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Does sharing make us human? Is sharing food very specific of the humankind, or did the evolutionary history of other species produce similar traits? Is sharing food sometimes more a matter of rhetoric rather than an effective transfer of food? How could it be possible for anthropologists to study sharing without being themselves, somehow, invited to join the group eating together? These are, among others, some of the questions raised in this book.Humans can share food with a finite num-ber of peers because other humans, with whom they will not share any food have contributed somehow to the effort necessary to produce the food that is shared. Cooperation is necessary in the first place to create the food that will be shared, but cooperation with whom? This food will be shared one day, but shared with whom?The idea of ‘sharing’ and that of ‘sharing food’ frequently overlap. Family, friends, acquaintances reuniting after a long time, people who have grown apart, or people living far from each other often voice their longing for the joy of being together through food. But the status of the eater, and the place in sharing meals groups, is not only defined by bio-logical features —age and sex— or his alterity (indigenous or foreign), but also by the mundane activities they perform under the scrutiny of others. However, it is hard to think of a society where sharing is not a way of separating groups as much as to unite them, being defined by sex, age, social class, cultural identities or any other feature. This is one of the paradoxes of sharing.The chapters of this volume all deal with this topic of sharing food, but according to different scientific point of views and about va-rious societies (humans or not), in different places and periods of history.Of course modern life has been transforming foods and meals, the symbols attached to them or the community of eaters, but even in a world of tension and dangers, humans remain reluctant to eat alone. Would they do it if the