Is an interest in food in the UK, "elitist"?

[Gavin Jones]

On the other hand obesity might be said to represent a certain sort of interest in food. The following is a class split:

Obesity among people aged 16 and over: by social class of head

of household and gender, 1998

England Percentages

Women Men

Unskilled manual 31.4 19.3

Semi-skilled manual 27.9 16.3

Skilled manual 26.4 20.4

Skilled non-manual 19.3 16.6

Managerial 19.9 16.2

Professional 15.1 12.0

1 Percentage who had a BMI score of 30 or more, age-standardised to

the European standard population.

Source: Health Survey for England, Department of Health

[Adam Balic]

Oh goody, my diet indicates that I am upper-class, but my weight indicates that I am working class.

[Simon Majumdar]

Oh goody, my diet indicates that I am upper-class, but my weight indicates that I am working class.

And your posts indicate that you have no class

S

[Gary Marshall]

...sausage and mash straight from the plastic carton!

this is a far more realistic view of family eating in the UK in 03 than the world of egullet.

Gary, how on earth do you support that statement ?

macro

i support my view by my own anecdotal evidence, i go to sainsbury's and i notice what people put in their trolleys, my office is food obsessed, not necessarily with quality but certainly with quantity and i know exactly what they eat, i know what my friends eat too, i wander round M&S food hall on a lunchtime etc.

Ready meals are a huge feature of all of the above groups.

from this i also know that the fact when i eat at home i cook it from scratch (save the odd pizza) and eat it at a table is also unusual.

My love of food does mark me out as an oddity amongst my friends, at work they call me gourmet gaz, they are genuinely surprised at the time i spend in the kitchen and what i eat.

I think we'd all like to think in the post jamie era that everyone sits down to 'my bloody great pasta' or whatever but it's just not the case.

[Adam Balic]

Oh goody, my diet indicates that I am upper-class, but my weight indicates that I am working class.

And your posts indicate that you have no class

S

Your words pass through and around me, they are the do not hurt me, they do not make me a lesser person. I am a whole human, not an organ pretending to be a whole human. I am beautiful. I am not defined by the cruel words of the unlovely, nor am I reduced in the eyes of the world by their sneers and jibes.

[Gary Marshall]

The image of the uneducated plodder delighting over tripe on toast in a mean cottage in a Yorkshire village is an ancient and class-ridden image. Those who believe that their separation from this image places them in an elite are self-delusionary.

so you have heard about life in my house

I'm not trying to be elitist, i don't look down on ready meal eaters, i used to be one, when i graduated it was a dream to be able to shop everyday at M&S and live on ready meals!

it was only my love of restaurants that gave me the interest in recreating the dishes that gave rise to me teaching myself the rudiments of cookery and moving away from processed food.

perhaps it's because adam and i are based in the north it gives us a different perception of this issue than the southern bias of the majority of egullet uk, i don't think it's us who are being 'self delusionary' about the state of the culinary habits of the UK.

[The Artful Dodger]

or knowledge of whether it was any good or not

S

Isn't that statement elitism personified????

In what sense?

Please explain

S

Good and bad are, surely just matters of opinion; to 'know' that your opinion is 'correct' demonstrates an elite attitude.

Earlier, a post 'turned the argument on its head' and compared margarine and butter. It seemed that if you preferred the former to the latter, you were in some way wrong. If I can find it, I will post a thread you commented on regarding a sauce which you found disagreeable but your brother enjoyed. By the way, when are back 'oop north'??

[Simon Majumdar]

perhaps it's because adam and i are based in the north it gives us a different perception of this issue than the southern bias of the majority of egullet uk, i don't think it's us who are being 'self delusionary' about the state of the culinary habits of the UK.

I think this is a very salient point.

Living in London does tend to colour ones vies of what is or is not "normal" or standards

salaries are higher, but then so is the cost of living.

Restaurants of all levels are more abundant and ( I am guessing here ) eating out is more prevalent.

Opportunities to eat good food, both in restaurants or at home exist in all big towns. i know when I visit family in sheffield, there are some fantastic butchers, fishmongers, grocers etc and there are one or two restaurants that would happily exist in London. But, they are few and far between

Perhaps that makes Matthew and adam in the elite group ( using elite in the sense of small group rather than any more sinister C Wright Mills type of way ) as they have to work so much harder to satisfy their lust for good food

S

[Simon Majumdar]

or knowledge of whether it was any good or not

S

Isn't that statement elitism personified????

