From polenta to lemons: the everyday foods demonised by Britain’s class

wars
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/02/food-choices-proxy-class-britain

Jonathan Nunn 2 October 2021

Displaying threads 101 to 200 of 553

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I remember when olive oil was what you cleaned inside your ear with. The thought of eating it never crossed our minds.

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And you bought it at the chemist

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You still can!

The root of the problem is this irrational, intense, and inexplicable loathing you must feel against anything labelled middle
class if you want to be taken seriously as being with the working class. Equally astonishing is the fascinating fondness
some of the working class show towards the real toffs.

I often liken the modern attitude towards food as cannibalism. Because the cannibal eats the parts of his killed foe in
order to gain his abilities and strength.
These days, 'you are what you eat'. Although we all take up more nutrition and vitamins than we need, people make a
religion from what to eat. In order to feel good, grow 100 years old, stay beautiful etc etc. Ridiculous, imho.
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British class denominators are indeed at times amazing.

When I open my mouth in my vernacular, some people will be able to tell where I hail from, in fact quite precisely,
because diction tends to vary on the two sides of our village stream.

However, when Brits acquire some of our (classless) food, the fun starts.

Let me take the one food that I am most familiar with: Müesli, derived from 'Mues', English mash. Brits inevitably call it
'muesli', which in our ears sounds ridiculous, denoting a little mouse, or in the Scottish bard's version a mousie. Our
mouse is pronounced the same way as in Old English, mus, with a long -u-; hence müsli, for a little mouse. Müesli is
something quite different. Take maize and mice in English.

This may sound entirely off subject to English ears. But it is not. The inventor, Bircher-Benner, was a local lad, moreover
the grandfather of one of my (retired) colleagues. His aspirations were entirely classless, although he later founded his
famous clinic in Zurich, where VIPs of his time were treated for assorted symptoms like constipation etc.

He had made a smart guess. The craze of his time was to kill bacteria in food by cooking it, Louis Pasteur style. Bircher-
Benner guessed that some important elements in the food were lacking after pasteurisation, a very smart guess, as it
turned out. They were later called vitamins.

Bircher-Benner advocated raw carrots, wholemeal cereals, uncooked apples, all sorts of vegetables, to be consusmed
raw. And he provided parents with simple, cheap tools to prepare them, particularly for baby food, the so-called Bircher-
Raffel, a grating iron to prepare baby food, or a glass 'Raffel' with teeth at the top and a rill below to prepare raw apples
for babies. They were hygienic, easy to wash. My mother used them for us, in the runup to the war, during the war, and
often watched her prepare my younger brother's baby food after the war.

All this was very important in the years of rationing and food shortages. It was helped along by the fact that we all ate
wholemeal brown bread throughout the war years, and the surgeon general warned in 1945 that a return to pre-war white
bread might cause vitamin deficiencies.
I do not recall a single case of rickets of the sort described by Stephen Spender in "An Elementary School Classroom in
a Slum".

And needless to say, Müesli went alongside a classless state education alotted according to merit, in my case at the
school where the son of a bankrupted German who had banked on the wrong type of electricity was awarded his
'Matura', then went to the Swiss Polytechnic, where he developed the post-Newtonian physics that British scientists
(Arthur Eddington et al) confirmed by their observations and measurements in the solar eclipse of 1919.

That imported food should denote class in Britain is one of the most absurd aspects of the British class system which has
done so much damage to society, ever since 1066, I suppose.
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This article began as interesting cultural commentary but the whiff of an emerging anti-Brexit diatrbe grew stronger and
stronger until it became overpowering in the final paragraph.
Spare a thought for traditional northern scoff. Imagine the burden on the treasury if mediterranean diets ever triumphed
in the north, and its residents all ended up living as long as Spaniards! And with the triple lock pension to boot!
Guaranteed bankruptcy. Not on your nelly. Long live lardy cake and bangers and mash.

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«the whiff of an emerging anti-Brexit diatribe grew stronger and stronger»

That whiff is overlaid with an even stronger taste of "class war" thinking, where J. Nunn seems to assume that most
of the working class is immigrants from far away places:

«it would be less “gammon, pie and mash and ale”, and more “ackee, pierogi and shatkora”.»

That is a standard neoliberal attitude, based on the assumption that there are few working class "native english"
people left in the UK, because nearly all "native english" have become thanks to Thatcher and Blair property
owning middle class (except incorrigible "losers" that is), and therefore :

* What happens to the working class should be of no concern to "native english" voters.
* More immigration means higher rents and lower wages only for other immigrants.

Which are pretty standard neoliberal arguments.

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I love satire
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Except grouse, that is. That will always be Tory.

Not where I grew up.

We had it as a regular food item, liberated by my uncles - along with the odd salmon - from Lord Bawbag's estate.

Iona ... well that's not Pontins.

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It’s beautiful and peaceful so definitely not Pontins.

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Pontins? Better with Butlitz !

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Better whisky too.

Courgettes were posh once. Just baby marrows with a fancy French name at a fancy price. We got used to them, and
now hardly anyone lets marrows grow big (which pleases me: can't stand the nasty tasteless watery things.)
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Even when I was a child in the workhouse, going up chimneys, and having to pick a pocket or two, we had a drizzle of
lemon on our pancakes with a sprinkling of sugar on pancake day.
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In speaking with our local food bank about which fresh vegetables our community garden can grow specifically to donate
to the food bank, the manager explained that exotic vegetables weren't picked up by those in need of free food. They'll
pick up fresh potatoes, onions, carrots but fresh salad greens and courgettes remain on the shelves.

This leads me to believe that we all have different relationships with food that have nothing to do with price or class.
People like or dislike certain foods no matter what the cost, even if it's free.

It also indicates that education on healthy eating needs to be aggressively pursued among demographics most likely to
experience deprivation.

Class has nothing to do with food. It's just another 'us Vs them' clickbait distraction tool.

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You are assuming that they refused those vegetable because they don't like them and not because they've never
tried them. And availability and variety of fresh veg is very much an issue.

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Why is obesity more prevalent amongst the working classes? It's a question that needs honest appraisal before you
can even start to solve the general problem of obesity...

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The food bank manager tells me what people want and what gets left on the shelves and therefore thrown away
uneaten, despite being free.

I suggested that our garden can grow high yield veg for the food bank year round, lettuce, spinach, etc but the
manager specifically said they have to throw away most salads as food bank customers don't want them. Very eye
opening.
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Why is obesity more prevalent amongst the working classes?

That's not really true is it?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adult-obesity-prevalence-by-national-statistics-socio-economic-
classification

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We were told, by the person collecting, that any sort of tinned fish, except tuna, was a no-no in the food bank. Even
good old sardine tins (remember those?) were left on the shelf.

What she told us were most in demand, were tins of meat. At which I gave a sigh. We don't buy meat for
ourselves, so we don't buy meat in any form for the food bank. Hypocrisy or an ethical dilemma? Should I impose
my middle-class values on those less well-off?

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But from that conversation you've deduced that it is because they don't like the veg offered.

Bearing in mind that what you get from a food bank will be restricted probably best to get something that will be
eaten when put on the table, don't you think?

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Many of the low income people I've spoken to don't have access to proper kitchens and are often reliant solely on
microwaves so cooking isn't really an option. A cheap meal of lentils and veg isn't really possible using only a
shared microwave. Hence the reliance on tinned 'heat and eat' foods.
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Generally because cheaper food tends to be more processed, and thus comes with a higher risk of obesity.

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"Why is obesity more prevalent amongst the working classes?"
Because the working classes classes like to consume a lot of shit food, Chris.
I would have thought that was obvious?

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If you look in shops like Jack Fultons, Herons and Farmfoods, you'll find the answer.

Very cheap, low quality, near sell by dated foods, highly processed and lots of cheap chocolate multibuys and
biscuits. Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter Bars are 6 For £1 (or 29p Each)

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Load of studies and articles suggest otherwise:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/09/poverty-causes-obesity-low-income-families-need-to-be-better-
off-to-eat-well

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/obesity#background

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/press/press-releases/new-analysis-stark-inequalities-obesity-england

All supporting the theory that obesity is higher in deprived areas for both children and adults
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This particular food bank hands out prepacked parcels of ambient foods based on customer need but the fresh
foods, such as veg, are laid out on a table for anyone to help themselves to, on top of their parcel. Salads and
unconventional veg (specifically courgettes) are not picked up by those most in need and wind up being binned.
Why do you think these people aren't picking up free salad greens?

I'm steering the community garden to grow pretty much potatoes, carrots and onions to donate so people get what
they want and nothing goes to waste. But it is a shame because I can provide much more veg from that plot but it
would be unfamiliar veg no one wants. Not very efficient.

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So the ONS are lying?

Interesting theory.

Why would they?

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But why do we 'eat loads of shit' as you put it?

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True. Poundshops too, chocolate and biscuits only all for a quid
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Why do you think these people aren't picking up free salad greens?

The fact they have a short shelve life and need refrigerating I should think.

Root veg have a longer shelve life, tend to me more versatile, and don't need refrigerating.

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Don't agree that processed foods are cheaper than say vegetables, dry pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.

