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

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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?

You can make some kind of meringue with chickpea tin water - it's a brilliant egg subs for vegans.

I think that in this country over processed food has become the norm for most people for more than 2 generations, with the result that many (younger) people don't know how to prepare fresh food. People who have the time/inclination/money/skills and knowledge to do otherwise tend to be more privileged in other ways also.
Obviously porridge is cheap and nutritious and traditional but the fact is most people eat sugary crap. If you eat porridge for breakfast you are middle class by income or education or descent. Or scottish perhaps.

I was brought up in England by working class Irish parents

There were 7 mouths to feed (including my parents) and we always had porridge because it was cheap and filling.

I'm ancient old enough to remember some sort of strike in the 70s where white sugar became really scarce, so most people switched to brown sugar or honey, for use on cereals and in tea/coffee.

A cheap jar of clear honey is about 80p in my local shop and my Dad still has it in coffee now.

Proper posh food is grim. Bitter, salty, slimey or taste of mud..

(Champagne, expensive fish, olives and truffles.)

They just pretend to like them so they can look upper class. The misery is part of it.

Poorer people will shamelessly eat stuff which they find delicious. Like Pop Tarts or WKD. Because they just want to enjoy themselves.

Study about food attitudes and class/gender A depressing read.

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

The food industry have spent untold billions and many decades persuading people that convenience foods are things you take out of the freezer and heat; that fast food is what you buy on the high street dripping in fat; that basic foods are time consuming, difficult, posh, alien; that cooking is complex, hard and something you should be delighted to be free from; that good parents use convenience foods because it means they aren't 'stressed'; even that convenience foods are feminist (or advertising feminist which doesn't look much like any other type).

They've been doing this in the UK for longer than most places (at least since the late 19th century) so it's deeper embedded here. When I lived in Italy 25 years ago, cooking and food were as they always have been, a part of life for everyone, whatever their income. But on TV were constant, constant adverts for Findus Crispy Pancakes or equivalent. I noted a news story last year or so about concerns that Italy's food culture is not what it was and that convenience foods are much more used. Thsi was of course blamed on women working longer hours, not on decades of food industry propaganda aiming at EXACTLY this outcome.

So now we have the ridiculous situation that porridge for breakfast, scrambled eggs on toast in the middle of the day and stew with boiled potatoes and cabbage in the evening is considered some kind of fancy-dan artisanal posh expensive stuck up restaurant experience. Who wants us to think that? And who benefits?

since when is porrige a faff to make?
1 min in microwave, done.

honey I can sort of understand, as it's expensive compared to nutella jam. same for hummus.

Porridge is not posh, it's a faff to make though.

No it's really easy! 1/3 cup oats (I keep the 1/3 cup measure in the oats bag as a scoop) 180ml milk or water, chuck in some frozen raspberries (this makes it food of the gods) and microwave for 2 mins then leave for 1 min the eat.

Porridge oats are not a faff. Stick some value oats in a bowl, cover with milk, microwave for a few minutes. Stir in raisins and honey. Breakfast done quickly and on the cheap.

Porridge isn't a faff! 1 cup oats, 2 cups milk and or water. Stir. Microwave on high for I minute. Stir. Microwave another minute. Ding and it's done. No harder than Ready Brek but it hasn't got any sugar in it. That's why you might want that posh honey....!

I think we've established that porridge isn't a faff!!

I am a lone parent who works - I find 2 minutes in the morning to chuck some oats into the microwave for dd's breakfast.

But anyway, a few of the responses prove my point!! Maybe it is a mumsnet thing...

Proof oats aren't posh.

Porridge?, Yep must be the colder mornings coming on. Luvverly stuff with honey that's well better than muesli, that's hamster grub!

Don't worry the English are class obsessed;!..

In my very working class childhood, we had ReadyBrek not porridge

Me too!

There IS a class divide when it comes to food and cooking.

I didn't try exotic delicacies such as chickpeas, houmous and pesto until I was in my 20s (and I'm 35, so we're not talking about the dark ages).

Of course there are exceptions, but I do think there are a lot of households who wouldn't know what to do with a bag of porridge oats. My parents buy Oat So Simple sachets instead.

Annandale - that's really interesting.

What do you do with Oat so Simple that makes it so easy compared to porridge?

Microwaved porridge is just wrong, you bunch of plebs. I put it in a non stick pan on the hob, have a quick shower, come back down, stir it, Bob's your uncle. I am vey vey posh though.

Fwiw I eat tinned chickpeas on their own... drain them, rinse them & eat them as they are. Prefer them with some salad and a bit of oil and vinegar, but I can easily eat a bowlful with nothing else and enjoy it!

is 'exotic' food a class divide, or simply that our tastes have changed and we now know about more different types of food?

but don't worry, OP, I've lived in the UK most of my life and only total twerps talk about posh food. Or indeed posh anything.

I'm Scottish, porridge snd oatcakes were poor people's foods here. Perhaps they've gone all trendy elsewhere?

I like them both and I thought oat cakes were actually a good thing for the food bank