This article situates peace research in the messy ambiguities of everyday encounters between foreign peacebuilders and local populations in post‐conflict environments. It suggests that anthropology allows for moving the liberal/hybrid peace debate beyond its immediate boundaries – a focus on governance systems and the intervention itself – towards a more comprehensive examination of mundane experiences in shared places and their possible influence on peacebuilding processes. Specifically, this article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in post‐conflict and post‐intervention Solomon Islands and on anthropological research on the importance of food for identity formation, sociality and customary peacebuilding in Melanesia. By examining non‐elite Solomon Islanders’ perceptions of foreign interveners’ apparent rejection of Solomon Islands foods, the article shows how everyday ‘food‐based’ encounters between foreign peacebuilders and Solomon Islanders affect non‐elite Solomon Islanders’ confidence in long‐term peace and more broadly their value and status in the ‘modern’, global, liberal political economy.