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Not eating meat isn't just a "middle class" thing though, is it? You are simply imposing your own dietary
preferences.

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courgettes.

Don't the have about no nutritional value?

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*shelf

Don't agree that processed foods are cheaper than say vegetables, dry pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.

They are when you only have a microwave to cook with.

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The data actually points to obesity being higher amongst lower socio-economic classes. Have you looked at it
properly?

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But it's free. They can eat it or throw it out, so no worries about shelf life or refrigeration. The truth is, many people
won't eat fresh greens or garden fresh veg even if they are broke and the food is free.

Interestingly, many of the people in our community garden had never picked their own veg from a garden before
and had never eaten many of the veg we grow. They're whole life veg was a tin of peas or carrots. I think this
unfamiliarity with fresh veg is more of the issue than anything else, hence the need for healthy eating education.

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Indeed.

You could also include Iceland in the mix.

or throw it out

Wow
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Have you looked at it properly

I have. Since when have employees in "lower managerial and professional occupations" come from lower socio-
economic classes?

If the stats say anything it is that obesity transcends class.

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Why all the courgette hate?

Courgettes are packed full of vitamins, dietary fibre and can be used as a healthy replacement for starchy foods
such as pasta.

And how do courgettes compare on the healthy scale with potatoes, which the food bank manager says are in
great demand.

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In the 80's, the Tories axed cooking and nutrition (Home Economics) from the curriculum; to be replaced by "food
technology" (notoriously - designing pizza boxes).
At the same time, school canteens were closed, to be replaced by outsourced catering - in my son's school (I
vividly recall my own shock at this); that meant that if Findus didn't make it, the children didn't taste it.

The UK has excelled in deskilling its own population across the board to create dependent consumers, including
depriving whole generations of cookery skills.
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It`s presumably a lot to do with the poorer generally being the childed.

Even as the ones in my family get older, there are all sorts they won`t eat. (Last week: Why on earth won`t you eat
grapes, how can anyone not like them?). I was the same. This 50-something is only now starting to engage with
eating egg, after a lifetime of avoidance.

Given a choice, most parents, and especially those under stress, won`t choose the bother of getting a seven year
old to eat courgette (which includes cooking it) if there are easier options.

It is really noticable how many people here - mainly men - miss out the bit of the reality of feeding others.

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I'll eat them from now.

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That rings a lot of bells with my observations. We have a small fruit orchard in our community garden and we'll lead
socially excluded people through the garden and encourage them to pick their own apple or plum. Most people say
they've never picked their own fruit from a tree and are quite hesitant to do so and many flatly refuse. Many of them
will eat processed apples in something baked or even dried, though. A severe disconnect with food origins and lack
of exposure to positive food experiences can certainly contribute to 'picky eater' syndrome.

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While "dry pasta, vegetables, rice and potatoes" may appear cheap; to understand what it's like to eat on a really
restrained budget, try this experiment:

Go into a supermarket. Buy as many calories as you can for £20. If you run out of energy before the week is out,
you lose.
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While "dry pasta, vegetables, rice and potatoes" may appear cheap; to understand what it's like to eat on a really
restrained budget, try this experiment:

Go into a supermarket. Buy as many calories as you can for £20. If you run out of energy before the week is out,
you lose.

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While "dry pasta, vegetables, rice and potatoes" may appear cheap; to understand what it's like to eat on a really
restrained budget, try this experiment:

Go into a supermarket. Buy as many calories as you can for £20. If you run out of energy before the week is out,
you lose.

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Processed foods are quick and easier to cook. They are usualy microwaveable and so use far less energy to cook
and so the total cost of the meal is lower.

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Maybe they don't have a fridge.

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> They are when you only have a microwave to cook with.

A microwave is more expensive than a two ring hotplate, which also plugs into a 13A socket and can be used pretty
much anywhere. You can make a wide variety of 'proper meals' with that, it's the standard student kitchen
experience. People only have a microwave because they don't know how to cook, not vice versa.
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Best to donate ca$h to your local food banks. Then they can purchase in bulk (at wholesale prices) the things that
people in their area really want.

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I don't buy meat for the food bank either, so you're not alone! I think the meat industry is evil, and I won't support it,
for myself or anyone else. If that's a middle-class prejudice, so be it.

Any true working class guy won’t eat any vegetable not available in a chippy or kebab shop.

Attach an aerial to your refrigerator and tune it in to GB News.

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Foods are now a mark for class or being "woke" or a "latte swiging liberal"?
You English are all a bit nuts, and I don't mean the edible variety. Greetings from a Frenchman.

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The country is the UK and we are not all English

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Why do you think the French pal above doesn't mean what he writes?

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The UK is not a country, stop embarrassing yourself.

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Vous avez raison!
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Being middle class indicates that you have a certain level of income coming in which allows you a comfortable standard
of living and the ability to buy things that others known as 'working class' cannot afford. Beyond that, all social class
divisions are just silly creations by people trying to prove they're 'better' than others. Its called snobbery whatever
economic class you come from. Since the majority of people with middle class incomes were actually born into working
class families, they are the keenest to prove their new status and therefore the most snobbish, constantly trying to prove
their iddle class status by hooking onto the latest so-called 'middle class' foodie fad, usually something which has been
discussed in the Guardian and is a bit unusual. This is in fact identity politics.

Your post is nothing but snobbery and bigotry. It's deeply ironic that you accuse others of your faults

If we're going to root out the woke, pantries and fridges must be inspected. This is no time for faint hearts.

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Be careful in case a scruffy bloke wearing a yellow hi-viz emerges from a fridge

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The Horror ,the horror.
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We used to have pheasant once a year courtesy of the laird after he had charged people a fortune to shoot them. It was
probably to discourage poaching.
Some people are a bit strange though. I remember working in Glasgow in the late 90s. We didn't have a proper canteen,
bring your own teabags and buy a bacon roll in the car park was the setup. One nutter I worked with threatened to beat
me up for drinking herbal tea and he was only half joking.
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Years ago people ate what grew in their garden or what the local farmer produced. Only the rich could afford to employ
gardeners to provide exotic or out of season produce. Exotic foods have the cache of only the rich can eat me. Just a
one upmanship to chow down on quinola when spelt is just as healthy. I never understand why people go for fancy foods
over plain locally produced foodstuffs.

Years ago people ate what grew in their garden

The vast majority didn't have a garden (certainly after the Industrial Revolution started)

. Years ago people ate what grew in their garden

I think you mean centuries ago as this (as noted above ) ended with the industrial revolution.

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I have always considered an allotment as a garden. Sorry I have moved away from the UK so long that I lose my
English words at times. I believe some industrialists of that revolution provided land for their workers to grow food.
Maybe I remember my British history wrongly was half a century since I was at school.

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". I never understand why people go for fancy foods over plain locally produced foodstuffs."
For much the same reason people drive massive 4x4s in the city. To demonstrate that they're richer and more
sophisticated than you are.
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Yes. It was shit wasn’t it?

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I struggle though to think just what in our context is locally grown foodstuffs. If someone left a gate open some used
to cross our burn and eat/trample things, but beyond that I can only think of potatoes sold by the farmer up the
road.
Of the four types of fruit I eat each week at the moment only one is grown in this country, which could be if there
was a British apple I like.
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Ramon noodles, pretentious or given up?

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I lived on them for days at a time in the 80s. They were cheap and filling and Chinese supermarkets were full of
them, although no one called them ramen

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It's Asian street food. About an unpretentious as you can get.

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The weird thing is ramen noodles are far more expensive in the UK than they are in the US, thereby nearly
negating their cheap food status.

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Can’t be many of them in the Madrid phone book.

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Er? 35p a pop for me.

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That's double the cost compared to the US.

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Not in my sisters local supermarket in NJ. They're about 50c a packet. Bought some last time I was over in 2019.
 ◦
You're shopping in the wrong shops. Even posh Maruchan or Nissan brands of ramen costs 25c and the bargain
brands are under well under 20c. That's about 15p or so in GBP. Have you ever seen ramen for 15p in the UK?

The article states: "the peculiarly British tendency to regard food as an avatar for class or politics ". No proof offered. How
does the writer know? How many other countries has he looked at , from France to the Fiji islands?
A typical sweeping generalisation based on , I suspect, nothing.
The article , while having interesting bits, seems to avoid the issue eg of cost. How is it that the G can review restaurants,
full of references to food no one has heard of, and often concluding with a ... Oh and not bad at £100+ Class Hmmm.

No proof offered

Apart from Paul Embery's tweet...

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Just type in 'food and social class' into your computer. Then you will see this is not a view unique to this writer.

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Everything gets hits on a search engine( flat earth 911 is a fake etc ) this does not make it true nor is this proof

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Have you researched your argument, or is it based upon nothing?
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The British like to think that they have a uniquely profound understanding of class. In truth, it’s the opposite. The
arcane rules of the country’s class system mean we have a deranged understanding of our divisions

All this applies to England, not "Britain", which isn't a country anyway.

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No class differences in the central belt or the Valleys? Who knew?

