Findings: Household Food Practices During Quarantine
Applying practice theory, this section is organized around the themes of competencies, moralities, and mobilities. The findings highlight the diversity and contingency involved in the social effects of the pandemic, while also stressing the continuities of practice for some, and disruptions for others.
Table 2 illustrates changes in how participants responded to certain questions from Time 1 (pre-outbreak) and Time 2 (post-outbreak). The data align with other survey research, noting changes to how people procure, prepare and consume food since the outbreak. In one survey of more than 1,000 American adults conducted in early-April 2020, over half reported cooking more (54%), and almost as many said they were baking more (46%), than before the pandemic. Three-quarters of those claiming to cook more reported being more confident in the kitchen (50%) because of those experiences, with 73% saying they are either enjoying cooking more (35%) or as much (38%) as before (Hunter 2020). The International Food Information Council (2020) conducted a survey of 1,000 US adults during the same time period. Fifty percent of that sample reported doing less in-person shopping and 47% were eating more home-cooked meals. This is supported by data from Instacart, the largest independent grocery-delivery service in the US (Bogost 2020). The company witnessed their order volume increase 150% from early-March to early-April of 2020, with downloads of their app multiplying sevenfold during that period (Bogost 2020). There is also evidence more people are buying in bulk now than prior to COVID-19 (C+C Research 2020).
Capabilities: New Practices, Old Networks
Looking at the subject of cook and baking, respondents' qualitative comments align with the shifts in practice noted in the table, with all admitting to spending more time in the kitchen when interviewed in 2020 compared to when interviewed in 2019. While this change in behavior can be readily attributed to certain basic brute facts, such as a state-wide stay-at-home mandate, it helps to nest these practices within the complex webs in which respondents lived.
The following quote is representative of sentiments reflected by others, especially among parents. It came from Lori, a thirty-something mother of two from the metro sample who worked fulltime as an accountant.
It's not like I didn't know about cooking, that people take enjoyment out of it, and that it's a great way to have family time while teaching kids important life skills. […] I didn't wake up one morning and say, 'I should cook.' I always felt I should [cook]. (Metro H#2)
Lori was among those who admitted to cooking and baking more because of the lockdown. She was also one of those who stated during Time 2 that they would start a garden in 2020, even though when interviewed months prior she reported that the thought of a garden was "just too much work for what it's worth." This change was attributed in part to her family being unable to eat out regularly like they did prior to the pandemic. But she also emphasized the role played by having more time at home – she was working remotely during the second phase of data collection.
I'm busy [at home] with kids and work but since we never leave the house I still have time for things that I wouldn't have had time for before the pandemic, like learning to cook, watching videos on how to make the perfect pizza dough, reading about how to make raise [garden] beds.
It was then that she revealed what had really been keeping her from changing her behaviors in the kitchen and garden. It had nothing to do with attitudes and everything to do with acquiring certain competencies.
You don't have to convince me that home cooked food is better for you than the processed crap. But you have to know how to cook before you can do it, which you just can't get from reading a book. You have to do it.
And these skills, once acquired, had an effect on her family's practical sense, too. Lori, again:
The lockdown gave me the opportunity to brush up on my [cooking] skills, to the point where now I think everyone [in the family] experiences, even expects, time in the kitchen together as something we just do. It has become a typical family practice, just like the game night we have every Monday night. (emphasis in original)
Those who admitted to spending more time preparing food or preparing to garden during quarantine did not undergo an attitudinal change. Such an individualizing variable misses the larger context that helped animate changes in practice. Mentioned instead were issues dealing with knowledge – having the competencies to do these activities. I am also thinking about knowledge sociologically; not knowledge as something someone (passively) acquires but as something someone does, often with others, in order to know it.
Conceptualizing knowledge as much as a doing as a saying temporalizes it, which brings to the fore the fact that knowing also takes time. And as we know, free or leisure time is asymmetrically distributed, especially when thinking in terms of gender, which means those doings and sayings are not equally accessible to all. The following is a good example of this asymmetry within the same household.
When you're stuck at home for weeks, what better way to put that extra time to work than by learning to bake. […] I have had a lot of time to practice [baking] over the last few weeks (Jack, Rural Plains H#5)
I'm grateful for [Jack's] sudden interest in domesticity because I just can't do it anymore; not while working from home while having to also keep tabs on the kids and making sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing with school. (Susanne, Rural Plains H#5)
COVID-19 also introduced new materialities into these nested webs-of-practice, where "to know" how to cook now included for some respondents having to also know how to operate in a virtual environment: e.g., "Before [COVID] I never used things like Facebook Live and Zoom. Now that's all we use, for work, for school work, to see family. […] I would have never imaged using Zoom to 'attend' a virtual gardening workshop but I am" (Marcy, Metro H#10). Of course, such competencies are contingent on still other materialities, like having access to reliable high-speed internet: e.g., "I tried dialing in" – this household did not have dial-in internet but they used the term nevertheless – "to some programming offered by [Colorado State University] Extension but kept getting kicked off the call because of our poor internet" (Faye, Rural Mountains H#3).
