673528

research-article2016
SOC0010.1177/0038038516673528SociologyFlemmen et al.

Article

Sociology
2018, Vol. 52(1) 128­–149
Class, Culture and Culinary © The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0038038516673528
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Contemporary Norway

Magne Flemmen
University of Oslo, Norway

Johs. Hjellbrekke
University of Bergen, Norway

Vegard Jarness
University of Bergen, Norway

Abstract
In this article we analyse class cultures by mapping out differences in ‘original taste’; that is,
respondents’ classed preferences for food and drink. By employing Multiple Correspondence
Analysis, we produce a relational model of tastes. Using three indicators of social class –
occupational class, income and education – we find clear class divisions. The upper and middle
classes exhibit diverse and what are typically regarded as ‘healthy’ tastes; this contrasts with
the more restricted and what are typically regarded as ‘less healthy’ tastes found among the
working classes. Our findings challenge ongoing debates within cultural stratification research
where it has become almost usual to demonstrate that the contemporary upper and middle
classes exhibit playful tastes for the ‘cosmopolitan’ and the ‘exotic’. We find that upper- and
middle-class households also enjoy very traditional foodstuffs. We argue that this illustrates a
need for a relational understanding of taste: even the consumption of the traditional peasant food
of pre-capitalist Norway can be refashioned as a badge of distinction in the 21st century.

Keywords
cosmopolitanism, egalitarianism, food, inequality, lifestyle, multiple correspondence analysis,
omnivore, status, stratification

Corresponding author:
Magne Flemmen, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Postboks 1096,
Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway.
Email: magne.flemmen@sosgeo.uio.no
Flemmen et al. 129

You are what you eat, or so the saying goes. But although cultural class analysis has
restored culture and lifestyle at heart of the analysis and theorisation of social class
(Reay et al., 2005; Savage, 2000; Savage et al., 2015; Skeggs, 2004), remarkably little
attention has been paid to food and eating practices in contemporary class analysis
(though see Holm, 2013). This is striking not only because food seems to be an arena
where new forms of cultural distinction are asserted (Johnston and Baumann, 2014), but
also because food practices are intertwined with classed feelings of worth and disgust
(Paddock, 2015; Pike and Kelly, 2014; Rhys-Taylor, 2013). The consumption of food
played a pivotal role in Bourdieu’s seminal account, Distinction (1984), but has mostly
been neglected in studies of cultural stratification in its wake. Researchers have been
more oriented towards culture in a narrow sense; for example, people’s preferences for
music, literature, the performing arts and museum-going. In this article, we offer a fresh
look at class cultures by mapping out culinary preferences – ‘the ultimate metaphorical
source of the concept of taste’ (Warde, 1997: 22).
With cultural class analysis largely focused on the UK, little is known about cultural
class divisions elsewhere, especially in the more egalitarian Scandinavian societies.
Although these countries are undoubtedly stratified by class, the particular manifesta-
tions and salience of the cultural components of class and the ramifications of such
remain understudied. Contemporary Norway is a particularly interesting case in that it is
a likely candidate for demonstrating weak connections between class and culture. It is a
comparatively egalitarian society, ranking as one of the least unequal OECD countries
(OECD, 2015). Norwegians themselves view their country as highly egalitarian, even
compared to the neighbouring social democracies (Hjellbrekke et al., 2015). Norway has
historically had a rather small, weak nobility, and a comparatively weak industrial bour-
geoisie, owing partly to the country being subjected to both Danish and Swedish rule up
through the ages (Sejersted, 1993). Moreover, Norway is a highly advanced capitalist
economy sharing many of the institutional traits that have been highlighted as weakening
class divisions, such as a universalist welfare state (Johansson and Hvinden, 2007).
The consumption of food and drink implies a range of activities and rituals that can be
distinguished analytically; for example, acquisition/purchase, storage, preparation, serv-
ing, eating/drinking, clearing, washing and disposal (Kjærnes, 2009: 29). As our focus
here is on households’ expenditure on food and drink, we would not claim that our analy-
sis represents an exhaustive account of food and drink consumption and culinary tastes.
We would, however, claim that our study represents one aspect that is: (a) highly relevant
to the question of lifestyle differentiation and its relatedness to social class, since what
people eat and drink in their daily lives is directly related to their health, and thus to their
life chances; (b) somewhat neglected in recent studies of class, culture and culinary
tastes which have been geared towards preferences for basic dinner dishes (Prieur et al.,
2008; Rosenlund, 2009), the practice of eating out (Bennett et al., 2009; Warde and
Martens, 2000), the discourse of food appreciation (Johnston and Baumann, 2014) and
the ways in which class boundaries are expressed in discussions of food practices
(Paddock, 2015).
To investigate the potentially classed nature of taste, two explorative research ques-
tions are addressed: what are the main lines of division in tastes for food and drink in
contemporary Norway; and, how are these differences related to social class divisions?
130 Sociology 52(1)

To map out tastes, a wide range of items need to be investigated and this places heavy
demands on the data and the method required. Accordingly, we draw on the unusually
rich and robust Survey of Consumer Expenditure 2012, gathered by Statistics Norway.
To incorporate a large number of items, we exploit the unique ability of Multiple
Correspondence Analysis (MCA) (Le Roux and Rouanet, 2010) to deal with a large
number of categorical variables. MCA allows one to map out inductively the relations
between a wide range of foodstuffs and beverages and represent them in maps that depict
the main differences in taste patterns. Having constructed and interpreted the structure of
the space of tastes for food and drink, we then ask how social class divisions relate to it.

