Newsletter 4 - Eating Alone, The Latest Trend
Being by yourself is fashun now.
Hello friend. Something that I’ve been waiting for for quite some time has finally happened. To be honest, I thought that it would happen much sooner, but I can’t complain too much because, EATING ALONE IS FINALLY FASHIONABLE. Or at least, I think it might be soon, I’m just waiting for a TikTok of various Kardashians shaking salads alone in their cars to drop.
There are a few signs that have lead me to this conclusion, quite a big one being that a few weeks ago, I was sent this trend report article by a good friend who works in trend forecasting. She had taken a screen shot of the following paragraph:
I will note that I do find it odd that ‘people in APAC (Asia/Pacific) countries are talking about the topic’ of eating alone less, because in both Korea and Japan, eating alone seems to be all the rage. Korean ideas of honjok, choosing to partake in activities alone and honbap, choosing to eat alone, are on the rise as young Koreans embrace their solitude and single-seater booths are common in Japanese restaurants like the popular noodle franchise, Ichiran.
At home in the UK, however, though I still don’t think we are talking about the subject of loneliness and solitude enough, it is undeniable that the chatter surrounding these topics both online and in the media is increasing. Last month, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour ran a series of programmes about loneliness and women’s health which I found immensely encouraging as having such a mainstream media channel talk about being alone is a giant step in the right direction. I was so thrilled about the series, in fact, that I emailed Woman’s Hour to tell them alllll about the HOW TO EAT ALONE project and to my absolute delight, was then invited onto the show to talk about eating alone with food critic and writer, Clare Finney. After the segment aired, one of the producers told me that Woman’s Hour listeners had SO MUCH TO SAY about the matter. But of course they did, I thought — we all have something to say about it, it’s just that the opportunity to talk about eating alone so openly doesn’t come about very often.
Clare Finney herself has written two (very good) articles about the joys of eating alone recently for The I and The Guardian and, in the past year there has been a little flurry of articles about eating alone: What you learn from eating alone (The Atlantic), Table for one: when are you ever really alone? (Mold Magazine) and The art of eating alone (The Spectator). Even Jay Rayner has weighed in to defend the solo diner…
And, before these, came Eric Kim’s beautiful and relatable series Table For One, which appears on both his own website and as a column for Food52. The one and only Nigella Lawson has been talking about the pleasures of eating alone as early as 2004, but most recently does so again in her latest book, Cook, Eat, Repeat. To me, Nigella has always been one of the heroes of eating alone, I often think about the scenes on her cooking shows where she makes herself classy late night snacks as I conduct my own frantic midnight raids on my kitchen cupboard.
Slightly different to the ‘traditional’ articles about food are the online restaurant directories and food review websites. The eating directory has thoroughly embraced the idea of dining out for years now, and any one of them worth their salt will give some kind of list of the best places to eat out alone in cities across the world. For London, Eater offers a great round up, The Infatuation takes it a step further and offers a huge array of choice and I’ve really enjoyed the Resy solo-dining recommendations recently.
Offline, there are several cookbooks which have been written for those cooking for themselves. Two to note are Signe Johansen’s ‘Solo’ and Jeremy Lee’s ‘Cooking Simply and Well For One Or Many.’
And so, thanks to the Nigellas, the Rayners, the Jeremy Lees, the Eric Kims and all the editors across a broad range of publications, as a foodie community we’re starting to pull together a more realistic picture of what it is to cook for one. It’s no wonder really, after having just been through a pandemic where eating and being alone became a norm for many of us. But even before the pandemic, the rate of people living alone globally has been steadily rising — in the UK, a third of all households are now single occupancy. All these people have just gots-ta eat, and much of that eating will involve doing it alone.
But I guess the question that I’m asking is this: we might be talking about eating alone more, but is it fashun yet? Fashion is defined as ‘a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behaviour’ or ‘a manner of doing something’ and so, in that respect, yes, eating along is a trend in the sense that many of us do it. But do we like it? Is it popular in its tastes, not just in its numbers? Is it sexy? Is it as desirable as a new designer handbag or the latest skin care trend? I’m not sure, I feel like we’re still in the phase where we’re trying to persuade people enjoy themselves alone more. But I would say that, unlike passing fashion fads, given the latest trajectories and that more and more of us are choosing independent lives, eating alone, whether we like it or not, is certainly here to stay.