In almost all of these wonderful communities I’ve sniffed around to learn about the arrangements residents have made for common meals. I’ve been fortunate to eat common meals in perhaps a dozen of them. For me, cohousing without at least one common meal each week isn’t cohousing, and I can’t imagine living happily for very long in a community that made a decision to abandon sharing meals. But I wondered how communities across North America handled their common meal systems.

To satisfy my culinary and organizational curiosity, I facilitated the common meals workshop at the 1999 North American Cohousing Conference, during which residents of eight cohousing communities shared information about their meal systems. I also collected information on common meals this Fall through an e-mail survey posted on Cohousing-L, the Network’s listserve. I received data from eleven additional communities this way, for a total of 19. So what did I want to know?

I wanted the scoop on questions like: How often do you have common meals? Who cooks and who cleans? How do you sign up to cook? How do you pay? What do you like and dislike about your system? The actual survey questions are listed in the accompanying survey box, as are some useful community statistics, and a list of participating communities. The data collected from the survey, what folks told me, and observations from community visits over the years have confirmed my intuition that common meals are for most, if not all residents, “the glue that holds us together.

WINTER 2001 COMMON MEAL SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. How many people live in your community? Who cooks? (Everyone? If not, who doesn’t? Who eats? (Can a member eat and not cook?)
2. How many common meals/week are served? Average number of eaters/diners? On what days of the week? How often does each person serve on a cooking team? How many on a team? Do the same or different people ‘cook’ and clean up?
3. How is payment for meals structured? Do people pay a fixed price for a meal? If so, how much is it? Or does the price vary according to the cost of the food for each meal?
4. How do you handle late plates and leftovers? How do you deal with the variety of food needs (including different meals for young children)
5. What works best in the way your common meal preparation and cleanup is done, and what is the biggest challenge or need for improvement?
6. What else would you like to say about common meals in your community that I’ve forgotten to inquire about?

PARTICIPATING COMMUNITIES

The information summarized in this article comes from the following cohousing communities: Cambridge Cohousing (MA), Doyle Street Cohousing (CA), Monterey Cohousing (MN), Harmony Village (CO), Wasatch Commons (UT), Cardiff Place (British Columbia), Highline Crossing (CO), Berkeley Cohousing (CA), Marsh Commons (CA), Sunward Cohousing (Ml), Nomad Cohousing (CO), New View Cohousing (MA), Old Oakland Cohousing (CA), Pioneer Valley Cohousing (MA), Songaia (WA), Two Acre Wood (CA), Winslow Cohousing (WA), Pinkarri (Australia), and Eno Commons (NC).

COMMUNITY STATISTICS

• Number of Participating Communities: 19,
• Number of people (adults and kids) living in communities surveyed: 24 to 99; number of kids: 3 to 35.
• Number of communities with 24 to 38 residents: 10;
• Number of communities with 54 to 66 residents: 4;
• Number of communities with 79 to 99 residents: 5.
• Number of communities which expect every adult resident to plan, prepare and/or clean up after common meals: 8
• Number of communities with volunteer system: 11.
• Average percent of residents who eat common meals: in the three largest communities: 35-55%; in the six smallest 59-70%.
• Frequency of [community] common meals each week: 1-5; most communities have either 2 or 3.
• Average cost per meal: $2.50 -$3.50 per adult, kids: half price; up to $5.00 for ‘very special occasions’ (lowest ever listed: $.85, highest $7.00).
• Number of communities whose common meal team cooks and cleans up: 6
• Number of communities that separate cooking and cleanup: 8

I share these findings with you here, along with [including] direct quotes from people I have interviewed in person, or those who responded to the Cohousing-L survey. The comments are not all-inclusive, but I do hope they are helpful and representative of the many approaches being taken by communities for common meals around North America.