Sociological Debates about Class, Culture and Culinary

Tastes
According to the influential, yet highly controversial, theory of individualisation pro-
posed by Beck (1992) and Giddens (1991), whatever coherence may be seen in the
life-choices of individuals is now reflexively created and maintained, as opposed to
emanating from tradition or class position. Mennell (1985), for instance, maintains that
the historical development that has led to increasing varieties of foodstuffs being avail-
able has been accompanied by diminishing social divisions. When faced with meticu-
lous empirical inquiries into the connection between class and contemporary food
consumption, however, such sweeping claims about individualisation, detraditionalisa-
tion and the demise of class have been seriously challenged (Warde, 1997; Warde and
Martens, 2000).
Recent debates in cultural class analysis have increasingly revolved around the model
advanced by Bourdieu (1984) in his seminal account of class differences in French soci-
ety in the 1960s and 1970s. Bourdieu has demonstrated how the system of class differ-
ences corresponds to a system of lifestyle differences. Within the space of food
consumption, Bourdieu has found distinct culinary tastes among the various classes and
class fractions. Whereas members of the upper classes in his study exhibited distinctive
tastes for ‘refined’ and light foodstuffs, members of the lower classes typically preferred
the heavy and substantial. According to Bourdieu, this revealed a fundamental, class-
structured division between a taste for the rare or exclusive (a ‘taste of freedom’), and, a
taste for the functional or practical (a ‘choice of the necessary’).
However, Bourdieu’s contribution has sparked controversy in terms of the role of
lifestyle differences in contemporary society. Some proponents of the ‘cultural omni-
vore’ thesis have argued that the broad and eclectic taste orientations found among recent
generations of the upper and middle classes indicate a blurring of class-structured cul-
tural distinctions (for overviews, see Hazir and Warde, 2016; Peterson, 2005). The figure
of the ‘highbrow snob’ who exclusively appreciates goods inaccessible to the general
public, they argue, is therefore increasingly losing prevalence in contemporary society.
Although not heralding the end of cultural distinction, the development towards omnivo-
rousness is regarded as indicating a marked historical shift in lifestyle differentiation.
In the case of culinary tastes, the notion of the omnivore is used to highlight a declin-
ing orientation towards ‘snobbish’ foodstuffs and cookery – particularly French haute
cuisine and its pivotal role in asserting social rank and status. Instead, it is argued, new
Flemmen et al. 131

forms of distinction are increasingly asserted through knowledgeable and playful ways
of straddling hierarchical divides; for example, by appreciating both gourmet food and
food with significant mass appeal, as well as by exploring the ‘exoticness’ and ‘authen-
ticity’ of ‘alternative’ and various ethnic cuisines (Johnston and Baumann, 2014;
Paddock, 2015; Rhys-Taylor, 2013).
Although the usual tendency within cultural stratification research is to frame find-
ings of omnivorousness as a rebuttal of Bourdieu’s model (see, for example, Chan, 2010;
Warde, 2011), there are several authors who have pointed out that this development was
foreshadowed, and even a central part of, Bourdieu’s initial advances (Holt, 1997;
Jarness, 2013; Lizardo and Skiles, 2015). Straddling hierarchical divides is in fact a key
feature of what Bourdieu has referred to as a ‘taste of freedom’ and a ‘sense of distinc-
tion’ typical of those rich in cultural capital (see, for example, Bourdieu, 1984: 261–317).
Indeed, Bourdieu regarded the capability to playfully appropriate ‘vulgar’ products as a
socially profitable one whereby the social meaning of such goods could be transformed.
In other words, Bourdieu’s thesis does not contend that the upper and middle classes only
appropriate a fixed set of ‘highbrow’ foodstuffs (e.g. French haute cuisine), while shun-
ning all things ‘lowbrow’ (e.g. ‘fast food’ and ‘junk food’). But it does contend that the
distribution of foodstuffs – no matter their content – is structured along class lines.
In our analysis below, we avoid the substantialist fallacy of assuming that cultural
class divisions necessarily involve a particular set of preferences for foodstuffs prede-
fined as ‘high’ or ‘low’. By applying an inductive, relational approach inspired by
Bourdieu, we construct a multidimensional space of food and drink consumption that
depicts a complex system of differences in respondents’ preferences for foodstuffs; we
then inspect the ways in which this space is structured along class divisions.

Culinary Distinctions in an Egalitarian Society

The most frequently cited studies of class and culinary distinctions have been con-
ducted in French, British and US contexts (e.g. Bennett et al., 2009; Bourdieu, 1984;
Johnston and Baumann, 2014; Mennell, 1985; Warde, 1997; Warde and Martens, 2000).
These countries are politically, institutionally and socio-culturally quite different from
Norway, a country not especially known for striking resource inequalities or refined,
gourmet traditions. A number of critics have thus contended that the ‘French’ model
advanced in Bourdieu’s Distinction does not apply to Norwegian society (see Skarpenes
and Sakslind, 2010).
Although Norway is still considered to be a social-democratic welfare regime (Esping-
Andersen, 1990), it has, like other advanced societies, undergone far-reaching, politi-
cally driven deregulation and privatisation in recent decades. This has significantly
affected the supply side of Norwegian food consumption. In addition, relaxing tax barri-
ers on imported food has made a greater variety of foodstuffs available to Norwegian
consumers. As pointed out by Kjærnes (2009), the role of people as consumers of food
has also changed: they appear to have been given more freedom and responsibility as
individuals by the government. However, such processes of deregulation are far from
universal. Norway has, in contrast to many other European countries, largely retained a
post-war standardised and national culture of food, protected by a paternalist welfare
132 Sociology 52(1)

