Commensality and Cohesion: A Case Study About the Role of Food for Cohesion in Swiss Recruit Schools

Strong group cohesion is essential for the success of military operations. The literature identifies various ways such cohesion can be fostered. This analysis focuses on a specific and often overlooked factor: food and meals. Based on 41 interviews with recruits in the Swiss Armed Forces, different mechanisms and processes are presented through which food contributes to the formation of bonds in a military context. The paper argues that shared meals are particularly conducive in facilitating acquaintance between comrades, reinforcing shared values, creating a collective sense of reality, and eliciting the emergence of mutual bonds. It is important to acknowledge that meals are more than merely periods designated for the communal ingestion of nutrients, being critical to the development of social bonds. In the relative isolation of military life, food and commensality – the practice of communal eating – help to satisfy the human need for belonging.