The History of Hosting
A case for the comeback of dinner parties
Ask most people to host a dinner party, and they usually don’t even know where to start.
“What? I can’t host a dinner party! I don’t even know what hosting means!”
“Guys, are you kidding? I rent. An apartment. The size of a postage stamp. There is no way I can fit more than four people at my table, let alone “entertain” like a Gatsby.”
“Dressing up and stressing out about dashing from the chaos of the kitchen back to a table of waiting-to-be-entertained guests? Yeah, no thanks.”
Many people grew up with parents that panicked over entertaining. They saw their mothers sweating over seasoning, and watched their fathers frown when their attempts at foie gras were foiled.
Or they never saw anything about dinner parties at all. It remained the white whale of being a grown-up; a complex, complicated rite of passage they could happily miss and not miss out on.
We were lucky. Our family has always been one to host people at our home, and family dinners helped shape me as a person. Today, they’re our favorite way to reconnect with friends and loved ones (and have been at the center of many cherished memories!)
But we get that hosting isn’t something everyone is familiar with. Creating authentic, intimate gatherings is an art that has been lost due to fear or inexperience. But we want to be that hand-holder for people who want to host but don't necessarily know where to start.
The origins of entertaining
So, who were the first folks to decide that dining should be a big deal?
According to the Scientific American, “Group meals from community feasts to dinner parties are indicative of the availability of a surplus; and from a historical perspective, surpluses are significant.”
Surpluses meant a society – or a set of individuals – were doing well. There was enough food to carry you through the winter and then some. And that was something to be proud of!
Traditionally, group meals also represented a social contract. If you were hosting, it was a sign that you had the means – via surplus food, time and labor – to entertain. It also indicated that you could rely on support and/or resources from your guests. For your guests, showing up meant they were in your debt in some way – whether they owed the host labor or knew they might need help feeding their family in the future. Upholding these social contracts was beneficial to both parties and strengthened community networks.
Meanwhile, the element of dinner party status was more significant to the ancient Greeks and Romans. But calling them “dinner parties” is a bit of an understatement. After all, Julius Caesar didn’t simply invite a few friends over for a quiet celebration of his latest dictator decision. No, he – and humans like him in that era – held huge feasts with halls packed with guests.
And let’s be clear, they weren’t doing it because they unconditionally cared about how their loved ones and allies fared while they feasted. The ancient dinner party was designed purely to show-off and cement a person’s wealth, status and social connections.
This attitude continued well into the mid-century, with housewives hosting glamorous dinner parties during the post-war economy. But by then, you weren’t simply expected to serve up an abundance of delicious food; you were also judged on how your food was served.
Welcome to the world, pickle forks (yep, they’re a thing!), fancy silverware and class anxiety.
Since then, the dinner party evolved and adapted, positioning itself as a pathway for people to establish and flaunt their significance in society. At home, magazines and media encouraged us to throw lavish events so that we could be the host with the most. It was competitive, obligatory, and, for many, missed the point of entertaining.
After all, not everyone could host a dinner party. You needed a big place with enough space to seat your guests at your dinner table, not to mention the disposable income to style, set and serve up your good taste.
So … why do we think you should still try it?
The modern host
In the age of authenticity – where our generation is focused more on meaning than money – it’s fast becoming clear that there are certain things we will no longer tolerate.
Top of the list? Wasting our wealth. But there’s a good reason for it. Most millennials grabbed their degree and found themselves skipping naively into the worst job market in 80 years. Not only was finding a job difficult but keeping it – let alone loving it – was even harder.
This has had a ripple effect on our lifestyles, revealing itself in stats like:
Three out of four millennials have some kind of debt (Source: NBC).
Millennials are worse off financially than their parents’ generation (Source: Urban Institute).
Home-ownership for millennials is at a record low (Source: Business Insider).
Not exactly setting the scene for showing off, right? Which is why it’s only natural that our generation has typically shunned extravagant displays of wealth. Most of us barely had a dining room, let alone the means to regularly feed our friends ten-course meals.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t care about our companions. In fact, a Wharton study revealed that millennials rank friendship as one of the most important markers of success (hey, we’re the gen that invented Friendsgiving!)
So, while we might not be fond of about uppity feasts, we definitely care about connecting. And even though most millennials might swear they’ve never – or would never - formally entertained, the truth is that we do it all the time. We just don’t call it hosting.
Instead, we have friends over. We catch up. We watch the game together. We order in and takeaway, swapping formal for fulfilling without the fuss and mess of traditional hosting.
And that? That’s the heart of hosting: Gathering our loved ones close and making meaningful memories with them.
Because the truth is you don’t need a pickle fork, ten courses and a million bucks to host a beautiful dinner party. You just need you, your friends and a go-to plan you can trust to hold your hand and walk you through how to prepare and pull off your authentic, intimate dinner party.
After all, we’re the generation that’s mastered the Internet, online dating and food delivery with a tap. Dinner parties? We’ve got that.