state. Norwegians are still very much traditional in their eating habits, with meal patterns
typically consisting of two or three cold meals and, in contrast to many other European
countries, only one hot meal per day. Meat is the most common ingredient in hot meals
(Bugge and Døving, 2000) and cold meals typically involve bread. Lunch at school or
work typically consists of a matpakke (a packed lunch of sandwiches brought from
home), a tradition dating back to the 1930s (Kjærnes, 2009). Norway also tends to lag
behind other countries when it comes to global food trends: mass-produced foodstuffs
and their associated global chains tend to enter the Norwegian market much later than
other European markets. Cross-national comparative studies have also revealed that
Norwegians demonstrate a relatively low interest in ‘sustainable’ or ‘organic’ food (Niva
et al., 2014).
Because of little tradition for appreciating gourmet food, widespread egalitarian senti-
ments and the role of the social-democratic welfare state, Norway is a particularly inter-
esting case for assessing sociological claims about dwindling class cultures. Some
evidence suggests that the social structuring of food consumption and culinary tastes in
Norway is similar to that found elsewhere. Although few studies of food consumption
are framed in terms of class analysis, what and how people eat is indeed linked to their
income and education level (Bugge, 2015; Bugge and Almås, 2006; Bugge and Lavik,
2010; Skuland, 2015).

Measuring Social Class

Although social class is traditionally conceptualised as a product of the basic institu-
tional make-up of capitalism, recent contributions have explored the fruitfulness of stud-
ying social class in terms of the interplay of different forms of capital (Flemmen, 2013;
Savage et al., 2005, 2015). This draws on the way in which Bourdieu (1984) employed
the concepts of economic, cultural and social capital to unpack the idea that class divi-
sions are not just economic, although they most certainly are, but that education, cultural
competence and social connections also constitute important forms of privilege.
We see class as manifested in the distribution of these forms of capital. We measure
social class by using the Oslo Register Data Class scheme – ORDC (Hansen et al., 2009).
Originally devised for the Norwegian administrative records, this class scheme uses
occupation and income to capture hierarchical class differences – upper, upper-middle,
lower-middle and working class – and horizontal divisions as differences in the composi-
tion of capital, the relative weight of one’s cultural versus one’s economic capital. Thus,
the structure of the class scheme mimics the model of the social space proposed by
Bourdieu (1984: 128–129).
The ORDC scheme is constructed using mostly occupational data, but also informa-
tion about income. First, the main structure is constructed by sorting occupations into
different classes and fractions. Second, we use information about income as a measure of
economic capital to differentiate between the upper and middle classes in the economic
fraction. Operationally, this means that the fractions best endowed with economic capital
are hierarchically differentiated according to their total amount of income (wages, capital
gains and income from self-employment).1 Unfortunately, a similar logic cannot be used
for the other fractions: cultural capital is more central to their social position, but we do
Flemmen et al. 133

Cultural upper (3.4%) Symmetric upper (8.7%) Economic upper (3.1%)

Professors, artists, musicians, Doctors, judges, dentists,
directors, publishing editors politicians, private
engineers, psychologists
Cultural upper middle (2.8%) Symmetric upper middle
Teachers with a BA, librarians, (16.8%)
journalists, musicians in Consultants, engineers,
entertainment special nurses,
physiotherapists
Cultural lower middle (5.2%) Symmetric lower middle
Teachers, primary school (8.7%)
teachers, social workers Nurses, authorised social
educators, chefs, machinists
Skilled workers (19.5%)
Auxiliary nurse, milieu therapist (somewhat similar to social workers), electricians
Top 5% executives,
managers in the private
sector, financial brokers
Economic upper middle
(5.4%)
Executives, managers in
the private sector, financial
brokers
Economic lower middle
(9.5%)
Bottom 80% executives,
managers, financial brokers,
accountants

Unskilled workers (14.1%)

Assistants, cleaners, private security officers, caretaker, drivers, waiters

Primary sector (2.8%)

Farmers, foresters, agricultural workers

Figure 1.  The ORDC scheme with examples of occupations. Weighted valid percentages.

not have the direct measure necessary for an analogous operation. We assign a class posi-
tion to the household by using the occupation of the main income earner. The class
scheme is shown in Figure 1, with examples of occupations and weighted percentages.

