To not understand why food is such a class issue in the UK????

[Notcontent]

This is prompted by the food bank thread in Chat. If you haven't read it, it's basically various posters claiming that porridge and honey are "posh" foods that "normal" people don't eat...

Anyway, I have lived in the UK for over a decade and still don't understand this obsession with categorising food in such a way. What is the origin of it? Many of the foods considered "posh" are basic foods which normal people around the world have eaten for hundreds or thousands of years, and are still eating them.

Why are chick peas sneered at while baked beans are ok?

Why do people prefer to give their kids cornflakes and think that having porridge is something to laugh about?

Porridge is posh?

Well I never!!

it's not a UK thing - it's an idiot thing hth x

Porridge, honey and oatcakes are posh apparently. Not the type of food 'normal' people eat.

What ghosty said.

It's a Mumsnet thing

Mumsnet reflects my personal life experience less and less every day.

Porridge isn't 'posh'!

It's not a Uk thing, it's a mn thing which is by no means a reflection of RL.

How can porridge be posh, it's probably one of the cheapest food products on the market.

Porridge oats are about £1 a bag I eat lots of it.

I eat oatcakes with stovies.

I buy honey every week (to go in my porridge)

I am not 'posh' in the slightest.

There are some very strange people about.

I don't understand either. Someone on here said Humous was 'posh' the other day, it's basically what half the Middle East eat daily, especially if poor. I mean Israel without humous wouldn't be the same.

I must be incredibly posh. We ate all those things when I was a single mother with a mortgage on £400 a month.

In my experience, those keen on cleaning, obvious labels, branded food etc are normally people moving class. The movers don't want to be associated with dirt or cheap food.

Porridge is not posh. Mnet is obsessed with making out that the working class are feckless wastrels that live on kebabs.

Agree with ghosty this is not something I encounter in everyday life.

Do they? Are baked beans okay? I'd have thought it was the other way round these day.

I have to admit that if there are rules, then I don't know them!

Other than the obvious fatty poor quality, unhealthy food that would be associated with a certain section of society, I don't think the rest is grouped in Amy specific way.

What?? Porridge is posh? They need to start sticking it on the packets surely!

I agree with Ghosty - baked beans and cereal are just easier to eat, chick peas and porridge require a very little bit more effort to prepare to eat.

I don't think it's posh as much as effort. Some things require cooking and others just need a packet opening. I think the theory is that the middle classes look down on those eating processed packet food and think them lazy and unhealthy. While those who open packets and don't cook are suspicious of foods that require a recipe! Not what I necessarily think, just paraphrasing the cliche!

In my very working class childhood, we had ReadyBrek not porridge. And jam rather than honey.

Tbh I do still consider honey to be quite posh. Not sure what that proves.

X post!

Wasn't gruel made from porridge oats?

If that's posh then that prick Oliver should've stopped complaining...

The things I read on here are becoming increasingly out of touch with reality (ok, my reality, but I do mix with an extremely wide range of people), and that's not counting the 90% of posts I suspect to be false

it wasn't about them being posh it was about practicalities, What was said about porridge is that ready brek is preferred as it takes less milk and is quicker to prepare so takes less energy in either gas or electric. The honey is a different one because it can be an acquired taste, I keep honey in myself i use it to glaze carrots and parsnips, I add it to Yoghurt and fruit or if I'm making a hot toddy what I don't do though is spread it on toast because I find it too overpowering by itself. Both porridge and honey are storecupboard ingredients for me but that doesn't make them practical and helpful if you are struggling to feed yourself or your family.

I would quite happily sit down to a meal of baked beans on toast, chick peas on toast just wouldn't have the same appeal, chick peas need additional ingredients to go with them which baked beans don't

Oatcakes are vile, however I may think that because I am working class and we have Irn bru and a packet of pickled onion crisps for breakfast.