Food Snobbery

[Lord Michael Lewis]

QUOTE]

Taste, like sexuality, is personal thing. Snobbery is thinking that a third party can be privy to the knowledge that one taste is superior to another and accepting that opinion.

It all depends upon who the third party is.

Someone with widespread exposure to and education (not necessarily schooling) in a particular area may very well be more readily relied upon to exhibit superior taste than someone else without those characteristics. And, moreover, accepting their opinion is, many times but not always, a valid practice.

For me taste is about likes and dislikes. How one can say that one likes or doesn't like something based on the opinion of a third party is beyond me.

[Suzanne F]

(spqr @ Sep 21 2002, 11:47 AM)

 

How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities on cookery are poseurs?

Granted, that was written in the early 1970s, and while I think much has improved since then, it still rings awfully true today to me.

Name your poseurs

Fearless or foolhardy, here goes:

POSEURS, because they lead the masses down the path to bad food in the guise of good food:

Emeril

that Martha lady

the editors of "Bon Appetit"

the editors of "Food and Wine"

the editors of "Gourmet"

There are probably others one could mention, but these are the ones I've seen who TRULY fit the definition ("a person who assumes attitudes or manners merely for their effect upon others").

How one can say that one likes or doesn't like something based on the opinion of a third party is beyond me.

Lord Michael: I quite agree. But I would venture that the vast majority of the lumpen do just that, because they lack the facility to make decisions on their own. In fact, isn't that what WE do when we decide to visit a restaurant -- or not -- based on a review?

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Lord Michael: I quite agree.  But I would venture that the vast majority of the lumpen do just that, because they lack the facility to make decisions on their own.  In fact, isn't that what WE do when we decide to visit a restaurant -- or not -- based on a review?

Firstly, in a debate on snobbery, 'lumpen' is probably not the most sympathetic terminology one could choose.

Going to a restaurant on the basis of good reviews seems to be pretty sensible. Liking the meal on the basis of good reviews, less so. However, you certainly make an important point on not visiting a restaurant that has been badly reviewed. In this case the decision not to go could, perhaps, be pragmatic.

[Deacon]

To my mind, snobbery stems from the belief that there are answers to questions of taste.

I agree with you, m'lud.

However, 75% of the way through this thread, you've just said the one thing guaranteed to open a king-size case of whup-ass 'round here. Prepare your heinie for a blast from the spank-o-ray! (especially from Shaw)

And, there are levels of snobbery. I could be drinking a Heineken in two different bars: the first is a working-man's bar in Pittsburgh where most of the inmates are drinking Iron City Beer, the second is a very-diversely stocked brewpub. I might be tempted to think I have "better taste" than the guys drinking Iron City, but the patrons at the second place might think the same of me for drinking the "probably skunked" Heineken.

The same goes if I take a drink of Johnnie Walker Gold. I may be tempted to scoff at the "coarseness" of the guy across the bar having, say, J&B-and-soda. But the folks over there drinking the Laphroaig will think me hopelessly naive for not having a salty Islay single-malt.

[LaNiña]

Where's Plots when we need him?

[Steve Plotnicki]

I'm trying to figure out why there is a negative connotation that comes with eating fresh over frozen, artisinal versus mass produced, and well versus poorly prepared? You mean people who eat *the right way* are snobs because they think people who eat the wrong way are, eating the uh, wrong way?

I have to say that anyone who thinks that Wishbone Vinaigrette Dressing is better then what you can make yourself with the right ingredients just doesn't know anything about food. It has nothing to do with snobbery. There's a right way and a wrong way and the bottled gunk is the wrong way. Of course that doesn't mean there isn't space in the world for bottled gunk. Lord know everyone's in a hurry from time to time. But peopls should know better. And it's a shame that they don't.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

I'm trying to figure out why there is a negative connotation that comes with eating fresh over frozen, artisinal versus mass produced, and well versus poorly prepared? You mean people who eat *the right way* are snobs because they think people who eat the wrong way are, eating the uh, wrong way?

There isn't a negative connotation to eating fresh over frozen etc. And people who eat this way aren't necessarily snobs. The snobs are those who claim to know what "*the right way*" is.

