It's a particular human universality – we like to sit down at the table together to have a nice meal.
Whether we sit in a restaurant with friends, go to dinner parties, have family gatherings during the holidays where we usually overeat – sharing a meal with people is so common that there is almost no need to even think about it, except when the fact that it doesn't happen often enough becomes socially acceptable.
Panic-inducing headlines about fewer family dinners, for example, regularly appear on the front pages of newspapers.
There is evidence that this type of care is not a modern trend, but is at least 100 years old.
Eating with people, everything suggests, is not only a common thing, but also in some ways a very powerful thing. But why?
Sharing food with someone is a behavior that is older than our species, as biologists have determined that both chimpanzees and their dwarf cousin bonobos, our two closest primates, also share food with members of their social group.
However, giving food to someone close to you is not the same as having a meal together, points out sociologist Niklas Neumann from Uppsala University.
"You can share food as if it were an object without sitting down and eating with others," he says.
It seems as if people have added a series of complex social layers to this act.
The first shared meal probably took place around a fire.
It is not known exactly when humans or their ancestors first learned to cook.
Estimates vary considerably, but the oldest data indicate that this happened 1,8 million years ago.
Once someone was able to hunt or harvest food, light a fire, and then cook a meal - it seems that there was a certain social group that helped at different stages of this process.
Then, when everyone is gathered around the fireplace, a warm, glowing beacon in the darkness, you might find yourself staying awake longer, suggests Robin Dunbar, a biological anthropologist at the University of Oxford.
Those extra hours in the day can be a valuable opportunity for social bonding over food.
Whatever the truth about the origins of this custom, eating together is linked to a better quality of life, Dunbar confirmed in a 2017 study that asked people in the UK how often they eat together.
Eating meals together is more often associated with greater satisfaction in life and having more friends you can rely on.
Dunbar conducted a statistical analysis, the result of which indicates that meals cause consequences in society, rather than being their result.
"Eating triggers the endorphin system in the brain, the main pharmacological basis for bonding in primates and humans," says Dunbar.
"When we eat together in a group, the endorphin surge effect is similar to when we jog together. This happens because synchronized activity increases endorphin production twofold."
When we eat the same thing at the same time as someone else, that person seems more trustworthy, journalists Cynthia Graeber and Nicola Twiley found out when they tackled the topic on their podcast Gastropod.
Eyelet Fishbach of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, who was interviewed, learned during an investment simulation that people are more likely to give money to someone they shared the same candy with than to discuss a job.
Also, people who ate the same snacks were faster at reaching a satisfactory conclusion to negotiations than those who didn't.
Fischbach suggests that it's a kind of relic of an earlier time, when perhaps similar tastes in food were a clearer indicator of shared values than they are today.
But eating together is not a simple, consistently positive act.
Feasts, meals where excessive amounts of food are shared, can be carefully orchestrated ways of displaying submission and control.
Think of harvest traditions where a landowner provides a large meal for his workers, or office parties where attendees closely observe the employer's generosity – or lack thereof.
And regular family meals, as much as they are praised, are not necessarily free from tension.
"If you ask them, people will say they enjoy sharing meals with friends and loved ones. But it can also be a horrible experience," says Neumann.
"It's also a place for control and dominance."
Meals during which someone regularly criticizes your decisions or your weight are hardly conducive to well-being.
Indeed, one of Neumann's ongoing research projects, on attitudes toward communal dining among older adults in Sweden, has uncovered something that may be surprising.
"We deliberately ask them if they mind eating alone. Most don't mind," he says.
They like to eat with others, but, at least in this particular group of respondents, they don't feel the loss as intensely as you might expect.
Perhaps it has to do with whether they already suffer from loneliness, he speculates: if that's the case, then a solitary meal could heighten someone's discomfort.
"But if you're a person who often eats with others, then probably, every now and then," says Neumann, "it would be nice to sit down by yourself and read."
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