Data, Method and Analytical Strategy

Statistics Norway’s Survey of Consumer Expenditure 2012 was distributed to a repre-
sentative sample of all Norwegian households (N = 6875) (SSB, 2013). The response rate
was 48.9 per cent, resulting in a net sample of 3363 households. The survey comprised
data on household expenditure, including housing, transport, durable consumer goods
and food. The expenditure was recorded according to respondents’ receipts, for example
from grocery store purchases. Defection weights corrected for skew arising from non-
responses in terms of household type, the age of the respondent and region, as well as the
time of year the expenditure was recorded (Holmøy and Lillegård, 2014).
Our analysis is limited to expenditure on food and drink, and the sample is restricted
to households where the main breadwinner is aged 24–76. Cases with missing values for
several expenditure variables have also been excluded. After filtering, the sample con-
sists of 2708 households.2 Education level is measured by the official Norwegian
Standard Classification of Education (SSB, 2001) for the person in the household who
completed the survey.3 Data on occupation and social class are measured for the house-
hold’s main breadwinner. Income is measured as total household income, combining
134 Sociology 52(1)

wages/salaries, self-employed and capital income. When using the weights calculated by
Statistics Norway that produced the data, our analysis is representative of the national
population and can therefore serve as a basis for drawing inferences about all Norwegian
households (for further details, see Holmøy and Lillegård, 2014).
Our analytical strategy is inspired by Bourdieu’s relational approach to the social
structuring of lifestyles. According to this approach, there is no inherent, substantive
meaning ascribed to a particular consumer product: it is understandable in relation to all
others. The interpretation of the classed nature of a taste for whisky, champagne, Chinese
food, mineral water and salad (distinctive of the upper class) owes everything to its
opposition to a taste for Pernod, sparkling white wine, bacon, pasta and potatoes (distinc-
tive of the lower class) (Bourdieu, 1984: 128–129). A remarkable feature of this approach
is the intrinsic affinity between the theorisation of the classed nature of lifestyles and the
method to study it with; that is, between the idea of a relational structuring of the social
world and the relational properties of MCA, ‘a relational technique of data analysis
whose philosophy corresponds exactly to what, in my view, the reality of the social
world is’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 96).
To construct a space of food and beverage consumption, we use Specific MCA, a
statistical technique that provides a geometric model of categorical data by revealing and
visually representing latent structures or oppositions in a dataset (Le Roux and Rouanet,
2010). The chi-square distances between the row/column categories in the data matrix or
table are calculated, the oppositions between the row or column categories maximised
and the latent structures or axes that best describe the oppositions between the row or
column categories are revealed. Unlike Principal Component Analysis (PCA), MCA
does not assume that the variables follow a multivariate normal distribution, or that the
associations between the variables are linear.
The detailed interpretation is based on information about two clouds of points: a cloud
of categories that represents difference and similarity between categories of the active
variables, and a cloud of cases that reflects difference and similarity between the cases
(see Figure A1 and A2 in the online Appendix). Categories that tend to ‘share’ many of
the same cases will be located in proximity to each other, and categories with no or only
a few cases in common will be located far away from each other. Similarly, two cases or
households with similar response profiles will be located close to each other, and cases
with very different profiles distant from each other. In this way, each point’s position in
the cloud must be interpreted in relation to all the other points belonging to the same
cloud.
Our resultant food space will thus represent the main divisions in the relative expendi-
ture patterns. The oppositions within this space are summed up by the principal axes.
Axis 1 describes the most dominant opposition, Axis 2 the second most dominant, etc.
The meaning of the axes is determined by interpreting the difference between the catego-
ries at each pole, with special emphasis given to categories with contributions above
average – so-called explicative points (for applications of MCA, see Hjellbrekke et al.,
2015; Le Roux et al., 2008).
So as not to inscribe an economic hierarchy directly into the space, the variables are
relativised according to the household’s total expenditure on food and beverages.
Accordingly, the variables are more readily interpretable as indicating consumption
Flemmen et al. 135

preferences, and not just the volume of consumption or purchasing power. Moreover, the
variables are categorised because this allows one to use MCA to reveal the dimensions in
the space; it also prevents some strongly skewed variables from destabilising the out-
come of the analysis. The number of categories varies from two to five, depending on the
distributions of the original variables. Some items are purchased only by a minority of
households and have therefore been coded as binary variables. For variables with higher
variance, we differentiate between no, very low or low, medium, high or very high con-
sumption. We analyse 65 variables with 231 active categories between them. Table 1
shows the number of variables (‘Q’) and categories (‘K’) organised by thematic block,
along with their weighted marginal distribution.4
Once the structure of the food space is established, we then investigate how the struc-
ture of the food space relates to social divisions. We apply indicators of social class and
indicators of capital possessions as supplementary variables. These variables do not
affect the structure of the space but are projected onto it. The mean position of any sup-
plementary category is a function of its distribution across the active categories in the
space. This procedure has been described as ‘visual regression analysis’ (Lebart et al.,
1984: 104), where, in our case, the food space is the ‘independent’ and social class the
‘dependent’ variable. If two supplementary categories are located in distance from each
other, their profiles across the active set are also clearly different. The deviation between
two categories along an axis can be described as notable if it is above 0.5, and as large if
it is above 1.0 (Le Roux and Rouanet, 2010: 59).5

