Sharing a meal, as was once common at New England town meetings, cools passions and helps find common ground

Could a fading feature of town meetings in New England be a prescription for overcoming the increasingly partisan and divisive nature of local governments in the U.S.? Steve Taylor, former agriculture of New Hampshire, suggests so in a piece for the paper he edited before going into government: the Valley News of West Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vermont.

Steve Taylor

"Time was when the food served on Town Meeting day was nearly as important as things like the school budget, highway maintenance and a new fire truck when they came up for discussion and votes. Many Upper Valley Vermont towns and a few on the New Hampshire side prided themselves on their midday meal traditions, and some folks turned out primarily for the dinner menu rather than the weighty subjects coming up for action," Taylor writes.

"Well, that was then, and this is now. The town meeting day dinner (it’s always dinner if it’s in the middle of the day; you eat supper in the evening) has almost become extinct in the region. Various forces have diminished this once fine tradition, including the consolidation of meeting agendas, lowered appreciation of freewheeling — occasionally rowdy — debate, a shift to disposing of town business with a day-long secret ballot and fewer volunteers stepping up to cook and serve meals for a large group. And along came the Covid-19 pandemic, which tore further at the traditional ways town meetings were set up and conducted."

Taylor then makes a point that could go beyond New England: "It’s been said that civilized people make better decisions, and that belief has long permeated discussion of the town meeting meal. Frank Bryan, a long-retired political science professor at the University of Vermont and leading scholar on the town-meeting form of government, argued that when people sit down at a communal table and share a meal, passions diminish and common ground can be found."