“I’m so glad we started out assuming that everyone would cook or clean up. I think it would be kind of hard to reverse direction if we’d started out with volunteers. “

Another person who lives in the same community has a different idea. He thinks that those who opt out of the common meal system are not nearly as connected with the community as those who participate. He also sees more potential for community polarization related to common house use. My own observation that those who live in communities where everyone cooks or cleans are more likely to be satisfied, dare I say pleased, with their meal system. Still, it is interesting that even people who never cook, and who rarely eat common meals, say that common meals are important to them.

The following statements are typical of residents in communities which depend on volunteer systems:

“I wish that we had a few more people who liked to cook and clean, especially clean, so that the rotation wasn’t so frequent, or so that we could have more common meals. “

“When we began three years ago, everyone was gung-ho to cook, then gradually people got busy with other stuff and stopped volunteering so much. Now, sometimes it’s a real struggle to get a couple of people to fix even one common dinner in a week.”

How Many People Eat Those Yummy Common Dinners?

Communities whose common meal preparation is voluntary typically have fewer common meals, and the meal schedule tends to be more irregular. Attendance at common meals is also significantly lower.

Smaller communities tend to attract a higher percentage of eaters. [more meal participants.] In the three largest communities, an average of 43% of residents enjoy common meals, while in the six smaller communities the average meal attracts over 65%.

“Since our community is small, common dinners feel pretty much like family dinners to me. “

And a resident of a 100-member community says:

“Even though we serve most of our dinners family-style, and the food is much better, eating in the common house too often reminds me of meals in summer camp or in my college cafeteria.”

and,

“Our common meals are usually pretty tasty, but our dining room is so noisy that I don’t eat there as often as I’d like to. “

It has occurred to me that in a really large community, common dinners might work better, and therefore attract more diners, if the group were divided in two. One group could cook and eat together on two week-nights, the second could cook and eat on two different week nights. Perhaps then, to round out the week, a Sunday buffet lunch or dinner for everyone, extending over a couple of hours could be prepared. Has any community tried a system similar to this?

” When we moved in, our common kitchen wasn’t finished, so for many months we held potlucks every night of the week. When our kitchen was done and we started having meals prepared there, several families continued the potlucks on non-common-dinner nights, and we still have some kind of shared eating going on in the common house five or six nights a week. ”

“We tried to change our meal nights but ended up going back to the original schedule because we were so used to it, and because those days worked better for more of us.”

“It’s unpredictable when I have to stay late at work, and I’m really exhausted when I get home, so I appreciate [d] it when those with less demanding jobs or those who work at home leave a Sunday cooking slot open for me.”

Most groups I talked to extend flexibility among community members when it comes to scheduling, spotting each other, and filling in when there’s an emergency.

Paying Up

At first we tried a system like I understand they use in Danish cohousing where everyone reimburses the cook—for the groceries bought for that meal—in cash right after the meal. That was not very workable since one diner always had to go home to get her checkbook, another needed change for $20, and another asked me to remember that he owed me for the dinner.

Then someone worked out a simple spreadsheet which keeps track of what meals are eaten by whom, at what cost per meal. Periodically, the total is added to or subtracted from the amount spent on groceries by each cook during that same time period. Then each one of us is reimbursed or billed for the difference. ”

How much do common meals cost? Here’s a hint: It’s way less than any restaurant, including most fast food joints. In communities with a set price for meals, price ranges from $2.50 to $3.50 per person, usually with half-price for most children.

Where meal prices vary based on the amount of money spent on groceries, the average cost of meals generally falls within the same range.

In those communities, the occasional pricey meal—prawns in garlic butter with chocolate mousse for dessert comes to mind—may cost up to $5.00 or even $5.50 per person.

I thought about this some more, and although I’m really attracted to the simplicity of this system, it doesn’t seem all that fair. Let’s say that the three cooks collectively spend $85 to feed 30 people dinner. But two of them eat all 8 meals in a six week rotation, so their average meal “cost” is $3.54 But the third cook eats only 3 meals in the six week rotation, so his or her average meal “cost” is $10.62

How Much is Enough?