In what sense?

Please explain

S

Good and bad are, surely just matters of opinion; to 'know' that your opinion is 'correct' demonstrates an elite attitude.

Earlier, a post 'turned the argument on its head' and compared margarine and butter. It seemed that if you preferred the former to the latter, you were in some way wrong. If I can find it, I will post a thread you commented on regarding a sauce which you found disagreeable but your brother enjoyed. By the way, when are back 'oop north'??

If you read my post, I said a "knowledge" of if things are good or bad, NOT the answer.

I am not one of the Plotnikists that suggest that there are clear definitions of good and bad and absolutes to define them, but if you are going to offer an opinion on the quality of a dish, you should do so from a position of knowledge not of wealth. Surely there can be no more egalitarian way of judging?

So, if Steve P tells me wine a is better than wine b I will accept his opinion. Not because he has money enough to try both, but because he has knowledge enough to try both and comment in a meaningful way and has tried enough wine to make a meaningful comparison

S

Edited January 13, 2003 by Simon Majumdar (log)

[Gavin Jones]

Good and bad are, surely just matters of opinion; to 'know' that your opinion is 'correct' demonstrates an elite attitude.

On the other hand Adam & I have posted some statistics which if you put together with the studies of coronary heart disease suggest certain groups (the obese with a diet of lard for example) are likely to live significantly shorter. And this correlates with social class. So if death is bad then one could make a choice...

Still nasty, brutish & short - I'm not sure which egulletarian Mr Hobbes had in mind with those words.

[Tonyfinch]

Earlier, a post 'turned the argument on its head' and compared margarine and butter.  It seemed that if you preferred the former to the latter, you were in some way wrong.

Dodger, do you know ANYBODY who eats margarine as opposed to butter because they prefer the taste? Thought not. People eat margarine because they have been duped into believing that it is better for them,or at least less harmful, than butter.

It is the biggest food con trick perpetrated on the British public in the last 20 years and there's nothing "elitist" about knowing it and saying so.

[CheGuevara]

S

Earlier, a post 'turned the argument on its head' and compared margarine and butter. It seemed that if you preferred the former to the latter, you were in some way wrong. If I can find it, I will post a thread you commented on regarding a sauce which you found disagreeable but your brother enjoyed. By the way, when are back 'oop north'??

[Kikujiro]

ACNielsen reports 'half of all heads of household [in the US] are too tired to put much time or effort into evening meal preparation, and nearly two-thirds are constantly looking for faster ways to do household chores. Such time-pressured sentiments are making convenience-oriented food and cleaning items some of the fastest-growing consumer packaged goods (CPG) products on the market ... 50 percent of respondents (heads of household age 18+) agreed that: "I am so busy and in such a hurry all day that by dinner I'm too worn out to fix a meal that requires much in the way of time or effort."'

Not necessarily predictably, 'those most likely to agree with the statement were younger and had somewhat higher incomes' (my emphasis).

[The Artful Dodger]

you should do so from a position of knowledge not of wealth.

So who brought 'wealth' into this......whats that got to do with anything?

[The Artful Dodger]

Dodger, do you know ANYBODY who eats margarine as opposed to butter because they prefer the taste? Thought not.

Yeah, kids when Mum bakes a cake.... can't stop them licking that bowl clean.....

Still, they aint read this board yet, so they STILL don't know they got it wrong!

[The Artful Dodger]

i think you are confusing two different arguments here, taste and quality.

So... if I understand you correctly, if the quality of the ingredients is supreme it can taste shite, but if the taste is superb yet cobbled together out of 'lesser' ingredients (Simons 'brain massala' springs to mind) its shite as well?

[Wilfrid]

I would no more set foot in Jimmy's now than gnaw my own leg off, but it served its own purpose at the time. 

Didn't it! I looked at the menu last time I was over, and the prices have soared. I think you can pay eight quid or more for an entree now.

