Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner With Strangers Through Meal Sharing

By Staff in Food on Nov 19, 2014 9:30PM

Meal Sharing

If you're new to a city or visiting from out of town, Thanksgiving might feel a bit lonely; same if your family is far away, your roommates are terrible, or you don't want to spend a lot of money at a restaurant. Meal Sharing—a Chicago-based company that connects urban residents and interested guests for home-cooked meals in over 450 cities worldwide—is organizing its second annual ThanksSharing this year, encouraging people to host Thanksgiving dinners for strangers at their homes. It's kinda like Airbnb with food, minus the illegal and exploitative parts.

If you want to attend a dinner, all you have to do is sign up for one that's already been posted with a set date, or request a date for a posted meal with an open-ended time. If you want to host a dinner, just post a description of the meal and setting and wait for people to respond; you can choose a date immediately, or wait to post one based on public feedback. Some meals require payment, others just request that you bring a bottle of wine.

"Hosts on the platform can advertise that they're opening up their table for Thanksgiving, so that nobody has to eat alone on Thanksgiving. And we really believe that people should be eating home cooked with people every day, but especially on Thanksgiving," said Jay Savsani, Meal Sharing's founder. He sees Meal Sharing as a place where people can connect and become friends over food, something that's especially helpful if you're new to a city and haven't really met anyone yet.

"With the CSA, you're picking the produce, you know who your farmer is and you're meeting your members at the pickup location. But with Meal Sharing, it's great because then you're also cooking the food, and sharing that food that you're creating with other people," said Wen-Jay Ying, founder of the community-supported agriculture (CSA) collective Local Roots NYC. She's hosted several dinners around Brooklyn, and sees Meal Sharing as complementary to the CSA.

Compared to services like Airbnb or Couchsurfing, Ying noted, "it's a safer, and a much more comfortable way for New Yorkers to meet strangers. It's great because you meet all these interesting people, but then they leave." Like a really delicious one night stand without the awkward goodbyes.

Thanksgiving Day meals around the world can be found on the ThanksSharing page, while Chicago-based meals can be found here.

Ben Jay is a Gothamist contributor and photographer based in New York. Follow him on Twitter @FakeBenJay.