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I know, right. It makes me laugh. The great Scottish socialist paradise…

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Not about food in the very weird way discussed above, no.

The great Scottish socialist paradise…

That's as fantastical as the bizarre little article. Still, Brexit coming along well in the New Jerusalem, is it? Let us
know.

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We tend not to return Tory governments up here.
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Maybe not in the rural parts of Scotland and Wales, but certainly in the industrial bits.

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No report on that other piece of bizarre English class-fuckwittery, then?
As to your point re. the "industrial bits", I'd need some examples, which I doubt you have.

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In a Scottish middle-class house, the casual visitor gets at most a cup of tea. In a working class house in Glasgow
you’ll always get a biscuit - but not a crappy custard cream or bourbon, but something decent with a wrapper.
Based on my own fieldwork.

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At a caff near Methill, with a work colleague. Two teas, no sugar in one please. What, your pal’s a vegetarian is he?

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be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

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Yes, but the article is about food snobbery and exclusion and the idea that this is a Britain-wide phenomenon which
is what I was mocking.
I really don't know what your point about Methill (sic) is trying to say.

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So people eat the same food in Morningside and Muirhouse? Or they eat different food, but don’t base judgements
on it? Come on.
•

It’s nice to see this observed. Similarly, I get ripped on by people who earn double or more what I do, and can afford to
have holidays, cars, new clothes, children, houses of their own, etc., very often for being bourgeois because (no wish to
sound conceited here, apologies if so), I’ve somehow evaded a thick Northern accent, because I like to read, because
I’m interested in music, etc. I grew up with half my background Irish immigrant working class, and my dad was of the
generation who still believed in social mobility, the importance of education, and so on. To engage in ‘culture’, to strive to
overcome social obstacles was part of his working class identity. It still is.

More recently, a manager in my workplace (who earns double what I do - I get by on roughly 14000 a year even after
working three jobs and being 40000 in debt to get myself through an MA) playfully teased me and implied that I was
‘posh’ because I’d been refilling a bottle of water I’d been reusing for months refilling at the water fountain. The bottle so
happening to have square sides. Months previously, I had bought it for 90p at an off-license.

There’s nothing especially tragic here. I don’t mean to sound self pitying - but the absurdity of it struck me because it
became the subject of office banter from then on. My interest in reading - partly precisely the result of growing up with
parents determined to assist me in an education so I didn’t have to struggle - has been the justification for taunts and
claims that I’m ‘posh’. The point is that it is a perspective far more concerned with class signifiers than with political
realities. I am not alone in feeling let down by a system in which the social mobility my parents hoped for no longer
exists. In this climate, I’m lucky to have a job at all. There is something self defeating about viewing a working class
which is more easily defined by empty markers of authenticity than the actual precarity that could forge some solidarity.

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To be clear, I don’t think that education and appropriation of middle class tropes redeems me of my class. I think my
grandmother, who raised six children and many more grandchildren on a pittance, was more deserving of a good
quality of life than I am. She worked hard and, though she had little education, was smart as hell in the way only
that kind of living can bring. The point is that it is very easy to have a real element of your social reality overlooked
for something entirely superficial. My own experience of the working class (if I can homogenise such a thing - I
can’t) does not fit the caricature this article alludes to at all.
◦

.no wish to sound conceited here, apologies if so), I’ve somehow evaded a thick Northern accent, because I
like to read

You failed and I don't really see how reading changes your accent
Do you think anyone with a northern accemt does not read books ? Seriously you think reading books eradicates a
northern accent ?

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Absolutely not. I only mean to say there’s a perception that conclusions about social standing can be wrongly
drawn from these things. But they’re two separate points, and I didn’t want to suggest for a minute that someone’s
accent, dress, or background tells me anything about what interests them.

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"I’ve somehow evaded a thick Northern accent, because I like to read, because I’m interested in music" those are
separate points, not a causal chain

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Yes but poorly written. That could absolutely be read as a causal chain so his is a fair point. Honestly, I can’t
account for the accent. I’m always surprised when people say it sounds southern or even American as that has no
bearing on anything at all. Yes, had I meant that that would have been idiotic. As it stands, a very dumb choice of
phrasing a list of separate reasons i personally can be misperceived.
•

Tell me what you eat and where you live, I will tell you if your are a Brexiter or a well informed and open person.

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Obsessed...

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So you will tell them whether they are a Brexiter or whether they are a Brexiter. Interesting.

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Interesting

You need to get out more.

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Well, I live in Edinburgh and own my home. I prefer to eat little meat and dislike most fried foods. Mrs Perhaps
enjoys cooking and we get lots of marrow, aubergine, fresh beans, salad vegetables, olives, peppers, eggs, risotto
rice, barley, buckwheat, a wide range of home made soups (Mrs Perhaps' speciality), plenty of fresh fruit especially
apples (Cox for preference), bananas and figs, and ciabatta bread for preference. Mrs Perhaps sticks with white
wine, but I'm partial to a decent Chateauneuf, a good port and Plymouth gin (although not all in the same glass).

Since we both voted Leave I can only assume this is the sort of thing the average Brexiteer eats and drinks.
◦
Almost amusing but unfortunately Brexit voters were less well educated than remainders ( I know how much you lot
like to get angry at facts you don't like but hey it's still true )
Ps thanks for all the money for the NHS it's doing great and thank God we have no shortages and a booming
economy eh

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I am always genuinely intrigued by the definitions of mor or less educated in this context. Invariably they refer to
GCSEs/ O levels, A levels, and university degrees, and exclude BTEC, apprenticeships, and any form of vocational
training. Having a surfeit of the former, having taught at a university, and having family in the building trade, I can
assure you that I know several 'less educated' people who could build and fit out a house from the foundations up,
whilst there are several 'more educated' people that I wouldn't trust to sit the right way around on a toilet.

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Oh, forgot to mention that I voted to Remain. However, I am constantly astounded by the small-minded bigotry, lazy
assumptions, and frankly class hatred displayed by many remainers.

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I take my pleasure where I find them.

BTEC, apprenticeships, and any form of vocational training

That is training, not education. We woudn't expect you to know the difference, no matter which way round you sit
on the lavatory.
◦
Ok;
Case 1; Shephard's pie and living in Eastbourne.
Case 2; Spaghetti and meatballs and living in Manchester.

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Shepherd, as in herding sheep. Apologies; I can actually spell. Just not this morning.

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Having done both I know that there is precious little difference, save that any type of university education, no matter
how poor tends to get an exagerrated degree of respect compared to other forms of education.

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There's precious little difference between a degree in zoology or foreign languages or medicine and training to be a
bus driver or bricklayer?
That is just silly.
•

What is "flat white"? Any drink made from coffee beans that contains anything but coffee and water is a mistake, in my
opionion. If you need to put something in your coffee to mask its flavour you are doing something wrong.

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If you feel the need to tell people how to enjoy their drinks you are doing something wrong.

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My granny used to make coffee with hot milk, so first time I tried latte I thought they were just copying her and she
was definitely working class.

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Rot. I like them and I like black coffee.

These weird value judgements based on nothing more than people’s own preferences and prejudices are one of
the most boring things about any discussion online.

◦
I'm not telling anyone how to enjoy anything. I'm suggesting that there is potentially far more enjoyment to be had.

◦
"Mask"? No, enhance.

◦
Amazing; tell that to those who come from the Southern European coffee cultures who invented most of the coffee-
based drinks you disapprove of.
 ◦
Sure. It's like putting flavour enhancer into wine. You just wouldn't do it.

◦
Black coffee drinkers are basically the Taliban.

So, there are no working class vegetarians or vegans then?

I'm living on a small pension and am trying to cut down on meat - does that mean I'm no longer working class?

◦
Did you see that? That was the point whistling passed your nose.

◦
This would suggest the opposite: "a deranged understanding of our divisions, one that is informed not by whether
someone owns financial assets or capital or employs people, but by their accent, hobbies and choice of
supermarket." The idea that "class" should be a function of anything but what you own is deranged.

◦
> So, there are no working class vegetarians or vegans then?

It is definitely much less common, particularly veganism.

•

Here in Tuscany we usually eat polenta with porcini mushrooms or polenta with wild boar and it is excellent

◦
Here we eat polenta as a substitute for pasta (gluten free) and it’s tastier and better.

◦
Now, you see, that really DOES sound middle-class….

How Tory is a poached grouse? Not the kind gently broiled in tangerine jus with thyme and baby carrots but the kind that
comes with a side of arse peppered with shot from the gamekeeper's .410.

.410? 12 bore shurely.

Well since I'm middle class now, I'll be needing a big pay rise ;-)
•

The article shows that Brits seem to have enough problems left in dealing with themselves, now that there are less
bloody foreigners around (including those with HGV driving licenses). Comforting.

Fewer foreigners, not less.

Yet the same anti woke groups are always keen to pint out that a single mother on benefits can feed their children for
tuppence a week on lentils.
•

What about limes? I have never bought a lime but I've got the feeling they're a bit up themselves too and think they're all
that!

◦
Available in our Lidl.

◦
' Lidl.'

clutches pearls!