I always said I could identify anything cooked in Jimmy's kitchen in a blind tasting - all the food there had a very distinctive taste. Meat, chips and salad. I wonder if the same waiters still work there. And the wine...

No, I'd go back out of nostalgia, but I'm not disagreeing with Simon's evaluation. Right, carry on...

[The Artful Dodger]

On the other hand Adam & I have posted some statistics

..lies, damned lies, and.....

C'mon, nobody and I mean NOBODY is gonna argue health issues with what the average egulleteer can cram down their throat at a fine meal... Don't even go there.

We all know that fine cuisine is despicably bad for the body; if we ate it on a daily basis, 35 would represent inordinate longevity!

[The Artful Dodger]

So, if Steve P tells me wine a is better than wine b I will accept his opinion.

...true, remembering fundamentally that wine b may be the better wine..

'...the King is in the all-to-gether, the-all-together, the all-to-gether, he's as naked as the day that he was born'

[Steve Plotnicki]

This conversation always comes down to the same issue for me. If wine B is better then wine A, and I think the opposite, and the pronouncement has been made by someone more knowledgable then I, I want to know why it is the case. In my experince, when that happens, it is likely that I will learn something from the explanation and that might very well result in my adopting a different view. In my experience, "better" is almost always measured objectively.

If you accept that premise, it is hard to say that knowledgable people are "elitists." Because they don't practice their hobby to the exclusion of people who are inferior, they practice their hobby so that it includes people like themselves. But their hobby is open to anyone who has the desire and the affinity to learn about it. I do not think this is a small point. But quite often people who have no interest flip that around and accuse people who have the affinity of being elitist. No better example was the thread on the Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines thread where I and others were called "wine snobs" because we had the ability to taste the wine of the year and pronounce it junk.

[Wilfrid]

This very quickly gets silly, because the inference from Dodger's position is that everything sold in a bottle calling itself wine is of equal merit, and people happen to prefer some wines to others. While it's possible to disagree about particular wines, it's impossible to have a sensible conversation on the basis that no wine is better or worse than any other.

[macrosan]

This very quickly gets silly, because the inference from Dodger's position is that everything sold in a bottle calling itself wine is of equal merit, and people happen to prefer some wines to others.

Quite so, and in any case this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic being discussed in this thread.

[CheGuevara]

So... if I understand you correctly, if the quality of the ingredients is supreme it can taste shite, but if the taste is superb yet cobbled together out of 'lesser' ingredients (Simons 'brain massala' springs to mind) its shite as well?

by quality i meant quality of the end product, not of the ingredients - that is unless you are comparing two carrots - although a carrot in that case would be the end product.

using the carrot as an example, if you've never tasted a carrot in your life, you could enjoy the first one you ever try - but could you comment on how good the carrot is? what do you compare it to? how do you know if it's the right crunchyness, flavor, etc.? for all you know you could the carrot that to you tastes incredible, tastes like a courgette. no one can argue about your taste, but one can sure as hell argue that does not taste like a carrot.

che

[Adam Balic]

On the other hand Adam & I have posted some statistics

..lies, damned lies, and.....

C'mon, nobody and I mean NOBODY is gonna argue health issues with what the average egulleteer can cram down their throat at a fine meal... Don't even go there.

We all know that fine cuisine is despicably bad for the body; if we ate it on a daily basis, 35 would represent inordinate longevity!

Actually, if you ever bothered to read a selection of the post, rather then just dropping in for you six monthy, button pushing, disruptive wanker fix, then you might see that this isn't that case.

Oh looky, somebody reacted, now your days pleasure is as full as it is ever going to get.

[Tonyfinch]

I find myself agreeing some of the way with Steve P on this issue.

If I want to buy a car or a DVD player and I know someone who knows a lot more about them than me then I'm only too pleased for their suggestions and advice. I don't get all defensive/aggressive because they know more than I do.

But when it comes to food and drink some people find it difficult to cope with others who may know more than them and who may be able to advise them that wine A is better than wine B. That's when allegations of snobbery and elitism start getting thrown around.

It must be that matters of personal taste are so bound up with our notion of who we are that any questioning of our personal taste feels to some people like a personal attack and the more insecure a person feels in this area the less able they are to separate the two. Thus we get Dodger and those like him/her.