The Space of Food and Beverage Consumption

With three axes we can account for 80.0 per cent of the variance in the original varia-
bles.6 Axis 1 is clearly the strongest dimension, summarising 62.0 per cent, with Axes 2
and 3 summarising 11.0 and 7.0 per cent respectively (see Table 2). Contributions of the
groups of variables are listed in Table 3.
The first axis distinguishes between eclectic and restricted tastes. It may be inter-
preted as a general axis, insofar as it is more or less equally shaped by all groups of vari-
ables. Figure 2 depicts the 79 explicative points – points with a contribution higher than
the average contribution, for Axis 1 (see Table A1 in the online Appendix for details).
The axis primarily distinguishes between the high consumption of a varied set of food
and beverages, found to the left of the map, and strongly restricted consumption patterns,
found to the right. On the left of the map, we find preferences for a wide range of basic
items (tea, butter, ketchup, bacon), global, mass food items (pasta, pizza, diet soda), tra-
ditional items, once staples of the Norwegian peasant diet (smoked salmon, meat balls,
oatmeal, swede), as well as some fairly rare items (speciality flour bought at health food
stores, cloudberries).
The very opposite of this highly eclectic consumption of foodstuffs can be found on
the right side of Axis 1, where we find categories indicating no consumption of a range
of items (juice, peas, tomato, candy), as well as categories indicating the high consump-
tion of basic items (jam, carrots, sour milk). Thus, on the right side of the axis we find
strikingly more restricted consumption patterns than the eclectic pattern to the left of the
axis. This restricted orientation in food consumption is indicative of what Bourdieu
 136
Table 1.  Variables used for the construction of the space of food and beverages, organised by block. Number of categories per variable. Q
denotes the number of variables per block, K the number of categories. Weighted percentages.
Meat Fish Dairy Vegetables Fruit, berries Various Snacks Alcohol Other Carbohydrates, Cheese, ‘Junk food’
Q=7 Q=8 products Q=9 Q=5 Q=6 Q=5 Q=4 beverages cereals spread Q=2
K=22 K=22 Q=6 K=36 K=18 K=20 K=20 K=14 Q=5 Q=6 Q=2 K=8
K=23 K=19 K=22 K=7

Beef Cod Sour milk Brussels Melon Olive oil Cocoa Cognac Tea Oatmeal Gamalost Chips
(frozen) sprouts

0 83.3 0 92.6 0 76.2 0 91.5 0 38,1 0 93.0 0 92.8 0 91.5 0 83.2 0 87.7 0 83.4 0 40.5
1 11.0 1 7.4 1 18.6 1 8.5 1 11.4 1 7.0 1 7.2 1 8.5 1 6.7 1 8.3 1 10.4 1 5.7
2 5.6 2 5.2 2 25.8 2 10.1 2 4.0 2 6.2 2 45.2
  3 19.8 3 8.6
  4 4.9  

Mutton Fish Skimmed Swede Strawberries Potato mash Cake, muffin Beer (lager) Juice Rice Jam Frozen
(steak) (frozen milk (powder) pizza
filet)

0 95.4 0 85.0 0 77.8 0 78.6 0 77.7 0 86.9 0 60.1 0 46.2 0 32.3 0 83.2 0 50.6 0 65.7
1 4.6 1 10.3 1 17.2 1 16.4 1 10.8 1 13.1 1 14.6 1 19.7 1 30.7 1 11.9 1 24.8 1 6.0
  2 4.7 2 5.0 2 5.0 2 11.5 2 17.3 2 9.4 2 24.4 2 4.9 2 18.0  
  3 8.0 3 11.9 3 9.6 3 6.6  
4 12.8

Mutton Fish Semi- Vegetables Raspberries Ketchup Biscuits Red wine Bouillon Other cereals  
(other) (frozen) skimmed (ready meal)
milk

0 94.8 0 87.6 0 24.5 0 85.6 0 88.9 0 60.5 0 70.0 0 74.5 0 40.4 0 76.9  
1 5.2 1 7.8 1 36.1 1 14.4 1 11.1 1 10.0 1 5.2 1 4.9 1 27.6 1 8.9  
  2 4.6 2 27.8 2 21.9 2 17.3 2 13.9 2 14.9 2 9.7  
  3 7.6 3 7.6 3 7.0 3 6.7 3 17.1 3 4.5  
  4 4.0  

(Continued)
Sociology 52(1)
Table 1. (Continued)
Flemmen et al.

Meat balls Herring Yoghurt Onion, leek Cloudberries Spices Candy White wine Soda (diet) Flour  
(health food)

0 76.4 0 95.3 0 39.5 0 39.3 0 84.4 0 65.5 0 26.3 0 86.3 0 65.0 0 77.5  
1 8.7 1 4.7 1 36.0 1 32.4 1 10.3 1 9.5 1 32.5 1 3.9 1 8.5 1 8.9  
2 9.7 2 19.5 2 22.4 2 5.3 2 18.2 2 27.5 2 9.8 2 11.2 2 8.9  
3 5.2 3 5.0 3 5.9 3 6.8 3 8.4 3 15.3 3 4.7  
  4 5.3  

Bacon Smoked Butter Carrots Nuts, peanuts Bread Chocolate, Liqueur Pasta  
salmon (wholewheat) confectionary extract

0 68.6 0 83.8 0 61.9 0 37.2 0 53.0 0 56.0 0 26.0 0 67.9 0 63.3  

1 15.4 1 10.3 1 10.6 1 19.6 1 3.7 1 10.7 1 26.2 1 13.9 1 13.1  
2 10.5 2 5.9 2 19.7 2 20.5 2 20.0 2 19.0 2 29.7 2 13.5 2 13.8  
3 5.5 3 7.8 3 16.1 3 15.0 3 14.3 3 13.9 3 4.7 3 9.8  
  4 6.6 4 8.3 4 4.2  

Meat patty Salmon Dairy Tomatoes Basic goods1 Flatbread  

(various)

0 78.7 0 75.9 0 64.8 0 32.9 0 22.5 0 57.9  

1 11.0 1 9.1 1 14.2 1 15.1 1 25.7 1 15.5  
2 10.3 2 15.0 2 12.3 2 30.3 2 32.3 2 16.2  
  3 8.7 3 15.5 3 19.5 3 10.4  
  4 6.2  
137
 138