◦
Mix them with chili and avocado serve with poached egg and sour dough to become a hate figure for no obvious
reason

◦
What is this Lidl whereof you speak?

◦
Limes make a wonderful addition to a fruit bowl display, and if you put a twist of peel in a G&T it makes lemon
people feel inadequate and outdated.

◦
Screw Lidl, us true working class types prefer Aldi.
 ◦
If you've never had a caipirinha, you've really been missing a treat. Definitely the best thing one can make with a
couple of limes.

◦
Lime -- the only thing that can rescue papaya from tedium.

◦
Don't tell me you're still putting lemons in your G and T's?

◦
Babycham with a cherry for me please.

Brexit will sort it out.

Nearly everyone will have no food, especially veg.

•

When on my next visit to London (in December to go to the ENO production of Die Walkure) I am tempted to try out that
traditional East End delicacy of jellied eels (which is not a fictional delicacy like fried Mars Bars). But I worry if consuming
jellied eels might give me the boak. Ah well, there's always the local 'Spoons'.

◦
Deep fried Mars bars are not fictional!

◦
Jellied eels are gross.Deep fried Mars bars delicious.

◦
Never ever seen 'em. There must be some obscure chip shop in south Lanarkshire catering for the odd (sic) tourist
who stumbles into town by mistake.
I'm a little surprised though,that there aren't such things as fried macaroon bars, though. Lees's finest product used
to be a treat for those attending matches at Fir Park in Motherwell.

◦
Alas, they are all too real

Never ever seen 'em.

Try crossing the border into Scotland.

◦
Not just East End. There's a van behind a pub in Greenwich, right by the meridian, that sells them.
Prefer my eel Japanese style, however.

◦
I’ve lived in Scotland all my life and I’ve never seen them.

◦
Indeed. My local fry bar in Scotland took pride in being able to fry anything legal provided by customers. Likewise,
the local chippie in London had deep fried Mars bar on the menu.

◦
I'll have to cross the border into England first.

◦
Must be a west of Scotland thing.

◦
I saw them (advertised - I did not dare venture inside) in some chippies in Edinburgh last time I was there.

◦
> which is not a fictional delicacy like fried Mars Bars

Definitely a real thing, the chippy in York I went to from school would do them (though on request only rather than
being on the menu iirc). I would guess lots of others, including those in Scotland, would do the same thing.
 ◦
eel pie and mash shop with green minted sauce was just down the road from us when I lived in Tooting in the 60's.
Never sounded like something I would want to eat even as a child.

they anti woke brigade still bang on about latte sipping lefties downunder blissfully unaware they are the staple diet of the
lower orders at Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King outside Australia)
•

Among the many casualties of the relentless quest for "quicker" and "cheaper" - mutton. Once rightly prized as second
only to a prime baron of beef in terms of desirability and signifier of wealth - now just a punchline to a food joke. But slow-
baking a leg of mutton takes "too much time". Sustaining a lamb's life past one year of age (the point where its meat
becomes the far tastier mutton) costs too much money for the farmer eager to swiftly monetize the lambikins.

Why don't chickens taste as good as they used to? Because the same rush to cash in those chicks at 8 weeks precludes
the old-school 16 weeks life with pasture-rearing that vastly improves the flavour. Factory-farm them to rapid processing -
and cheap supermarket delivery. Sod the flavour.

And absurd pious self-adoring political do-gooders have robbed us of the pleasures of veal, foie gras and other foodstuffs
that once were enjoyed. PETA? How about PETA-BOA?! (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - BY OTHER
ANIMALS!) Why are we trying to impose the values of Homo Sapiens on creatures that live by an entirely different code.
Why treat animals "humanely"? Surely it should be "animal-ly"? This is NOT an advocacy for cruelty towards animals.
Far from it. Just a plea to end the pathetic, childish anthropomorphism that is robbing our cuisine of pleasure.

◦
I'd say that ramming a funnel down a gooses neck and force feeding it grain so that you can eat its fatty liver is
quite a good example of imposing human values on creatures that live by a different code.

◦
> Among the many casualties of the relentless quest for "quicker" and "cheaper" - mutton

Yeah, why is it always 'lamb' these days? People prefer beef to veal for most purposes because the taste and
texture develops as the animal ages, and the same is true for sheep. I ask when I'm buying meat if they have
mutton before buying the lamb, and sometimes they do, which is great.
◦
Personally I prefer goose liver that hasn't been artificially fattened. However - much like dogs (if left to their own
appetites) geese will anyway consume as much grain as they can get their beaks on. Humans merely fast-track
what geese would do if they could do it themselves. So I take it you are quite fine with foie gras if there has been no
human-enhanced enlargement of the goose's liver? Wise of you. It is absolutely delicious!

◦
I don't agree with it but I have seen geese fed in this way on a traditional French farm and the geese come running
willingly to the funnel.

◦
There's an excellent book that explores & explains the sudden downfall of mutton from the British table. "Much Ado
About Mutton". Worth tracking down. In the USA mutton was very highly regarded until after WWII. Apparently US
troops were forced onto a diet of inferior canned mutton exported from Australia throughout the war. Like Spam -
but without the gourmet qualities... So post-war American veterans recoiled from even the word "mutton". And a
once-prized meat went into rapid decline. Some of the British retreat from mutton was laziness. Why take 5 hours
to slow-bake a Sunday joint when you can quick-roast lamb in 1 hour? But as savvy folks know - mutton has all the
flavour of lamb - with the rich intensity of beef. Bring back mutton!
•

I get the feeling that people don't eat meals like liver and onions with gravy and mashed potatoes anymore, at least, not
until a gastro pub put it on a menu and charges silly money for it.

And what's this new way of serving, "crushed potatoes"? Makes it sound like the apprentice was given the job of mashing
the potatoes but gave up half way through.

◦
Because Liver tastes horrible.

◦
It shouldn't. I eat it when I get a chance!

◦
Oh no it doesn’t ��

◦
So why do you think no-one buys and eats it? I assume it's very cheap? It's minging ����

◦
Because since the war the British, who used to eat a lot of it, have developed a horror for offal. The rest of the
world eats lots of it and generally finds it delicious. If individuals don’t like the taste of it that’s fine, I’m not here to
police what people eat. Each to their own. But the reasons the British don’t buy offal are recent and cultural, not
taste-based.

◦
Fried liver and bacon with either mashed or fried potato and onion gravy is amongst the foods of the gods.
 ◦
Ah those goujons of cod are so much better than Birdseye cod fish fingers

◦
Just bought some liver (in M&S, oops) the other day.

I travelled through the classes as a second generation Greek (state school, technical school, university) and eaten
across the social divides. My conclusion: bad eating habits (processed goods, fast good etc) exist in ALL social classes
and have nothing to do with money and everything with being too lazy to cook.

Reminds me of Johnson spending a reported £27000 on takeaways...expenditure undertaken on our behalf.

What's happened to The Taxpayers Alliance these days?

Grouse,Tory? Not if it's been attained by poaching.

Power to the stealthy people.

LOL. If they are at the roadside, stay in your car. They feel safe because they don't recognise the human shape.
•

What a load of classist agitprop. Until I started reading the comments I thought it was a satirical piece.

Only the aspiring lower middle class notice this sort of claptrap. Your Daily Mail reading Hyacinth Bucket type might fret
about haslet but the higher up the class structure you go the more likely you are to find a meat pie or swede.

◦
It really isn't that limited and it appears to be something that's deeply ingrained in lower income communities (I'm
deliberately not using working class due to the ridiculous baggage it carries in this context). I've heard people I
know in the UK (second generation Irish immigrants on pretty low incomes) giving out about how eating certain
things, or in certain places, is either 'common' or 'snooty' etc. They didn't inherit these ideas from their parents -
they were impressed on them by their peers and in education. It's honestly a social disease in the UK.

◦
I couldn't agree more. Goodness knows who these "sentinels of class" actually are. I think they only exist in the
minds of Guardian contribitors and some of their readers.

"The poor" are, one supposes, people who buy any food they can afford, and would not buy anything "out" (whether at
Waitrose or anywhere else) unless it was spectacularly cheap. Even the former poor man's fish'n'chips has become
prohibitively expensive. Let's face it, those pressed for cash have to drop into Tesco's before closing time in order to pick
up fresh food which has been reduced in price as it approaches the end of its shelf-life (or risk the perils of picking up
stuff from the skip outside).
•

When class and food are discussed they tends to be reduced to cultural consumer identities rather than where each of
us sit within the economy or means of production that is; our class. Questions like do we have the power to choose what
and where to eat? or should we have peas flown in from Kenya in our stores? are put aside. We (usually middle class)
instead use food to derail or dismiss other discussions. Veganism is attacked as fashionable and elitist rather than a
viable asset to reduce global warming and reduce impacts of flooding and other environmental events caused by climate
change. These middle class trolls ignore both the growing dependence on food banks by the new proletariat and the
pending climate change on the globe. Class is not an identity but a relationship to wealth and the agency that allows.
They can eat as much cake as they like but make sure it's vegan.

◦
... middle class trolls ...
'nuff said.