[Steve Plotnicki]

LML - Your post doesn't make any sense. If there is a "right way to eat," then surely there are people who *must know the right way.* And then there are those who don't.

But I thought the issue was looking down on people who don't know how to eat. Do you think we should or we shouldn't?

[Jon Tseng]

- Shurley a food snob is someone who thinks things are good because of what

they are rather than how they taste.

- If you don't eat a cheap bottled dressing/frozen sausage/battery chicken because you think it is "inferior" you are a snob.

- If, however, you eat it because you think it doesn't taste good you are not a snob. So there is nothing snobbish about skipping the canned goods for the right reasons.

J

[Tonyfinch]

But I thought the issue was looking down on people who don't know how to eat. Do you think we should or we shouldn't?

If people "don't know how to eat" then there's nothing to "look down" on them for" They can be shown.

The truth is that the millions who bring themselves and their families up on crap are the same millions who are glued to Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson cookery programmes. They're the same people who ensure that Rick Stein and Delia Smith books are besy sellers year in year out.

It's not that they don't know. It's that they can't be arsed. And for that they are worthy of the utmost contempt.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

LML - Your post doesn't make any sense. If there is a "right way to eat," then surely there are people who *must know the right way.* And then there are those who don't.

But I thought the issue was looking down on people who don't know how to eat. Do you think we should or we shouldn't?

Plotinki, please control the urge to put your words into my mouth.

I haven't once said that there is a "right way to eat", rather I have suggested that this is the illusion of the snob. An illusion, because the snob subordinates his own taste by subscribing to the value system of a third party.

And yes, the issue is whether or not we should be supercilious towards others' eating habits. For this reason I question the posture of supeciliary. If you're interested in my position, I suggest you read my posts.

[Deacon]

I have to say that anyone who thinks that Wishbone Vinaigrette Dressing is better then what you can make yourself with the right ingredients just doesn't know anything about food. It has nothing to do with snobbery. There's a right way and a wrong way and the bottled gunk is the wrong way.

Plotnicki, I think you've just put your finger on the very gist of the argument. Buying mass-produced products at the supermarket almost invariably COSTS LESS than making the same thing from fresh ingredients. Having "good taste" COSTS MORE than not "having it." Being a gourmet (shopping in specialty stores for arcane tools and ingredients, dining in ritzy restaurants, travelling to foreign lands to experience their cuisines firsthand) takes a LOT of discretionary income. Not everyone can afford it.

The degree to which anyone practices a hobby is a function of the time they're willing to invest in it and the money they can spare for it. Since the rich have more money than the middle-class, who have more money than the poor, gourmets are stereotypically perceived as rich elitists with "let them eat cake" attitudes. It does no service to our hobby to put people down for not eating "well" when they have neither the free time or the money to spend learning what we know. Some people buy Wishbone because that's what they can afford. Putting people's food choices down as "wrong" is basically blaming people for not having enough money or spare time to devote to a hobby they may not be interested in in the first place.

Reverse snobbery does also exist, BTW. This is typified by the "we're just plain folks" approach. "We just serve plain, simple food around here."

[Lord Michael Lewis]

I have to say that anyone who thinks that Wishbone Vinaigrette Dressing is better then what you can make yourself with the right ingredients just doesn't know anything about food. It has nothing to do with snobbery. There's a right way and a wrong way and the bottled gunk is the wrong way.

This is why you're a snob. Instead of just enjoying something because it pleases you, you seek to affirm what you see as its superiority and use it as a benchmark by which to judge others.

[Tonyfinch]

Eating "well" is not necessarily about eating expensively. It is perfectly possible to eat superbly and spend considerably less than people spend on the shite they normally eat. So called "peasant" cuisines from around the world are renowned for producing delicious food from the cheapest of ingredients.

The time arguement is also not a factor. It is perfectly possible to prepare excellent and nutritious food in very quick time.

The issue of is one of priority. People cant be bothered with cooking, thinking about cooking, shopping for meals. Other things take priority-going down the pub for one.

I have a friend who spends thousands of pounds following his football team home and away. He'll happily spend £50 in an evening in the pub with me,but if I suggest a restaurant---sharp intake of breath followed by "how can you go out and spend £50 per head on a MEAL for chrissake?"