Table 1. (Continued)
Poultry Shellfish Lettuce  
(various)

0 50.1 0 84.9 0 43.8  

1 20.1 1 15.1 1 9.3  
2 17.6 2 20.1  
3 12.2 3 21.7  
  4 5.1  

  Sardines Peas, beans  

  0 62.6 0 29.4  
  1 8.9 1 14.0  
  2 20.9 2 25.8  
  3 7.6 3 24.2  
  4 6.6  

  Cauliflower,  
broccoli

  0 55.3  
  1 13.7  
  2 22.9  
  3 8.0  

Note: 1 Includes two types of bread, ham, whole milk, margarine, two types of white cheese and potatoes.
Sociology 52(1)
Flemmen et al. 139

Table 2.  Variance of axes, modified and cumulated modified rates.

Axis Eigenvalue Percentage Modified Cumulated

rates modified rates
Axis 1 0.0958 3.8 62.0 62.0
Axis 2 0.0492 1.9 11.0 73.0
Axis 3 0.0423 1.7  7.0 80.0

Table 3.  Contribution from 12 blocks to total inertia, to Axes 1–3.

Total inertia Axis 1 Axis 2 Axis 3

Meat 9.2 10.0 3.4 5.0
Fish 8.6 6.1 6.6 3.2
Dairy products 10.3 8.9 4.6 15.9
Vegetables 16.5 21.0 46.8 6.1
Fruit and berries 7.9 7.3 13.4 3.8
Various 8.6 5.9 2.7 5.5
Snacks 9.1 8.5 5.5 12.5
Alcohol 6.0 5.5 2.9 23.5
Other beverages 8.6 8.3 5.0 10.3
Carbohydrates 9.7 10.6 2.9 8.9
/cereals
Cheese, spread, etc. 3.0 3.3 2.1 0.8
‘Junk food’ 2.5 4.6 4.1 4.5
Total 100 100 100 100

(1984: 372–396) has referred to as ‘the choice of the necessary’: a taste for foodstuffs
that are functional and satiating, and a corresponding rejection of luxuries.
Our second axis represents a divide between healthy and unhealthy foodstuffs. The
axis is clearly linked to the consumption of vegetables, fruit, berries and nuts: almost 60
per cent of the contributions to the axis stem from these variables. Figure 3 depicts the
61 categories with the highest contributions to Axis 2. Categories indicating high/very
high or no consumption of tomatoes, peas and cauliflower stand out with far higher con-
tributions than the others (see Table A2 in the online Appendix). Strikingly, the axis
polarises tastes finely attuned to the nutritional guidelines provided by the World Health
Organisation (WHO, 2002) and the Norwegian National Council for Nutrition (NCFN,
2011), and tastes that are not (see Skuland, 2015). At the top of the map, we find catego-
ries indicating the high consumption of what these agencies typically regard as healthy
food items (various types of fish and seafood, vegetables, fruit, berries, nuts), as well as
no consumption of items typically regarded as unhealthy (soda, beer, chocolate, chips).
Interestingly, we also find preferences for items indicative of the traditional Norwegian
food culture (flatbread, cloudberries, smoked salmon, gamalost),7 indicating that the
consumption of healthy foodstuffs goes hand in hand with items once staples of
Norwegian husmannskost – traditional, locally produced peasant food.8
At the bottom of the map we find categories indicating the high consumption of what
the agencies referred to above consider to be less healthy food and beverages (processed
140 Sociology 52(1)

Figure 2.  Explicative points (categories with contribution above average) for Axis 1.

meat products, frozen pizza, beer, artificially sweetened soda and cognac). Moreover, the
category points for little or no consumption of fruit and vegetables are also found in the
lower quadrants, meaning that those who typically prefer unhealthy foodstuffs also have
a strong tendency to avoid healthy foodstuffs.
Our third axis distinguishes between types of unhealthy tastes. The axis is linked to the
consumption of alcohol, other beverages, various snacks and dairy products. Figure 4
shows the 83 categories with the highest contributions to Axis 3. Categories indicating
relatively high expenditure on red wine, white wine, beer and cognac all make high con-
tributions to the axis. These categories are located at the bottom of the map, clearly sepa-
rate from the others. At the top of the map, we find the relatively high consumption of
dairy products, biscuits, pasta and bread, as well as items typically considered ‘junk food’
(artificially sweetened soda, chocolate and frozen pizza). The axis describes a division
between two lifestyles that are typically considered unhealthy, although in different ways:
at the lower pole of the axis, alcohol dominates, whereas products with a high content of
fat, sugar and other forms of carbohydrates dominate at the upper pole of the axis.