◦
Class is an identity because it's a relationship to wealth and the agency that allows.
•

I find it a bit odd that this article assigns abuse of the working class to the right, who would never do that for tactical
reasons if nothing else, when anyone that reads the Guardian knows that its Remainers that demonise anyone that lives
in the 'red wall' (even if they voted remain at this point). Looking just at recent exchanges in the last couple of days I also
see the suggestion people in the 'red wall' don't read books, don't listen to classical music etc. Otherwise I think you have
a point and have done a good job at cutting through a few lazy assumptions that have never made any sense at all.

As to politics and food, Orwell does of course write a lot about this and maybe that has been formative. I wonder if
middle-class assumptions about these things are unduly influenced by The Road To Wigan Pier. Orwell specifically
complains that the affordable cuisine of the working class European is so much better in quality and nutrition but seems
to have become 'owned' by the urban middle class elite. Orwell himself was quite the early exponent of 'world cuisine'
even if given to patriotic defence of English cooking in the period it was most maligned. Actually barring Helen Pidd and
John Harris that might be the last time a Guardian contributor went north of Birmingham but as I say, it was a long time
ago and the politics of food far more acute. The miners Orwell worries about are in calorific deficit unless they literally
consume as much fat as possible with all other food being largely a vessel for eating fat with, there aren't cheap calories
available elsewhere. Not an issue today.
◦
Remainers that demonise anyone that lives in the 'red wall'
Some, not particularly well-informed ones do. I'm prone to point out that the vast majority of Brexit / Tory voters live
in the south. For evidence:
"Tory England voted Britain out. These were areas that had often loyally voted Conservative for decades, but
economically were not doing anything like as well as other Tory areas, which cannot have seemed right to many
people living there ...
Older, less well-off, less well-educated Tory Britain was where the most votes for Brexit were. It cannot be said
often enough. It was not Sunderland or Stoke that swung it."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/mar/04/brexit-latest-news-admits-16bn-for-poorer-towns-to-be-
spent-over-next-seven-years-politics-live?page=with:block-5c7d006de4b09dbe4be92254#block-
5c7d006de4b09dbe4be92254

For that matter, I don't blame Brexit voters. The fault is with the those responsible for decades of wall-to-wall lying
about the EU. These is also the issue that those who knew the benefits of EU membership, and were in a position
to promote them, but failed to do so, relying instead on the easily dismissed simplicities of "project fear". That PF is
turning out to be largely true is another thing, of course, but positive messages were missing.

◦
Exactamondo. The most interesting claim of the last few days is that 'redwallians' (their term) have actually never
voted Labour because they are fascists. The whole point of the label seems to be lost on some people. I disagree
its 'some', it appears to be most that express a view sadly. Obviously its just a cover for class hatred but I don't
understand how its considered acceptable. I get some people are having trouble getting over it all but it doesn't
justifying that kind of thing.
◦
"anyone that reads the Guardian knows that its Remainers that demonise anyone that lives in the 'red wall'". Of
course you believe this because it's precisely the narrative that's been piped out by the Tories and their nationalist
outriders. So the same broken towns that were abandoned to their fate decades ago by the Tories are now
convinced that their salvation lies in those same Tories ensuring no more nasty foreigners come and take away
their imaginary jobs. And you musn't listen to them metro elite types in the Guardian because they all hate you for
being 'working class'. But yeah I'm sure all those places are actually, unbeknownst to anyone (including
themselves) miracles of open debate and politics.

◦
No, I believe this because I read it whenever I visit this website for years on end and I object to it when I've got the
time and get abuse back.

The rest of it is just the usual patronising guff that I apparently can't trust the experience of five years and reading
thousands of comments and must have been brainwashed by a "narrative". The arrogance is almost unbelievable.

◦
It's arrogant for a remainer to say to a leaver, "Told you so" ?

◦
I have no idea, that isn't a topic I'm interested in or have mentioned.
What I would say is once you've said it, what specific real world changes would it cause. It seems like a lot of
people are addicted to "winning the argument" and losing the war.
•

When I was a kid growing up on a council estate my Scottish mother made pea and ham soup with ham bones.

Even though I've been been a veggie for nearly 30 years I can still remember that soup fondly.

A bowl of that and the coldest of days and nights had no chance.

◦
My mum used to make it too. Her mum was Irish. I can also remember having thousand different meals that
included tinned corned beef.

◦
Not sure where you'd get ham bones these days, since most ham isn't ham any more but pieced together in the
right shape from pig bits. The deli counter at aaagh! Waitrose perhaos?
•

I have given up buying ready prepared stir fry meals when I looked at the list of ingredients and read that the ingredients
had been prepared and packed in Kenya! I have nothing against Kenya. It just shocked me that the shelves of ready
prepared meals had been packed half the world away. I now buy fresh vegetables and try to buy ones grown locally. I do
not know what that says about me and my status in the British class system. Perhaps I see it as irrelevant.

◦
Look on the label - fresh veggies often come from somewhere really far away. It's nuts.

◦
As you, I have noticed veg, until recently sourced from Europe, is now being imported from Kenya. Not all, but
many of these vegetables could be grown in this country. (If, of course, we had workers available to harvest.) We
live in very strange times.

◦
We import food mainly for choice and price. It a revolving irony, similar to inward investment. This article complains
of our lack of interest in 'ethnic staples' which are part of this import. If we were to consume more, we'd need to
import more. Other articles will complain 'we can't feed ourselves!' and argue for importing less. Both do so on
grounds of sophisticative progressive politics. Inward investment is the same - inward investment down (crisis,
we're a bad place to invest!), investment is up (crisis, we don't own anything anymore!). At the moment Brexit
would be considered a major reason for inward investment rising or falling, and for food imports rising or falling.
Both are bad, so is levels of food import and inward investment staying the same of course.

I wish people from these different tendencies would get together and sort it out.
◦
The reason people think we can't feed ourselves without a certain amount of difficulty is that we actually can't. In
WW II, when every available inch of land was ploughed up for agriculture, we still had to introduce rationing to
ensure that everybody got fed. Paradoxically, this led to the poor being fed much better than they had been before
the war.

◦
We had rationing but it was the most generous of any combatant nation, certainly in Europe at least, and many
things weren't rationed. There are a lot of myths here I'm afraid, we no more "dug for victory" than all those railings
and cooking pans actually became Spitfires. Winning the Battle of the Atlantic and keeping the Western
Approaches open meant that while there was a risk of hunger, Britain never really had to find out, we could get
plenty of fuel, plenty of steel and plenty of food. As a lot of people have pointed out over the years, armed forces
memoirs by working class people (e.g., Spike Milligan) tend to emphasise the almost unbelievable amount of food
they were given.

We're not self sufficient because we don't need or want to be. One minute international trade secures peace and
long supply chains are terribly "pro-EU", the next minute "food security" is a disaster waiting to happen. As I say,
people can't make their minds up. If we were to become sufficient in food, what would happen to the nations that
survive on agricultural export?

◦
Much is to do with seasonality and local weather. There was loads of British asparagus this year and cherries.
Much of Europe has had bad growing seasons this year, grapes are looking poor. Nowadays supermarkets source
all over the world and try and get the best quality for the best price and that varies so much.
•

Peak Guardian.

It cannot get more Guardian than this, surely?

And lemons involved in a class war? Really?

And lemons involved in a class war? Really?

Yep. Didn't you read Paul Embery's tweet?

◦
You don't say, old boy !

◦
Outrageous is what it is. I shall complain to the Lemon Ombudsman forthwith.

◦
It's talking about facts. It's a fact that people started treating things like polenta, pasta and couscous as 'posh' etc
because the Daily Mail etc shrieked about it all the time. Embery literally bleated similar nonsense about a range of
regular food, including lemons, recently. The very weird hang-ups around food and class are particularly striking to
a visitor. So if 'peak Guardian' means talking about reality as it exists then yes, it looks like this is peak Guardian. If,
however, it's intended as the usual pejorative thrown out by someone who didn't bother to read the article but
thought the title was open to a bit of cheap sniping, then I'm afraid you're shit out of luck.
 ◦
You know I'm really not being serious, right? When I see food in the supermarket I don't question which class it is
because the whole notion of it is beyond ridiculous.

Oh, and thanks for the really not subtle insult. Much appreciated.

Have a fucking great day.

With lemons, of course.

◦
I suggest you two wet up at dawn tomorrow and smash each other with avocados from 20 paces!