For the Brits this is the mass cultural mindset and while I don't have contempt for him I have contempt for it.

[LaNiña]

I have to say that anyone who thinks that Wishbone Vinaigrette Dressing is better then what you can make yourself with the right ingredients just doesn't know anything about food. It has nothing to do with snobbery. There's a right way and a wrong way and the bottled gunk is the wrong way.

This is why you're a snob. Instead of just enjoying something because it pleases you, you seek to affirm what you see as its superiority and use it as a benchmark by which to judge others.

LML, I don't know quite know why you're trying to pick a fight with Plots - and if you're not, it sure seems like it, at least to me.

I think he DOES enjoy what pleases him, after years of comparing and contrasting - he has arrived at a place where he does in fact eat what he feels is "best."

Forgive me for speaking for him - but I feel much the same way. I do indeed use what I see as "best" as a benchmark by which to judge others, and other things, etc. It's called discernment. How else should we "judge?"

[spqr]

I do indeed use what I see as "best" as a benchmark by which to judge others, and other things, etc.  It's called discernment.  How else should we "judge?"

By what right do you judge me or anyone else? Employing "discernment" in choosing and structuring your own diet is one thing. Thinking less of someone because he/she does not share your own food values is sniffy snobbery in its pure, naked form. And I suspect that much of this attitude is a prime diagnostic of a true poseur.

[Deacon]

Eating "well" is not necessarily about eating expensively. It is perfectly possible to eat superbly and spend considerably less than people spend on the shite they normally eat.

Not necessarily--OK, granted. There is such a thing as excellent barbecue, excellent hamburgers, excellent hot dogs. It's perfectly possible to eat well for little money especially with most Asian cuisines. But Shaw, for instance, argues that you can't compare the overall experience of a place like Alain Ducasse with some storefront Thai place, no matter how good the Thai place is. I stand by my statement that a person's expertise in this hobby is very much a function of the money that person has to spend. When you simplify the equation by taking out the middle of it, it basically boils down to "I've got more money, so my taste is better than yours." I would certainly grant that it is wider, but not better. Pardon me for sounding like a warmed-over Trotskyite, but this is primarily a hobby for those that have enough money to afford it. The downtrodden of the earth are not renowned for their gourmandise. I think that perhaps the "my taste is better" argument is an attempt to assuage guilt from blowing money on something that most would consider a luxury item. "At least my taste is better than yours (otherwise I've spent all this money for nothing)."

The time argument is also not a factor.

B*llsh*t. I bet I can open a bottle of Wishbone faster than you can make vinagrette from scratch.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I see that LML has desperately tried to include the notion of a third party opinion to make the case against snobbery. A stupid guise from a usually smart guy. It's the silliest argument the weakeast and lamest of tasters on the wine chat rooms make. And it is the rallying call of people who have no experience in tasting.

Good tomatoes taste better than bad tomatoes. There really isn't anything else to say about it. The tomatoes that Toby sells at the Greenmarket in Union Square are great tasing tomatoes. The tomatoes from Holland they normally sell in my local green grocer are typically pale and mealy. Fortunately for me I can tell pale and mealy when I taste it as neither the New York Times, Zagat, Time Out, nor countless others who masquerade as food writers have written about Holland tomatoes. So it has nothing to do with third party opinions. And even if it did it wouldn't matter. Why anyone would care why someone else buys the right thing is a mystery to me. Only the pettiest among us would care to undermine great food by trying to say someone is eating it for the wrong reason. You can't describe the way La Tache tastes by describing the people who drink it. It still tastes good regardless of whomever is drinking it.

By what right do you judge me or anyone else? Employing "discernment" in choosing and structuring your own diet is one thing. Thinking less of someone because he/she does not share your own food values is sniffy snobbery in its pure, naked form. And I suspect that much of this attitude is a prime diagnostic of a true poser

Spqr - That statement is bullshit. Do you think the chipped beef they served soldiers in the army is/was as good as the Cote de Boeuf that was almost as marbled as Kobe Beef that was served to me last night in Cagnes-sur-Mer? Is that just a matter of opinion?

