{"p"=>"Prison food studies found that communal cooking improves peer support, agency, well-being, and construction of new identities or social status. However, the decision to cook with others, rather than alone, remains an underexplored dimension of prison life. This study fills that gap by examining the extent to which both personal characteristics and prison conditions associate with communal cooking and eating practices, drawing on the theoretical frameworks of the importation and deprivation models. Using data from the Life-in-Custody Study IV and the Food-in-Custody Study IV, with 1,519 participants across all 28 Dutch prison locations, this study provides a first quantitative insight into the communal cooking and eating practices of a large and diverse group of incarcerated individuals. The findings show that several importation and deprivation factors are significantly associated with participation in communal food practices: having a younger age, a national (Dutch) background, more available cooking time, sharing a cell, and satisfaction with one’s own cooked meals. These findings identified which individual characteristics and deprivations associate with (non-)participation of communal cooking, providing policymakers a foundation to develop more opportunities for communal food practices, ensuring everyone has access to its benefits."}