“It took us a while to figure out how much to cook. Now most of us are getting the hang of it, but once in a while there’s not nearly enough or, more typically, too much of at least one dish in a meal. ”

Although cohousers get pretty good at judging amounts after making a few really big mistakes in this area, leftovers are a ubiquitous feature of common meals. Some groups distribute leftovers right after the meal, or the cooks and cleaners take them home themselves, depending on the quantity left. Some groups ask their members to pay for leftovers at least that evening or during the next day, although usually leftovers are free for the taking either the next morning or later the next day. Generally speaking, cohousers don’t like to see food wasted, so if the leftovers are plentiful, cooks will urge everyone to take food home with them, or will confer with cooks for the next meal about a creative way to incorporate the leftovers

Sorry, I Can’t Eat That

All communities are attentive to some degree to special food needs and allergies. Almost all maintain a list of these considerations posted in the kitchen. Everyone in the community is made aware of life-threatening allergies. And after a while everyone remembers, without looking at the list, who can’t eat dairy products or wheat, who is a vegetarian or a vegan, for example.

Some communities require that cooks list every ingredient in every dish. Minimally, diners want to know whether or not meat or dairy products appear in a dish. What seems to be important to most cohousers is that special food needs are acknowledged and respected. I found that most do not feel that every special food requirement needs to be indulged at every common meal. Of course, if the cheese or chicken or nuts are not integral to the recipe, cooks will often just serve them on the side.

“If the main course of a meal is something I can’t eat, 1’ll usually bring a plate of leftovers from my house to the common house, so I can hang out with my neighbors during dinner. “

“To be honest, I find that catering to everyone’s special food needs the way we do here is a pain. I wish that people would just not sign up for dinner if the menu includes something they can’t (or don’t ¡ike to) eat. That’s what I do.”

Enough vegetarians live in cohousing that most groups include a vegetarian main dish at all or virtually all meals. Even when a minority of members are vegetarian, many of the common meals include no meat. All but a few of our cohousing carnivores are quite willing to eat vegetarian meals several times a week.

“Although I’m a meat eater I really like that so many of our common meals are vegetarian, because I think it’s a much healthier way to eat. I have gained weight since I lived here though, because there’s so much food and because we have sweet desserts much more often than is good for me. Then there’s that pesky box of ice cream sandwiches that often resides in the common house freezer. ”

Kids Eat Common Meals Too

Family-Style or Buffet?

Most cohousing communities I’ve surveyed and visited prefer to serve common meals family-style. In the larger communities, family-style serving is virtually a necessity, since no one likes either the image or the actuality of long lines waiting to get to the buffet table or counter. Cohousers seem to prefer that common meals evoke eating with friends in our homes rather eating with mobs in a school or workplace cafeteria. On the other hand, family-style dining utilizes more serving dishes, to which those responsible for serving and cleaning up after the meal sometimes object.

” In theory we like family-style dining because it is calmer and cozier than the buffet, but most chefs and cleanup crews don’t want to deal with divvying up food and gathering and washing all those extra bowls and platters, so we usually don’t serve meals family style. “

Funny Thing about Cleaning Up; You Have to Do it After Every Meal.

Big meals make big messes. Or at least they can. In about one third of the communities I’ve visited and/or learned about, a team of two to four people plans, prepares, sets up, serves and cleans up after a meal. In the other two thirds, cooking and cleanup are signed up for separately.

Certainly having the same people preparing and cleaning up makes a long evening for those doing the work. However, residents who do it this way perceive two distinct advantages. First, they like the fact that this system requires fewer nights “on-duty” per month or per rotation. Second (and in most people’s minds more importantly) no one likes to clean up after a messy cook. The inclination to leave the common kitchen untidy might be just a bit stronger if you know someone else is doing cleanup.