I think we need to note the fact that the way we use "look down on" doesn't mean think less of as a person (and I think Stellabella mean it this way as well.) I might hold a person who eats frozen, mass-produced, full of chemical food in disdain as an eater but I don't think less of them as a person. The same way I hold people who vote for the opposing political party to mine in disdain. But I have many good friends who are fervent supporters of the opposition. But some people here seem to be confusing it with *really look down on.* I see nothing wrong with people who have an expertise finding others who are less expert inferior (in that field of course.) That isn't snobbery, it is the truth. If for example Steve Klc held my opinion of baking in disdain because I made silly statements, he wouldn't be a snob, he would be right.

[Jason Perlow]

I can see this is going to be another one of those verbal diahrrea 7-14 page mindsuckers.

No, really, please continue.

Anyone who proposes that their taste is better than anyone else's is not a food snob. They're just arrogant assholes.

Its perfectly okay to be elitist about food and to try to strive for excellent meals and tastes in one's life. That is what this site is all about.

To say that someone's tastes are worse than yours is what another site is about. Its not this one.

[spqr]

Spqr - That statement is bullshit. Do you think the chipped beef they served soldiers in the army is/was as good as the Cote de Boeuf that was almost as marbled as Kobe Beef that was served to me last night in Cagnes-sur-Mer? Is that just a matter of opinion?

Yes, it's a matter of opinion. Plain and simple. And if you would lower your apparently well-moneyed nose from the stratosphere a moment, you would realize that plain truth. I think that the fact that you can enjoy cote de boef from whereever is a good thing. However, I suspect that most people who eat cote de boef at wherever and then brag about it are more into having other people know they eat at exclusive joints than they are into basic enjoyment of the food. This is the essence of snobbery, and the prime diagnostic of a true poseur, as I said in my earlier post.

As far as chipped beef on toast goes, I recall Pierre Franey relating a story in his biography of the time when he was in the army and he was able to transform shit on a shingle into a very palatable dish through the simple application of good technique. Your attitude toward shit on a shingle betrays much about you. Apparently you think that chipped beef on toast is "bad", while the food you eat, and the food you can afford to eat, is "good". How simple- and narrow-minded!

[John Whiting]

I can't imagine most of this argument taking place in France a few decades ago. "Fine" dining and good peasant fare existed side by side, and Curnonsky spent half his time dropping in unannounced on Mère Poulard for an omelette and the other half meticulously writing up the local dishes of the impecunious. Of course France was riddled with social snobbery, but *food* snobbery as we are defining it? You would have found few to admit it or even acknowledge it. It's the child of ignorance masquerading as sophistication.

Edit: This is not a criticism of any one contributor to this thread, but a sad comment on the culinary poverty which leads us down a blind alley.

[spqr]

I say: fuck France and the French. Their hegemony on all things culinary in the Western world should be overturned. It's long overdue.

But I would be very interested to have you elaborate your point John. Particularly your observation on the coexistence and co-equality of haute cuisine and peasant fare and the implications of this. I seriously doubt that we in the US have anything that is the equivalent to the peasant fare of Europe you refer to. Our native cookery, since the 40s at least, has been based on industrial innovations in food technology, particularly canned soup and gelatin. A century ago things were different, and as the Hess' point out, not only did we enjoy an abundance of real food but we were also fairly knowledgeable in preparing it.

[Jason Perlow]

I say: fuck France and the French. Their hegemony on all things culinary in the Western world should be overturned. It's long overdue

The froggy bastards learned everything from the Italians anyways. Lets just cut out the middleman and go right to the source!

[John Whiting]

spqr writes:

I say: fuck France and the French.  . . .

But I would be very interested to have you elaborate your point John.

Certainly. I'll explain them as soon as I've finished fucking them.

Edit

A century ago things were different, and as the Hess' point out, not only did we enjoy an abundance of real food but we were also fairly knowledgeable in preparing it.

Indeed, as Karen (who wrote the food history part of _The Taste of America_) demonstrates, the expertise went back two and a half centuries to the early settlers. Her edition of Martha Washington's cookbook goes into a great deal of detail on this.

[tommy]

is wilfrid right: is taste subjective.

please discuss.

again.