I guess the contents of the early pandemic ‘Boris Boxes’ should be a clue to what is seen as working class feed:
My friend’s one always came 80% tinned everything and an enormous onion. So far experience has shown us that you’re
going to cook in the UK in the 2020s you’re going to need to know how to bodge a meal together out of whatever’s in the
shop, having said that I can’t get polenta to come out like anything other than budgie grit

I too saw the contents of some of those "Boris boxes." Canned steak pie and packets of crisps seemed to be
frequently included, usually with a small and wrinkled apple as, I guess, a token gesture toward inclusion of fresh
fruit and veg.
•

Worth reading twice, so 'jam packed' with wider observations about food.
Ideas about class when connected to visible consumption including of food products/ingredients we buy to eat are often
misleading because they are more like signifiers of Status. Where we choose to buy property , cars we drive, schools we
send our kids to , our diets, food we buy. I have friend who double checks where I bought my pickles in a way you would
admire ceramics or wall art. Ditto the cheese , crackers and wine.
Voracious Capital encroaches and devours everything and shapes it to its life blood . It commodifies and monatises
everything it can to extract profit. It extracts most profit from scarcity. Scarcity, exclusivity , distinction is what signifies
wealth. So having Waitrose Online stop by your big house
to deliver 'not just any food', but something that has No.1 Status, including mark up price, pretty much captures Class as
ownership with Status as conspicuous consumption. As with everything.
Never enough profit from the few. So for the many Aldi pops up and delivers smoked salmon and good wine minus price
tag, breaking that link, shifting, democratizing consumption. Garlic, olive oil, peppers , and so much more have made that
shift.
Real problem of 'food' is that we have real hunger hiding in our midst in every corner of our country.

"Conserve packed" please.

•

I was born on a council estate and although I did have the two middle class careers of teacher and linguist, I have ended
up in a rented flat on benefits.
I sometimes eat quinoa. I get lemons from the bloody food bank! I love croissants and coffee and sun dried tomatoes and
hummus, though not to my taste is about a quid.
Mind you I have been told I am middle class because I went to uni and because I am Jewish too. What a strange world.
To my mind, you're either working class or owning class. The in between is just echelons of working class. If you would
not be able to survive if you stopped selling your labour the property you own would end up being taken back, then you're
working class.
Middle class is a good way to convince people whose interests lay with the working class to side with the owning class,
and to make members of the working class believe they are allowed to rise up.
And the class war is just one more way to make sure those of us who aren't in the tiny owning class are fighting with
each other.

Similarly, I had an acquaintance who out of the blue determined I was middle class, we hadn't even met, we were
just corresponding as nurses on line. I said in my view it didn't really matter but I always considered myself working
class as needed to work to pay my bills and it didn't really matter to me anyway. She said as a 'professional' I was
middle class. Oh whatever. I guess she didn't want to be classed as working class so had to elevate me too out of
thinking I was, not that I cared, as she started it.
•

Part of the phenomenon is surely due to simple economics rather than culture. Staple foods abroad come here as
imports, packaged in tiny packs and marked up to the rafters. I am a Greek married to an Italian: we can get most of our
ethnic food fix quite easily without even resorting to internet shopping, since every supermarket (and not just Waitrose)
will carry the essentials: oil, feta, olives, honey, yoghurt (to just stick to the Greek stuff) plus occasionally some less
common cheeses and condiments (you probably need Waitrose for these though) have been around for decades. Even
under the Customs Union the markup was insane though. In Athens supermarkets feta is bought in half and full-kilo
hunks off the barrel; virgin oil can be still found easily in the large 16 lt teneke tins which you then transfer to your own
bottles at home, though for some years smaller tins and/or bottles are more common in supermarkets. Half and full kilo
honey tins are common. Taramosalata or tzatziki (for those who don't make it at home) also comes in large tupperware
packs. For pretty much the same prices here you get individually prepacked tiny 100-200 gram parcels that only middle
class people can afford. The quality actually is quite good, since exporters are generally careful not to cut corners there
when the markups are so huge. But these markups! With these prices only posh people will buy them, and posh people
will not have use for a kilo of barrel aged feta, regardless of its quality. They tend to go for variety, rarity and, well,
poshness. There are far fewer posh than non-posh people. Therefore it doesn't pay to import feta by the barrelful or olive
oil by the teneke. It only pays to bring in tiny parcels and aim at the posh end in posh prices. Therefore the demand for
the hunks and tins will never arise. It's a vicious circle.

And the whole thing then translates to restaurants. The same bottle of wine you get in Greece for 7-10 euros, here will be
in the 15-25 range. Put that under the standard 300% markup of the restaurant, and you get the assyrtiko retailing for 60
quid in the menus.

There are some excellent British imitations of Mediterranean products. Buffalo mozzarella for instance can be as good as
the imported stuff from Italy. But why would the producer take any less money. Example (from Waitrose, I'm afraid): both
the Italian and British bufala retail for £2.50 per 125 grams. It would probably endanger your health if you dared sell at
that price in Naples.

Some commodities (tea, coffee) have centuries of bulk import experience, plus they are dried (the problem is worse for
fresh chilled stuff). So they are generally priced at the same level as abroad as a rule, hence they are available to (and
avidly consumed by) all classes.
◦
I've found in Dublin that you can get many of the staples like the oil, rice etc in bulk but not at regular supermarkets.
For example, any decent Asian, ME or S.Asian supermarket will have rice in 20 (or bigger) kilo bags at fractions of
the cost p/kg of a tiny one kilo bag in Tesco and it's usually far better quality. Oil is the same. But I reckon very few
people, outside of an exclusively Mediterranean diet, could use enough feta to justify buying a kilo of it at a time.
Then there's the fact that you're generally taking about buying local produce if you're in Greece - there are definitely
costs associated with long distance shipping of relatively high volume, temperature sensitive, low value products
like cheeses etc. Also, like Ireland, the UK is generally just overpriced for many things.

◦
> Then there's the fact that you're generally taking about buying local produce if you're in Greece

Yeah - I bet it's expensive and small quantities only to buy Stilton or pork pies in Greece, too.

◦
Feta is one of the cheapest cheeses to buy in the UK. Certainly cheaper than decent cheddar. How much would
say Wensleydale cost in Greece?
•

Have you noticed the Aldi and Lidl super 6 lately.

It seems to have less variety of fruit and veg on offer, these days.

Both have become a bit samey and dull.

◦
Fresh figs on special in Lidl yesterday...bourgeois or not?

◦
I never saw them in mine.

Foraged mushrooms, posh or pleb?

◦
Or Druid?

◦
Hazardous if you don't know what you're doing -- like that Syrian family who foraged in Poland and lost their
children to the toxic fungi.

◦
They'd have been OK if they lived in France, where every pharmacist (chemist's shop to us) is licensed to
pronounce on whether mushrooms are healthy and edible or not.
•

I don’t eat quinoa because I don’t know how to pronounce it. Or spell it for that matter, unless I can copy it from a
Guardian article.

◦
If it's not pronounced 'keen-wah' then I've been looking foolish.

◦
I tend to cross it with a breakfast cereal and end up with ‘quinola’ which sounds like something worth asking for in
Waitrose.

◦
If you listen to a native Spanish speaker say it, you would realise how badly "keen wah" approximates to it. I've
settled on the Anglicised "kin oh wah". But I rarely need it!

◦
It is - you're safe:)
•

Yes, I’ve often been puzzled by how basic foreign stuffs have become indicators of superior breeding in England, not that
there is anything wrong with bloody good peasant cooking. I put it down to brilliant marketing, based on an innate
understanding of how the English will fall for anything that can be deployed as a class signifier. In other countries, it
doesn’t matter how much how-hah there is around your restaurant - they can actually tell if the food/wine is up to scratch
or not.

In the past, the aristocracy and super-wealthy favoured complex, time-rich, foreign cuisines, because that meant you had
plenty of staff, and probably wintered and/or summered abroad in your own villa or a luxury hotel. Think Escoffier and the
Blue Ribbon. I don’t think they had a clue what they were eating, it was all part of the social expectations of their clique.

For everyone else, what distinguished your level of material wealth was how plentiful your table was, and of course
access to non-adulterated food - a huge problem in the c19 when they added any old poison to bread, milk etc to eke it
out or pass off rotten produce. We might be going back to something like this sooner than we think, you know.

I completely agree with article, but in its interesting what is conspicuously absent: the class/political obsession with
"authentic" or "traditional", as if there's a formal time-stamped template somewhere from which food must not deviate or
change.
•

It's amazing how many people here denying class differences exist.

Yes working class people eat different stuff. I am working class and I know it for a fact.

FFS. This stuff is bloody obvious

Workers rule OK !
•

The fact is that if a similar inventory of “working class” foods were to be undertaken across contemporary Britain, it would
be less “gammon, pie and mash and ale”, and more “ackee, pierogi and shatkora”.

In an article attacking the homogenisation of the term working class, it’s quite amazing that there’s an inherent
assumption here that anyone who is foreign and most likely a person of colour is, by default working class. I think it
highlights a deeper issue with this article as well as many people’s understanding of class, name that it conflates a
pastiche of ‘working class culture’, which is presented here as foods historically eaten by marginalised communities to
survive (the colourful, exotic foods brought by immigrants (good) or the pie and mash of east end Londoners (bad)), with
the actual lived material reality of people who are lower class in Britain today.

For many people living in poverty in the U.K. today, they have little choice over what they eat beyond how much labour it
takes and how affordable it is. Put more bluntly, on an average weekday a single parent work all hours given to them to
afford to feed their family is not going to give a shit about stewing lentils for hours, making salt fish and ackee or going
down the pub for gammon, pie and mash when survival sometimes means relying on food banks and cheap but
convenient and heavily processed foods.

The author would do better to understand the struggle faced by the poorest in the U.K., for whom the cost of a £3.50
coffee is more than the daily food cost for their family.

