My Home Is My Stage: Restaurant Experiences in Two Estonian Lifestyle Enterprises

Ester Võsu University of Tartu
Anu Kannike Tallinn University

Abstract

This article discusses recent developments in the home-based lifestyle business featuring the example of two cases: Tammuri farm restaurant near Otepää in South Estonia, and home restaurant MerMer in Kolga-Aabla in North Estonia. We study the restaurants from a Goffmanian performance perspective, focusing on the lifestyle entrepreneur's viewpoint of creating a restaurant experience in their homes. Accordingly, the home and its surroundings are considered a setting in which food has an important role as a performance medium and multiple roles are enacted by a single entrepreneur as a performer. Freshness, quality and locality of food, homeliness and personalised service are used for creating a special home restaurant meal experience. The two cases also shed light on the dynamics of the concepts of home and lifestyle entrepreneurship in contemporary Estonia, challenging the understanding of restaurant cuisine and home cooking as oppositional practices of food preparation and consumption.

Author Biographies

Ester Võsu, University of Tartu

MA, Researcher Department of Ethnology Institute for Cultural Research and the Fine Arts University of Tartu Ülikooli 18, 50090, Tartu, Estonia

Anu Kannike, Tallinn University

PhD, Researcher Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Estonian Institute of Humanities Tallinn University Uus-Sadama 5, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia

Published

2012-09-07

How to Cite

VÕSU, Ester; KANNIKE, Anu. My Home Is My Stage: Restaurant Experiences in Two Estonian Lifestyle Enterprises. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, [S.l.], v. 5, n. 2, p. 19-47, sep. 2012. ISSN 2228-0987. Available at: <http://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/92>. Date accessed: 26 mar. 2023.

Citation Formats

Issue

Vol 5 No 2 (2011)

Section

Articles

Keywords

restaurant; home; performance; lifestyle enterprise; Estonia

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