May 18, 2023

Stepping into a home, being greeted by an unfamiliar but friendly face and escorted to the dining room – this is what you usually expect at the start of a private home dining (PHD). In Singapore, PHD refers to a setting where guests enter the homes of amateur chefs for a shared experiential meal. Given that PHD involves opening one’s private home to the public, one may be curious about what unique experiences the hosts and guests will acquire in the process of PHD.

In ‘No taste like home: geographies of private home dining’ (Social & Cultural Geography, 2022), Associate Professor T. C. Chang and Ms Sharmaine Toh (both NUS Geography) explore the various roles played by hosts and guests in PHDs. The researchers not only interviewed PHD participants but also observed actual PHDs, so as to acquire first-hand experiences of PHDs and connect to the event participants.

For many PHD hosts, hosting a PHD prompts them to transfer their home spaces into quasi-public environments while multi-tasking different roles as cook, tour guide and proud homeowner. Most interviewees host PHDs because of love for cooking and entertaining, and it is not seen as a reliable source of income. Many hosts also take special effort to prepare their homes to welcome guests, make the furniture layouts more conducive for social interaction and present guests (if they are foreign tourists) a cultural reflection of the host country through the meal.

On the other hand, PHD guests are not just passively eating. Rather, they participate in PHDs as amateur cooks, organisers of special events and so on. However, despite hosts’ efforts to create an intimate dining environment, very few guests feel a sense of home in PHDs. When guests enter a stranger’s home, they inevitably feel that they are intruding upon someone’s personal space. Even for those who feel a sense of home, the feeling comes from the hosts’ friendliness instead of the dining environment.

After all, the researchers opine that a PHD experience is co-shaped by the hosts and guests. Among the interviewees, many guests acquire a better understanding of a foreign culture because the host is enthusiastic about sharing his personal experiences. Others learn new skills such as cooking, gardening and dancing through interacting with the hosts and fellow diners. Indeed, PHD offers a platform for the participants to forge new social relations.

Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2022.2084147