” It’s stressful enough to cook and serve dinner. After all the food is out, I just want to sit down, eat, and chat with my family and/or my neighbors. I can’t imagine also having to stay around until the last dish is in the dishwasher, pots and pans washed and the floors swept. I’d rather leave cleanup to those who don’t want to cook or who really enjoy cleaning up. “

” Here cooking and cleaning are separate jobs, but some sign up for both on the same night because it works better with their schedules, or because they like to get their common meal obligations out of the way, and have more meals where they can eat and run, or just sit and visit with neighbors. ”
Communities with a coordinating kitchen committee find that both cooking and cleanup go more smoothly.

But I Can’t Cook

Every community starts out with a person or two who insists that he or she cannot possibly learn to cook, especially for a crowd. But in communities where everyone is expected to cook, I’ve found that there is always willingness to bring “non-cooks” up to speed by pairing them up with more experienced, or at least more fearless, cooks. One timid cook who had overcome her “fear of cooking” said :

“At first I found it very stressful to cook a community meal. But over time I learned how to plan a meal around basic dishes that most people like and are easier to prepare for a larger group.”

(Watch out now, simple multiplication system doesn’t always work—better to use a recipe book with recipes meant to serve large groups—Moosewood Cooks For Crowd is a cohousing favorite. If you don ‘t believe me, just try cooking five pounds of spaghetti in a big pot the way same way you’d cook half a pound but with 8-10 times as much water.)

In preparing this article, I realized that we still have a lot to learn about common meals in cohousing communities. For example: How is the scheduling of cooks/cleaners managed so that every planned meal is appropriately staffed? What kinds of “special occasion,” “holiday” or “new tradition” meals are taking place? Is there a common meal “code of etiquette” emerging from our collective experience? To what extent is a principle of fairness manifested by balancing the pleasure of eating common meals with the work required to prepare them? How do the physical characteristics of communities’ dining rooms and kitchens contribute to, or hinder, successful common meals ?

And finally, if we agree that a common meal system that works well is fundamental to a strong sense of community, how can cohousers help one another to design an effective system when a community is new, or to make changes in an established community’s meal system if it should start to unravel ?

What More Do We Want To Know About Common Meals?

If we agree that in cohousing a well-functioning common-meal system is fundamental to a strong sense of community, how can we help new communities create an effective common-meal system as they plan their life together in their future home? And how can we help an established community modify its common-meal system, should it start to unravel ? ”

This is the question that led us in 2001 to survey 19 of the 55 cohousing communities then built about how their common-meal systems were structured, and about how satisfied they felt with their current arrangements.

More than 100 cohousing communities are now [2008] established in North America, and Coho/US plans to survey us once again to see if the earlier conclusions still hold, and more importantly, to widen our inquiry into areas only lightly touched on or not asked about in the previous survey.
In addition to updating the information we collected previously, we have ideas about some other issues we wish to explore this time:

• How are common meals managed financially ?
• How do we deal with the common-meal needs and desires of children and their parents ?
• How are special food needs handled ?
• Is a common meal code of etiquette emerging from our collective experiences ?
• How do the physical characteristics of the dining rooms and kitchen contribute to or hinder successful common meals ?
• To what extent is a principle of fairness achieved by balancing the satisfaction and pleasure of eating common meals with the work required to prepare and serve them ?

A phone conversation with me will get you the information you need to decide whether or not you want to collaborate with me on a new and improved common meals survey or take it on “all by self” as I did fifteen years ago. If you’d like to speak with me about this, please email me at jeblank@swansway.com including your telephone number and some good times to call you. Please remember to let me know what time zone you live in.

Joani Blank has lived in two cohousing communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Doyle Street Cohousing in Emeryville from 1992 to 2000, and Swan’s Market in Oakland from 2000 to the present. She has visited more than 70 other cohousing communities in the US (and five in British Columbia) over the last 22 years.