Eat The Rich!

•

I really can't be bothered with the ridiculous UK obsession with social class, when it comes to fripperies like what people
eat or drink or how they speak.

Better to actually do something about reducing inequalities in wealth, status and power.

In the mean time this whole ludicrous hierarchy ironically makes UK society as a whole look very, very gauche and
vulgar, none more so than those viewed as being at the top of it.
•

Born towards the end of WW2, I am happy to eat anything.

Basics such as liver and onions, and stew made from neck of lamb or rabbit are about as good as it gets. Chickens were
reserved for celebrations like Christmas, if you could afford it, but they did taste like chicken, and had lived a decent life.
As for '', quinoa, avocados, hummus '', never touched them or have any desire to do so whether they are fashionable or
the ''right class'' or not.
As for people paying pounds for a cup of coffee, they want their brains feeling... no wonder todays youth can't afford to
buy houses.

As for people paying pounds for a cup of coffee, they want their brains feeling... no wonder todays youth can't
afford to buy houses.

Oh please not that patronising argument again. Todays "youth" - including those who never buy overpriced coffee -
cannot afford to buy houses because they're much more expensive than they were for their parents and
grandparents, the latter who could buy a house and support a family comfortably on a single wage.

◦
Very true. Pity the boomer bashers don't think of this when they bemoan their problems. We were brought by
parents who'd grown up in the 1930s depression and got through WW2. As a result they learnt to make do with
what they could get and to be thrifty. If you want a house then you need to start saving for a deposit as soon as you
start work, not spend it on expensive phones and other fripperies.

◦
Exactly. And bring back National Service to give The Youth a backbone. And flogging. And hanging. You used to be
able to leave your door open . Jumpers for goalposts.
◦

Very true. Pity the boomer bashers don't think of this when they bemoan their problems.

No it is not. In 2019 the average cost of a home was £231,215, which is £229,324 more than in 1950. House prices
have increased significantly more than wages since then (especially in the last 40 years).
•

How did lemons get involved in this bun fight?

◦
Stuck up citrusy ponces

◦
along with those stuck up oranges.

◦
I think it must be a reference to amalfi lemons.

◦
Ah buns, now you're baking, mind you always good with a good topping of lemon icing.

◦
Lemon drizzle?

◦
I blame the bells of St Clement's.

◦
When will you pay me?
•

I think that what people opt to eat is less a consequence of social class and more a reflection having time to source,
purchase, prepare and cook from fresh ingredients. I regard the option of having a ready prepared set of ingredients for a
"gourmet meal" is simply a time saving mechanism rather than an indication of social class or stratification based on
ones palate.

I think that what people opt to eat is less a consequence of social class and more a reflection having time to
source, purchase, prepare and cook from fresh ingredients.

It's also a choice. To spend time cooking instead of TV, Facebook etc

◦
Perhaps, but that reflects a jaundiced opinion about the choices of time utilisation available to families with both
parents working and kids wanting an evening meal before they simply die from hunger.

◦
I was not necessarily referring to families. By the way showing children the importance of food/proper meals is also
important
•

I wonder if kids skip school home economics/cookery lessons because they couldn't afford or get hold of ingredients, or
relate to what their richer peers are eating or cooking

But basic ingredients are usually pretty cheap...

I commented on these pages some years ago that when I asked where the semolina was, the member of staff in the
local supermarket didn't know what I was talking about. I was accused of being a food snob on these pages, by someone
who obviously didn't eat school dinners in England in the 1960s.

As for loose leaf tea, it was a staple in the building industry in the 60s and 70s with the leaves dropped straight into the
bottom of a pint pot mug and "it must be boiling" water poured on top and then left to brew. Proper toffs and dandys those
kids at the local sec mod and blokes in the builders' yard must have been.

I was appalled to discover that Will Self confessed, on his radio 4 series on sparkling water ( I know ! ), that he had never
heard of vichy Catalan water, darlings I nearly choked on my hummus and polenta croissant.

Anyone know where you can pick up a nice bit of grouse these days (for non-gun owners)?

Many butchers. Or, strangely, fish shops. Not hard to find, actually.
•

Polenta associated with middle class!? At its simplest it's just coarse corn meal, water and salt! Cheaper than chips. If
you want it slightly fancier add cheddar and maybe chicken stock instead of water, but water will do.

Yes, but it's got an unfamilar poncy Italian name...

"16 years ago it was near-impossible to buy a flat white in London" ?? What Guardian bollux, even Pret a Manger was
everywhere 25 years ago. Stop lying and thinking that you're being 'clever'.

I can assure you, they did not sell a Flat White, which is a double shot of Espresso in a 200ml cup with about 5mm
of steamed milk. Noone in the UK sold a flat white til about 2005. (look there may have been one or two Aussie run
coffee shops before that but not Pret)
•

Not really related to class but the biggest change in recent food habits is the rise of take-away food, especially delivered
to your door. Particularly prevalent amongst younger generations who see odering via Deliveroo or Justeat apps as the
norm instead of an occasional treat.

◦
In my part of Stockton is seen as something posh ,when you can have a Parmo, chips and salad delivered.

In my street most of the young woman are fat and smoke super king cigarettes and have rotten teeth.

◦
The obesity problem isno longer temporary, itsthenorm...

Present generations are failing to pass on basic skills such as coooking skills, how to buy prudently an prepare
meals with basic ingredients so younger generations get fat on takeaway chips, kebabs or even a Chicken parma
...

...its a real shame. And to someone that can't cook dry pasta, lemons, a chilli probably seems 'posh.

◦
As well as spelling and sentence construction.

◦
its seen

◦
Or just bone idle. If you think it's normal to pay someone peanuts to bring you a carryout....
 ◦
Parmo, chips and salad in Stockton.

Is horrible , especially the salad, chips are limp and fatty.

You pay extra for garlic sauce or chilli sauce.

I can make a nice omelette with any filling I like , quicker and healthier.

I can remember when football was played and watched by the working class and a cup of oxo and bovril kept you warm.

Most of my more recent pastimes, MTBing, rambling, running seem to be middle class ones.

I'm a working class bloke with chips on both shoulders about it but must admit I feel more at home in the lakes on the
fells or the pubs than I do in Wetherspoons which is why I knocked Spoons on the head years ago.

◦
Spot on!

◦
Village pubs in hill farming communities, the type that do bar meals but which don't have restaurants, often cater for
those involved in manual farm work. They are usually substantial nourishing meals.

◦
We stopped going when he paid off all his staff at the beginning of lockdown.
•

I struggle to believe that this is actually a thing. How could anyone know, let alone judge what other people are eating?
And why on earth would they care?

Eat what you like, and if someone is peeking through your window to look disdainfully at it, then punch them in the nose.
Problem solved.

Skip diving, posh or pleb?

◦
Posh

◦
Ahh, those were the days... I'd say it's both... depending on the week
•

When did lentils get classed as posh? I have always substituted or supplemented pulses for meat. Because I didn't have
much money.

◦
Lentil eating, sandal wearing Guardian reader has been a tired old trope over the last 40 years

◦
Yes, but because lentils were trendily vegetarian, not because they were cheap.

◦
Well, I'm tired and old.....

It would seem that the one recipe missing from British culinary tradition that would have improved things a bit is
artistocrats' necks, finely chopped or thinly sliced, and served rigorously as street food for the working class.

◦
Or grilled Brexiteer, sur son lit de roquette

◦
Lining working class stomachs with brass?
•

Ironically, with perhaps the exception of French Cuisine (or at least a part of it), the great cuisines of the world (broadly
grouped as Italian, Spanish, French, Indian, Chinese, Japanese) are based around poor people’s food. Many of the great
dishes were created out of necessity: why go through the hard work of turning a pig’s trotter into zampone if there was a
lot of pig to go round? And whilst there may be little (if any) class snobbism about food on the continent, regional &
national snobbism certainly exists (just ask a Spaniard or an Italian about German food or a Milanese about Sicilian
food).
Brits taking issue about which “class” a foodstuff belongs to betrays a woeful ignorance about both food and cuisine and
seems uniquely British (Anglo-Saxon?) In Italy, for example, both the bricklayer and banker will happily tuck into
cotechino con lenticchie without worryingly about it’s “class appropriateness”
For a true Gastronaut the only things that matter are: are the ingredients good or not, is the food properly prepared and
cooked (and with skill and passion).
(but having said that, there are some foods that have been commandeered by the pretentious twat -quinoa being one of
them)

◦
Each pig only has two hocks (from the back legs) to make into zapone. It also takes quite a bit of skill and effort to
produce. So it is precisely the sort of dish that use to appear on aristocrats dinner tables. And it still is a special dish
for New Year feasting.

In the U.K. you see a similar thing with foods like haggis. Use to be on the tables of nobility, now you can get it
deep fried at a chippy.
◦
Almost all "posh" dishes, wheresoever originating, were once peasant food.

Some also have surprising origins - Spain is famous for its hams, which were developed to a high degree due to
the perceived national need to identify closet Jews or Muslims who obviously wouldn't eat pork.

