Le genre du déjeuner. Alimentation et travail dans le Paris de la Belle Époque

Workers’ lunch away from home in the Paris of the Belle Époque is a routine activity with its material infrastructure (places to go but also utensils to use like the billy can), its inscription in social rhythms at midday, and its norms (the meal’s composition, its duration). Analysis of this social practice identifies a masculine version that is the exact expression of the so-called French model of meals consisting of several dishes (appetizer, entrée, dessert), consumed in a built environment on a table and taken at a leisurely pace. Female commensality constitutes the opposite pole as women workers eat quickly and often outdoors while shortening the meal’s canonical composition, relying on fast food bought in a lively street food sector or food brought from home. The conceptual pair masculine/feminine explains the different claims of women and men when it came to define the conditions of lunch during the workday. Gender emerges as a practical, political category grounded in everyday experience. Indeed, women fought for the legal protection of the lunch space while men went on strike for the regulation of its duration

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