Classed Tastes
We assess whether and how these divisions in taste relate to social divisions by project-
ing measures of class – income, education and occupational class – onto the space and
then inspecting the distances between the categories of these class variables. The
Flemmen et al. 141

Figure 3.  Explicative points for Axis 2.

greater the distances, the more marked the association between taste and social divi-
sions. Axis 1 (the axis that separates an eclectic taste for foodstuffs from a considera-
bly more restricted taste) is unsurprisingly associated with the size of the household.
Moving from the left to the right in Figure 5, the size of the household systematically
increases, one-person households being the most restricted and five-person households
the most eclectic. The distance between the category points is very large: above 1.5
SDs, which indicates that Axis 1 is strongly related to household size. Figure 5 shows
that Axis 1 is also structured according to the volume of economic capital, as measured
by the household’s total income. Categories indicating high volumes of economic cap-
ital systematically contrast with low volumes of economic capital. The rank order is
consistent and very clear. The distance between the highest and the lowest category
points is also very large: 1.3 SDs. Although it is obvious that household income
increases according to household size, there are important economic differences within
the household categories. When inspecting the concentration ellipses around each
mean category point of the various household sizes, they indicate that each category is
142 Sociology 52(1)

Figure 4.  Explicative points for Axis 3.

internally differentiated according to the households’ income.9 Thus, Axis 1 cannot be

viewed as structured solely by household size.
Axis 2 (that separates healthy and unhealthy foodstuffs) is more clearly connected to
social class divisions. As is evident in Figure 5, the axis describes a systematic division
between high and low education levels. Even though the rank order is less consistent
than for the income variable, the distance between the highest and the lowest education
level (five years or more at university versus Grunnskole (lower secondary school)) is
still above 0.70 SDs. This is well above the threshold for a notable distance and indicates
that Axis 2 is notably related to education.
Moreover, as is clearly evident in Figure 6, the occupational class differences are primar-
ily related to Axis 2. The upper- and upper-middle-class categories are located in the upper
region of the space, whereas the lower-middle and the working-class categories are located
in the lower region. The distance between the category points most drawn to each pole
Flemmen et al. 143

Figure 5.  Income deciles, education levels and household size, factorial plane 1–2.

(cultural upper-middle class versus primary sector) is clear: 0.9 SDs. This means that the
principal class divisions in our food space run between the healthy and the not-so-healthy.10
Moreover, as we may remember, the orientation towards healthy foodstuffs is combined
with an orientation towards rare items once staples of traditional Norwegian husmannskost.
This upper-class combination of foodstuffs is indicative of a playful mode of food appro-
priation that is typically oriented towards ‘authentic’ gastronomic experiences (Johnston and
Baumann, 2014), or what Bourdieu (1984: 177–183) has referred to as a ‘taste of freedom’.
Similar to the way in which upper-class consumers typically combine legitimate cultural
products (e.g. canonised literary works) with ‘vulgar’ and as yet uncanonised cultural prod-
ucts (e.g. comics or whodunits), our analysis reveals a playful combining of foodstuffs legit-
imised as ‘healthy’ by governmental institutions on the one hand, and, on the other, traditional
Norwegian peasant foodstuffs that until recently were not associated with upper- and mid-
dle-class consumers (Øygard, 2000). Against the backdrop of globalised food trends cele-
brating ‘the exoticness’ of ethnically diverse cuisines, a reappropriation of traditional
Norwegian husmannskost can be seen as a logical next step for contemporary cutting-edge
‘foodies’ and ‘gourmets’ hailing from upper- and middle-class positions.
Finally, Axis 3 (which separates two different types of unhealthy taste) is associated
with household size. Figure 7 clearly depicts a division between one- and two-person
households oriented towards the relatively high consumption of intoxicants on the one
hand, and, on the other, multi-person households more oriented towards foodstuffs with
high fat and sugar content. The distance between one-person households and five-person
households is above 1.0 SDs and thus shows a strong division.
144 Sociology 52(1)

Figure 6.  Occupational class categories, factorial plane 1–2.

Figure 7.  Household size, factorial plane 1–3.

Flemmen et al. 145

Concluding Discussion
Our contribution adds to the growing body of literature documenting systematic taste dif-
ferences between social classes (e.g. Bennett et al., 2009; Le Roux et al., 2008; Savage
et al., 2015). The divisions in one’s tastes for food and beverages are clearly connected to
social class divisions: upper- and upper-middle-class households endowed with large
amounts of economic and cultural capital consume healthily and eclectically, whereas the
opposite is true of the lowest regions of the class structure. In other words, we find classed
tastes for food and beverages – an important aspect of broader class cultures. Finding
class differences where they are arguably less likely to be found – in relative expenditure,
in an egalitarian, affluent, social-democratic welfare state – indicates that the cultural
force of social class divisions is much more entrenched than has often been assumed.
However, class-taste hierarchies are not static. Insofar as the upper classes are oriented
towards the rare and unusual, it seems logical that the foodstuffs consumed by them will
change over time. Indeed, if French haute cuisine and other forms of legitimate cuisines
are increasingly consumed by a larger segment of the population, the badge of rarity for
the upper classes will be lost. As shown in recent studies, however, culinary distinction is
increasingly asserted by the consumption of new and ‘alternative’ foodstuffs (Paddock,
2015), as well as by knowledgeable and playful ways of appreciating foodstuffs previ-
ously shunned by the upper classes – particularly ethnically diverse cuisines now consid-
ered ‘authentic’ and ‘exotic’ (Johnston and Baumann, 2014). As suggested by Prieur and
Savage (2013), ‘cosmopolitan’ ways of life increasingly function as an embodied form of
cultural capital in the upper classes.
Our analysis adds an interesting insight into this playful and eclectic mode of asserting
culinary distinction. Although the upper and middle classes undoubtedly still indulge in
the cosmopolitan ‘eating of the Other’ – appreciating ‘exotic’ and ‘authentic’ foodstuffs
and dishes originating from the ethnic and cultural Other (Hage, 1997; hooks, 1992;
Johnston and Baumann, 2014) – we have revealed a distinct orientation towards food-
stuffs once part of Norwegian husmannskost: traditional, locally produced peasant food.
While local food traditions may be more relevant in Norway than in other European coun-
tries, this orientation nevertheless seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon among the
upper classes. Using data from the 1990s, Øygard (2000) found that traditional Norwegian
food was not a distinctive part of the upper-class diet. Our findings, however, suggest that
new forms of culinary distinction are not only asserted by embracing the cosmopolitan
(i.e. ethnically diverse and ‘exotic’ foodstuffs), but that even the traditional peasant food
of pre-capitalist Norway can be refashioned as a badge of distinction in the 21st century.
When the traditional is reappropriated by the upper classes, and assembled with foreign
foodstuffs and dishes, the very meaning of ‘the traditional’ is removed from its original
social context – and thus conveys new meanings. The upper-class consumption of items
like swede, flatbread and gamalost in contemporary Norwegian society is sociologically
different from the peasant consumption of the same items a century, or even decades, ago.
A class-structured divide between the cosmopolitan/unconventional/global and the
national/traditional/local should in other words not be overstated. Our findings highlight
the need to distinguish analytically between the relational social structuring of taste, and
the particular foodstuffs implied in these relations. In order to remain a gourmet of dis-
tinction, one must be the first to embrace new and rare foodstuffs and dishes when they
146 Sociology 52(1)

