The Long History of Solitary Dining

CC dss2biz at Flickr.com

Lacquer Tray with Cloud Design
Western Han (206-25 B.C.)
Unearthed from Han Tomb No.1 at Mawangdui, Changsha in 1972
Overall Height: 5cm; Length: 78cm; Width: 48cm

This individual serving tray seems to be for the wife of the Marquis of Dai. The description of the object from Flickr says family dining is a fairly recent invention. Such an individualized arrangement as this one-person dining tray was typical for the nobles of China two thousand years ago.

"Whether eating at home or in restaurants, we normally adopt the eating practice of sitting round a table. Actually, this tradition of eating together has a relatively short history while the practice of eating separate meals can be traced back to antiquity. Archaeologists have discovered wooden tray for dining at the Taosi Ruins of Xiangfen in Shanxi of some 4500 years ago, showing that the practice of eating separate meals had already appeared at that time. The true practice of dining together started after the Song Dynasty and has only a history of over one thousand years; but the practice of eating separate meals has a history of over three thousand years."