Eating, inventing, and caring together: Ephemeral commensality in an experimental restaurant

This article examines how sociological research on food practices and emotions is ‘co-invented’ within experimental settings, treating cooking and eating as central to social organization. Drawing on two studies conducted at an experimental restaurant – a modular, camera-equipped space replicating cooking and dining environments – we analyze specific moments from our research through the lens of feminist reflections on the work of care in scholarly practice. Using methodographic analysis, we conceptualize eating in an experimental restaurant as a form of embodied collaborative invention emerging from interactions among humans, food, technical setups, and spatial arrangements. We identify three analytical knots: care for what bodies do and represent; care for playing with the field; and care for ephemeral commensality in collaborative cook–eat–think encounters. We argue that attention to small, often mundane moments of collaborative inventiveness nourishes an ongoing, situated quest for care in qualitative food research.