Any inquiry into social practices equally involves an investigation into who are participating in these practices. Who constitute those communities of practice (Farnsworth, Kleanthous, and Wenger-Trayner 2016; Lave and Wenger 1991) and what do such associations mean from the perspective of understanding the longer-term sociological consequences of pandemic-induced social distancing?
Given the situation, it should come as no surprise to learn that the proximate (i.e., physically-close) "communities" formed during quarantine were limited largely to one's household. Whenever anyone talked about growing their competency toolkit it was done alongside a fellow household member and no one else. But there were also virtual communities of practice, which describe instances where know-how is shared, co-created, and innovated upon with others in a cyber-environment (Fang and Chiu 2010; Peñarroja et al. 2019). Examples of this included respondents who talked about participating in Facebook Live events to learn about cooking or breadmaking (Metro H#1) or the individual who joined a Zoom-enabled workshop on raised bed gardening (Rural Plains H#8). Research to date, however, suggests that these virtual networks are qualitatively different from face-to-face based communities – as exemplified by the research highlighting the differences between "social media social capital" and "offline social capital" (de Zúñiga, Barnidge, and Scherman 2017).
A related concern is how these virtual communities might crowd out conventional (offline) communities in the future as individuals develop their online acumen during quarantine and social distancing mandates. This concern is born from participants' responses to the question of whether they are now more likely to use virtual platforms post-outbreak compared to before. See, for example, Table 2, showing that the majority answered that question in the affirmative. Furthermore, the qualitative data amplify the point that social distancing mandates may have altered interaction patterns in ways that last longer than the pandemic. A representative response of this ilk looks like the following.
I have no doubt corona [virus] will change how this family interacts in the future. Even my 80-year parents are now comfortable using video conferencing. I think they might even prefer seeing us on their iPad rather than in person. It's so much easier for them. They have mobility problems. […] My wife said the other day: 'Why did we ever leave the house for some things knowing now that we can do them virtually from the comfort of our home without the hassle of traffic and the cost of gas.' (Marvin, Rural Plains H#9)
At the same time, I saw evidence of dis-comfortabilities emerging toward face-to-face, physically proximate doings and sayings. These arguably started off as legitimate reactions to respondents' concerns over the "seriousness of COVID to public health" – see the last line in Table 2. The question remains, however, whether this public health-based concern will outlive – will "stick" beyond – the virus. While these data cannot answer the question, they do suggest it is a question worth investigating further.
The biggest thing [that has changed] since we last talked is that I'm now uncomfortable being physically around people I don't know. […] I have really gotten used to just hanging with my family and very close friends. I don't even really miss being around people I don't know. (Jake, Metro H#9)
I'm not sure I'll ever be 100 percent comfortable anymore being around large groups. I'm just saying, I don't know right now. (Sally, Rural Plains H#1)
Moralities of Practice
Table 2 highlights a growing reliance upon food delivery for many of the households. As mentioned, quarantine has been a boon for grocery delivery services, which has driven investments into this space – in drivers, software and apps, coordination/agreements between delivery firms and grocery chains, etc. (Porter 2020). These financial flows, in turn, have enhanced the "convenience" of the service by reducing wait times and delivery prices, enhancing food delivery options, and the like (Statt 2020).
When asked to explain her repeated use of a grocery store delivery service during the pandemic, Julie was quick to supply an answer:
It is easy, super convenient, and really not all that expensive. […] I've gotten spoiled, which is why I think we'll continue with it. It has also changed my definition of convenience, which used to be about how well stores were laid out and how quickly they checked you out. Now it [convenience] means not having to walk into a store ever again! (Metro H#11)
It just so happens that "convenience" was the focus of early, seminal practice theory research (e.g., Shove 2003) and continues to interest scholars working on the topic (e.g., Jackson and Viehoff 2016). This literature shows the concept to be mutable, multiple and complex. An example of this relates to how it is often moralized. Convenience food (e.g., ready-made meals, precut and repackages fruits, heat-and-eat foods), for instance, are linked to broader discourses around nutrition, waste, sustainability, and health. The moral connotations associated with such food are therefore often negative. Alternatively, when discussed among respondents in this study, "convenience" in the context of at-home food deliveries often had a positive connotation. In Julie's case, the convenience provided by these services played into her beliefs of what it meant to be a good mother:
As a single mother, I'm not going to risk exposing my kids [to COVID] if I can help it. So what if it costs a little extra. […] It offers both convivence and some piece-of-mind. What type of parent would I be if I didn't do everything I can to keep them safe?
The "good mothering" concept (e.g., Atkinson 2014; Cairns and Johnston 2018; Cairns, Johnston, and MacKendrick 2013) is relevant here because it highlights yet another non-individualizing variable animating the actions of certain respondents.