, unity, solidarity and inculcate moral virtues into the younger generation and how they can identify with the tradition and tenets of the Tiv nation.
He added that women are also saved from the challenges of dividing food into several plates for the huge number of people in the families and reduces their burden of washing and buying plates all the time.
Also, Adebayo Aremu, an octogenarian, believes that communal eating is important despite the experiences of modernization and civilization which has cut across all the strata and fabrics of the society.
He said communal eating provides a sense of security and cohesion among the people and should never be relegated to the background.
He maintained that communal eating unites the people and helps in nurturing the younger ones or children in families on its benefits.
He argued that it has positive impact on children’s values, motivation, personal identity and self discipline.
Similarly, a medical practitioner, Mr. Daniel Onu Chukwu who noted that communal eating should not be allowed to fade off in homes extrapolated that it encourages healthy eating habit, and provides a model for children to carry into adulthood.
He also elucidated that the younger people who eat from the same plate with their elders are likely to comprehend, appreciate, cherish the boundaries, expectations and the traditional standards set for the overall development of the culture of the people.
Furthermore, a civil servant, Mr. Unom Samuel Shiaondo, told our reporter that communal eating is important in many ways and must be encouraged among the diverse ethnic groups in the country to promote unity in diversity.
He explained that communal eating provides the opportunity for the family members to bond, love one another, share a unifying experience, discuss their likes and dislikes for certain kinds of foods and determine the kind of food they want to eat next.
Unom stressed that communal eating motivates many people to take in more quantity of food than if they were to eat alone adding that when people eat from the same plate and share the same drink, it provides them social relief, happiness and rekindles their sense of brotherhood.
However, Mrs. Grace T. Johnson, who said she is familiar with the communal eating culture of villagers and urbanites observed that the act of sharing food from the same plate by quite a number of people is stronger in the villages than in the cities.
According to her, people who live in cities like Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt among others prefer eating foods like rice in separate dishes and water from different cups but when it is other foods like semo or ‘eba’ they eat together from the same plate.
“I live in Abuja with my husband. I learnt that the culture is not actually fading away but in terms of drinking water from the same cup, it is completely different in the city. In our villages, you discover that people eat from one big dish and at the same time share water from a big cup but here in the city, everybody has his or her own cup, so that is just the difference,” she said.
While it is argued in some quarters that the communal eating culture is gradually fading off in many homes, Terlumun Akura Igo, a man from the Tiv extraction argued that communal eating is still valid in the Tiv land despite what he termed “new age”.
According to him, the Tiv have a unique tradition of eating from the same plate of food with their brothers, children, uncles, relations and even wives and sharing the same water.
He said that he knew a Tiv man from Tor Donga in Katsina- Ala local government area of Benue State who married 53 wives and had hundreds of children.
He said about ten women used to cook simultaneously in that family, producing basins of food for the family members at once, stressing that the man’s children, brothers and other relatives sit round a basin of food and share it together.
He noted that the man who got married to these women (young and old) later died but left his family members united and they still eat together from the same basin of food now.
Kehinde Jaiyeola a Yoruba man, said he was very surprised to see the communal eating culture among the Tiv when he visited a Tiv community in Nasarawa State.
“When I went to a Tiv community in Nasarawa State, a woman cooked pounded yam and before you know it about 12 men sat round in a resting room and when the food was brought, they ate it from the same plate and shared water from a big cup, I was surprised,” he said.
He explained that when the water was used up by the people eating the food, the woman who cooked the food was called upon to bring more water in the same cup to contain all the people sharing the meal and when the soup got finished she was also called upon to bring more for people to eat.
It is gathered that sometimes, children who constitute part of the communal eating return the plate to the woman who cooked the food to put more food for the people to eat. Men sit in one place while women organize themselves in another direction eating together and sharing drinking water from the same cup.
Mr. Agaba Oche, a bus driver, told our reporter that eating together is gradually fading away in homes and especially in the cities while in the villages, the culture of communal eating is still cherished by the people and most especially in Benue State.
It is very lucid that communal eating is important in uniting  people, strengthening relationships, discussing their likes and dislikes for food, enhancing the eating behavior of the people, promoting love, inculcating discipline into the younger ones, educating one another on the cultural practices and communal eating culture of a people and appreciating God among others.