are introduced to the market, and one must swiftly abandon products that are about to
trickle down to the undistinguished. To grasp this sociologically crucial dynamic in taste
differentiation, one must avoid the analytical reification involved in regarding particular
foodstuffs as intrinsically distinguished or undistinguished. The social meaning of food
and beverages is continuously renegotiated, so that the social distinctiveness of particu-
lar objects needs to be explored inductively, and should not be decided by the researcher
in a priori classifications of objects. Our analysis thus casts further doubt on the method-
ology implied by much research into ‘cultural omnivorousness’, which is very often
based on pre-constructed notions of ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ culture, combined with
very crude measures of preferences and tastes. It also highlights the value of using MCA
to map the connections between taste divisions and social divisions, as the structure of
taste divisions is mapped inductively from the data.
Our results also point to stability in the classed divide between healthy and not-so-
healthy tastes, a pattern that is frequently demonstrated across contexts. Upper- and mid-
dle-class households appear to be finely attuned to official nutritional guidelines provided
by the WHO (2002) and other agencies, whereas working-class respondents seem to sys-
tematically disobey them. Although this apparent refusal to obey official nutritional guide-
lines may certainly be interpreted as a kind of autonomy and perhaps even as a countercultural
attitude by the working class (Maguire, 2016), evidence suggests that there are several
unintended consequences linked to this. As shown elsewhere in a study based on qualita-
tive interviews, upper- and middle-class interviewees clearly distance themselves from the
‘unhealthy’ and ‘vulgar’ food and drink preferences of the working classes (Jarness, 2013).
A combination of aesthetic and moral judgements is assembled against working-class peo-
ple, expressing clear symbolic boundaries between the classes. Thus, practising lifestyles
considered to be unhealthy and vulgar can lead to exclusion from the symbolic community
of upper- and middle-class culture. Certain types of diets and eating habits involve some
heavy symbolic baggage, in addition to the obvious physiological effects.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or
not-for-profit sectors.

Notes
  1. For the conversion of ISCO-08 to ISCO-88, we have used Ganzeboom and Treiman’s (2014)
conversion tools. The ISCO-syntax for the ORDC scheme can be found at www.sv.uio.no/iss/
english/research/projects/ordc/documentation/ordc_isco.txt.
  2. The weighted N = 4801.06.
  3. For 77.6 per cent of the cases, this is the main income earner. For the remainder, it is person
2 of the household, of which 87.8 per cent is the spouse or cohabiter. Regrettably, the dataset
does not allow us to use only the education level of the main income earner.
  4. A category’s contribution to the total inertia = (Kq − 1)/(K − Q), where Kq = the number of
categories in the variable the category belongs to, K = the total number of active categories
and Q = the total number of active variables.
  5. A distance of 1.0 in the cloud of categories equals a distance of 1.0 standard deviations (SDs)
between the same mean category points in the cloud of individuals.
  6. These figures refer to rates of Benzecri’s modified eigenvalues, as the raw eigenvalues of
MCA underestimate the quality of the solution.
Flemmen et al. 147

  7. A distinctive Norwegian semi-soft cheese made from skimmed cow’s milk. It was once a
staple of Norwegian diet, but is not produced in mass quantities today. It even has its own
festival in Vik: the Gamalostfestivalen.
  8. We use the term ‘traditional’ to distinguish locally produced foodstuffs once staples of the
Norwegian peasant diet from more recent imported and globalised foodstuffs made available
to Norwegian consumers. For a discussion of the term ‘traditional’, as well as lay notions of
what constitutes traditional food products in different national contexts, see Guerrero et al.
(2009).
  9. Results available on request.
10. Our indicators of social class are only weakly associated with Axis 3.

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Magne Flemmen is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Human
Geography, University of Oslo.
Johs. Hjellbrekke is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Bergen and Director
of The Norwegian University Center in Paris/FMSH.
Vegard Jarness is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of
Bergen.

Date submitted February 2016

Date accepted August 2016