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?

I think though it's much nicer made on the hob which takes me about 5-10 minutes to allow things to heat

My parents were working class hippies (yes there is such a thing) and we lived on chick peas and brown rice. And goulash. Lots of goulash. Also rabbit stew. Mmmmm rabbit stew.

Thank you MrsTerry for the report. I read the Food Bank thread and have been reading this thread with interest. Unfortunately honey, oatcakes and porridge have kind of become foods of the middle class. People have become so disengaged from food and from cooking. Cooking porridge, for some, would be too much. I know many people who buy a prepared lunch everyday and then take aways in the evening. Class does come into it too. This was very enlightening from the report:

"There is a strong link between children’s perceptions of the food people
eat and their affluence, and especially between the brands children eat and
what their family can afford" and "Taste and money play a significant part in what children and young people choose to eat and fast food is viewed as the most tasty and desirable food"

Just remembered another thing: we didn't have honey, we had golden syrup

I also eat oatcakes, porridge and honey
I first had porridge with honey at my gran's house (a housing estate in one of the poorest towns in Britain). Staple diet then.

annandale You've just pretty much described my food intake today though I put a pastry top on the stew and called it a pie instead.

I make porridge every day, I do it on the stove rather than the microwave but that's just personal preference, maple syrup rather than honey or sometimes a handful of berries.

Never thought of porridge and honey as posh. We ate that growing up and were very poor.

Plain and boring things often seem to be deemed to be a certain type of posh - as well as porridge and oatcakes, this would also apply to clothes (understated, no labels and dreary in appearance -yes you Toast), interiors (ornaments frowned on) and even gardening (small, white flowers deemed classier than colourful bedding plants).

We had golden syrup as children too. My children have honey.

My dc have had ReadyBrek, houmous and baked beans today.
I shall explode in a bout of class conflict.

IfNotNow and I must be the posh ones. Yep, 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of milk 1 cup water in a pan and BOILED for 10 mins - that takes time and effort and obviously only posh people have that. Has to be eaten with Demarera sugar to be really posh.

Oh, I had no idea I had a standard mc garden, who knew!

I'm going to think of some random food and claim it's posh. Hold on a minute.

Thank you for that link MrsPratchett. It is a depressing read. What stood out was the line that children are expected to prefer unhealthy food.

My argument exactly about McD. Children think it's a treat because parents tell them it is. Mine think it's awful and would be a last choice if desperate because that's what we think.

Can it also be anything to do with the fact that cookery lessons at school were replaced with food tech that seemed to spend more time designing packaging?

Middle class people get very aerated about food choices, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Standing Joke about class & food
Working class - sausage, mash & gravy + pud with custard

Middle class - salt marsh lamb, samphire, polenta and a redcurrent jus

Upper class- sausage, mash & gravy + pud with custard

Are oat cakes what the uberposh call flapjack?

I fucking love flapjack.

I cook porridge on the stove every morning...adding spoonful of homemade fruit compote in the bowl. Oatcakes are not posh in Scotland, I think most kids eat them as snacks. We eat a bit of honey, I like the thought of the bees, is why I buy it...
We're not posh, but generally prefer homemade things to processed. I made pounds of bramble jelly this year - the bushes were groaning with fruit, everyone else was ignoring it!

argh food tech dont get me started on food tech

Custard creams are the toff food of choice.

I read 'Watching The English' and in that they pointed out how the very working class and upper upper class actually had quite a bit in common.

It's a really interesting book. I recommend.

Nutella is posh.

As is tomato soup. That's well fancy.

KingJoffrey at least Kate Fox acknowledges that large chunks of what she writes owe a big debt to Jilly Cooper's 'Class'.