to wonder what middle class/working class parental cliches you have actually experienced?

[vitaminz]

This thread is not to be taken too seriously and no offense is intended.

Today when I was in the supermarket I overheard another shopper saying to what appeared to be her daughter "Clemmie, shall I get some brioche?", she really did sound like a middle class cliche.

Is brioche middle class? I didn't know that. My girls love brioche, red peppers, hummus, cous cous, asparagus and we always have olives in the house.

Does that make me middle class - lol

Tap water? We always order tap water. I fell more middle class by the minute

Brioche? Isn't sourdough more popular these days?
Also hummus is old-hat, in our house we are really into homemade tzatziki at the moment.
And we've moved on from quinoa because it is unethical and are really into barley couscous.

The comments about asparagus amuse me. It's a fecking weed - where I used to live, it literally grew wild in the ditches.
I understand the need to import it in the UK, because it needs a long dry growing season, but in my mind asparagus is what you buy because it's dirt cheap. Although, in said farming community, 'Asparagus Farmer' was probably code for middle class. High prices, relatively, for not much work. Relatively.

We only ever order tap water - look after the pennies and the fangs!

My dad has "wild" asparagus in his garden, I suspect it migrated from his neighbour's garden. He has at least once served it with truffle oil.

Forget hummous and also forget tzaziki - try baba ganoush!

We eat Paleo in my family, and my 7 year old has at least once asked if his burger with no bun was from grassfed meat.

Asparagus, could it be Japanese knotweed misscph?

Mind you that would be working the eco-chic vibe too..

Oh there's class in Australia, but it's a lot more flexible and mobile.

The high number of immigrant coming into Australia post WWII caused that. All sorts of people from different classes were reduced to almost refugee status and found their way to Australia. So you had middle class and upper class who were now working class and employed in factories doing manual labour, whose children then went onto university etc.

It's also not as identifiable by food, because most of the 'exotic' foods were brought in by these immigrants. So the interesting and quirky food was actually from the working classes, who cooked for themselves and friends, opened up restaurants, had market stalls etc, rather than being brought in by wealthy holidayers returning home.

It was all such a fabulous mish mash of cultures and classes.

Hmmmm. I asked my ds if he wanted croissants or brioche in the bakery aisle the other day. I suppose I am very middle class though, so I prove your point.

Baba ganosh and tzaziki are common foods where dh is from. So kids weaned on the stuff. They also like stuffed vine leaves for lunch

Yeah, humus, tzaziki etc were staples growing up in NZ. Cheap and easy to make as we were always flat broke. Didn't realise Sebastian was a MC class name (his European dad chose it as most languages have some form of it so it travels well).

It makes me laugh to be a seriously blue collar girl asking Sebastian if he'd like hummus or tzaziki :D

Truffle oil? Is that a real thing? The best way to eat asparagus is battered and deep fried.

So the interesting and quirky food was actually from the working classes, who cooked for themselves and friends, opened up restaurants, had market stalls etc, rather than being brought in by wealthy holidayers returning home.
The same thing is true in the US. Also, I used to be fed things like hummus because my parents were hippie freaks into health food. It was definitely seen as not the sort of thing normal decent people ate in the 80s.

ProfYaffle I think your friend is a tad off the mark, chippy teas used to be for the day before payday but are so expensive now-a-days I doubt many families can afford them. It was almost £8 for a fish and chips round my way!

I live abroad now and olives are as common as they could be. Rows and rows of them in the supermarket, both fresh and jarred. Everyone here certainly isn't MC and above!

I do admit I have had comments from my mum for the food I now eat compared to what she brought me up on. She even called me a snob for ordering a creme brulee once

Oh regarding how food is perceived ...DS once said loudly while out shopping "Oh I dont want any Samphire"

OH laughed and said it sounded so MC.....which is funny as I always thought Samphire was originally a ....... down to earth food

I think they were real asparagus, my dad is in Denmark, and as far as I know, Japanese knotweed hasn't (yet) spread to Denmark, funnyossity ;)

Truffle oil is real, Ninja, but I think it's just olive oil infused with truffles. Very nice, though.

I must say, I do often (always) wear my judgy pants when I loook at what people eat, wear and how they live! it's almost second nature. On the school run I look at what people wear trying to work out if it's Primark or an expensive brand, and I look in people's shopping trolleys in the supermarket and am usually appauled by the amount of rubbish. I also look at peoples cars, their interior decoration etc. (I might add that I am terrible at interior decoration, very messy and mainly live with second hand furniture or Ikea. My car is 18 years old and only gets a wash and hoover once a year).

Lucky Denmark; I know what grows best in my area!

I'm in my mid twenties and grew up in what is definitely a low working class (I've heard it called "underclass") type area, single parent, low income family. I'm the first to go to university.

The majority of our food was from Iceland and not only did I have very little awareness of class (until I met real life posh people at university) but I ate houmous, olives, cous cous and so on. I'd even had brioche. I also drank mostly tap water, not being a fan of fizzy drinks.

I make a distinction between 'having class' and fitting a certain social group because you eat olives or whatever and I know I'd much rather be thought of as classy for the way I carried myself, then middle class because I ticked the right boxes. I hope the UK moves on from this way of thinking.

My favourite one was when a rather aristocratic friend of mine saw the Halfords' bike rack on the roof of our car, and asked if it was for our kids' skis.

I can't even afford a passport to go abroad - let alone ski!

At university, I horrified a different friend when I told her the cheesecake I'd made was from a packet. She didn't even know they could be bought 'off the peg' - I didn't even know people could make them from scratch.

YABU. This thread is littered with smarmy stealth boasts and is utterly cringe making.

Mumsnet is becoming so predictable in certain sections- it is rammed with smug passive aggressive types all checking they couldn't possible be considered anything less than M.C.

Some of you really need to get over yourself.

I made my own hummous in the 80's. It wasn't ever on sale anywhere so if you wanted to eat it you made your own. I used to soak the chick peas for it too not use tinned.

I was a vegetarian then & it was a great food to eat - as proved by the fact you can buy it pretty much in every supermarket and even corner store today.

I don't know what class I am - not UK born or bread. Prob WC.

Milmingebag I agree! it's embarrassing.

So this thread is basically "oh goodness, look at me, I'm so middle class without knowing it, wasn't I hilarious when I told Eugine to look for the grassfed unicorn steaks in the organic, free range, out of the arse of Bolivian goats yesterday".

Eating brioche, hummus, olives etc, doesn't make you middle class just because some of them have slightly difficult to pronounce names. They are just normal foods now.

And as for "we've moved on from quinoa and are really into barley cous cous now", that's just completely killed me off.

All depends on where you're from.

I'm American so it's a bit different. But my uncle and aunt are part of a very "posh" circle out East. (They both work in Manhattan and lived there before they had their DD; everyone then moved to Jersey for the space.) Quite different from his eldest brother, my dad, who was a teenage parent and moved his family to the wilds of the northwoods. :o

Anyway, when I've visited them, I remember one of their friends boasting loudly about their DS loving pheasant.

I had to giggle because here everyone eats pheasant and it is decidedly a poor people's food...it only costs a bullet!