In Tudor England, the rich ate vast amounts of meat and very little in the way of vegetables, largely because they
were rich and could afford it. The peasants ate vegetables because they are much cheaper. Interestingly we seem
to have turned things round because now the rich are more likely to be vegetarian and the poor eat lots of
processed meat.

Going further back, to the time of civilisation, wealthy Romans almost exclusively ate at home (their own or friends')
and the poor ate junk from cafes because they had no kitchens at home. This has also reversed.
•

Limpets, posh or pleb?

◦
Moules are tastier, gadge.

◦
Mostly not great. Not sure why people insist on grilling them. Limpet stories are good though.

◦
Oysters were once the food of the poorest people, but are now seen as somehow posh. Most readily available
shellfish were much the same.

◦
They're only just clinging on, so I reckon limpets are all plebs.

Way things are going in Boris Johnson's Britain a full tank of petrol, Turkey, Christmas Tree, electronic goods as
presents, and the warm home will be status symbols of the British upper class. Lower paid British workers will have to
make do with food banks, Sunak's House Hold Support charity, thrift store woollies, and soup kitchens. Britain has clearly
gone to the proverbial dogs this year.
•

I can't help but notice that the majority of people claiming to speak for 'working-class people' are very wealthy privately
educated politicians and members of the media.

◦
But surely Jacob Rees Mogg is working class, ain't he?

◦
It's known as gaslighting.

◦
Born and bred in a council house

45 years working on a factory shop floor

I'm working class.

◦
Yes, because they know that the only way they get knocked off the perch is if working and middle class people
show some solidarity. So division is the only game in town.

◦
Until you have your first advocado or foreign holiday apparently.
◦
The powerful have the means to be heard, so it's not necessarily a bad thing that they speak up for the working
class.
Unfortunately, that's more often what they're pretending to do rather than what they're actually doing.

◦
Bugger !! As unlucky Alf would say.
I had my first foreign holiday years before I even knew what avocado was.

£38 for a 10 day holiday in Austria with the school in 1971.I took £10 spending money and brought some home.
I can remember a teacher telling us about exchange rates which escaped me.
•

If I want to know what the wealthier middle classes around here eat, I go into my local Co-op and gasp at the prices.
Then cycle off to Lidi, through the cars in their car park ranging from £150 to £150,000 in the car park, and do my
spending there.

◦
Lidl and Aldi sell loads of non-working class foods like continental cheese and sausage butternut squash lentils
pasta wagu burgers brioche proving the article is bollocks?

◦
Same here. Our Lidl's is always full of posh cars. Saw an army Colonel in there not long ago.

◦
The Aldi car park near me looks like a huge Range Rover dealers

◦
If you care to listen to how people speak it's quite surprising just how "posh" the clientele of Lidl are. More so than
Waitrose, I suspect.

I suppose a thing people often overlook is that rich people stay rich by not spending money. Cheap groceries are
part of that.

◦
I think you may have missed a witty remark.

◦
Yep. Their organic prosseco is quite a hit too
•

We all knew where we were at the local Berni Inn. My local one had a restaurant upstairs with salad bar, the 'normal' one
downstairs which basically had the same menu as the upstairs but no salad bar, and then the back bar which did pub bar
snacks such as lasagne, sausage chips & beans, cauliflower cheese, steak pie and curry and rice. Then there was the
main bar/pub area which was well frequented. The clientele reflected all walks of life. Good days.

I’ve just thrown out yet another 3/4 full bag of quinoa. In a year or so I’ll probably buy another, once the memory of its
bland, gritty pointlessness has faded.

◦
The main thing is not to eat it but have the packet clearly visible in your kitchen so people can see that you're
middle class.

◦
Yep. There is usually an ignored open bag of it here waiting for the annual cupboard clear out :)

◦
I have had some success with using it to fill out dishes. But I can't disagree that most of the time it's bland and
gritty.

◦
Try cooking it in boiling water before eating it
•

I might as well as half pissed talking to some bloke in the pub who is a bit more pissed than me.

I still recall vividly from decades ago when an Italian girl came to stay on a school exchange at our very humble home.
When asked what she most liked to eat, she promptly replied "spaghetti". My dear Mum, anxious to please, opened a tin
of Heinz in tomato sauce and turned on the toaster. It wasn't until I came to have a meal in my friend's home that I
realised how very polite and tactful she had been.

◦
Canned pasta - Vile stuff.

◦
Once upon a time any other kind was hard to find in the UK.

I still recall vividly from decades ago when an Italian girl came to stay on a school exchange at our very humble home.
When asked what she most liked to eat, she promptly replied "spaghetti". My dear Mum, anxious to please, opened a tin
of Heinz in tomato sauce and turned on the toaster. It wasn't until I came to have a meal in my friend's home that I
realised how very polite and tactful she had been.
•

My Scottish Mum's speciality was watery mince and tatties. So far, no other country seems to have adopted it.

◦
I tried haggis when I was up there - urrgh!

◦
My auld lady, like her own mum, used to cook a mean mince and tatties. My auld fella used to sprinkle curry
powder onto his serving and it is actually quite tasty.

◦
Oh ye of little taste !

◦
My Latvian mother came here in 1947 as a stateless refugee, on a welcome to Britain outing the refugees were
taken to a Lyons Corner House. Welsh Rarebit! Yum, rabbit! Oh the disappointment when cheese on toast came.
Superior cheese on toast with more ingredients than just cheese and toast but nonetheless. Her English improved.
She never left to live back in Latvia and cooked British/English food all her life. Badly. Her specialities were boiled
everything. Bless her.

◦
A fine Northumbrian dish, abandoned as they got richer and taken over by the Scots...

◦
I once got something very close to Scottish mince and tatties in a German hospital...but it was only for the post-
operative patients who required bland, easy to digest food. Never seen it anywhere else.
◦
Yes! My lot were Lithuanian. Boiled everything! Even rump steak. My father would collect ceps in Epping forest and
then boil them to buggery. I tried to convince him to try sautéing with garlic parsley and olive oil: waste of time.

◦
Tbf here in Liverpool our family love curried scouse.

◦
The French and Italians tend to eat this combo more often in the form of a Cottage pie, which they vatiously call
Hachis Parmentiere or Gato di patate con ragu alla siciliana or sformato di patate con ragu or whatever, depending
on where you are, and I've also eaten ragu con patate, in which the patate were not mashed. India there is Keema
aloo. But mince and tatties is a noble dish, I feel the problem was in the watery consistency. Cusina povera is ill
named.

◦
Cucina that should say! Cucina povera is English food, too much water in the mince and tatties, milk in the
scrambled egg, water in the pancake mix, all to make it go further, and then that becomes our national cuisine.

◦
Scottish Welsh and Irish food generally being a higher quality, in my experience.
•

You can always tell a middle class bloke in a pub.

a) they drink real ale

b) and make 1 last hours

c) they don't spend much

◦
I may be middle class, can’t be arsed to find out

Real ale? Check

1 an hour? Epic fail, more like 3 maybe four
I spend plenty as I pay my round

I think you might be wrong

◦
I'm definitely a), but more like 15 minutes and repeat a few times.

I suppose working class blokes stick to throwing pints of "wife-beater" down their necks?

◦
So when someone isn't spending much they're "middle class"? Perhaps they don't have much money. Plus, pints
are expensive these days - at least to this less-than-rich person.
 ◦
You can always tell a nasty stereotype about the working class.

A) It insinuates they won't touch anything of quality;

B) It implies they lack control;

C) It suggests that they are financial morons.

◦
Very true, anyone with a half-reasonable brain understands how cheaply industrial lager is made and that a decent
ale is a far, far better product. The daftest guy I know still goes to the Ale House in town and orders a Carling top. A
good mild (a working man's drink I should add)? Nope. A Mauldon Gold summer ale? Nope? Industrial shite with
lemonade? Yes please. In that case I am very, very proud to be called middle class based on point one.

Only capitalists and neo-liberals shop at supermarkets. I shop at my local family-run store to support my wonderfully
diverse local community. Because I am a proper comrade of the left.

◦
Well you must be a very well-paid comrade. I shop in Lidl because they're the most affordable shop in the locality.

◦
Good to see someone who really is middle class on here.

◦
I love satire
•

40 odd years ago I was reading a boxing magazine and discovered broccoli !?!?!?!?!?

It was in those days that I first had lasagne and also olives.

My mates thought I was weird because I liked these things called olives.Olive patè mmmmmmm

I love broccoli. Roasted or steamed. Lashed with gravy.

Roadkill ? Posh or pleb?

Neither, just essential in the post-Brexit cuisine.

"Dahling, lets go down the chippie".

Don't forget to ask for the guacamole...

•

I'm on disability benefit ESA.

I guess those food items you can't afford are middle -class?

◦
Me too. Fortunately for £5 a week I get a good selection of food that has been donated to the local charity Food
Bank Scheme, Egg Cup. Often this allows me to make cheap, but healthy-ish meals.
But some of those items are in the list of middle class foods.
It has saved my life.

◦
I don't think we have anything like that in Stockton.

Its cheaper to cook, your own food as you know. Good luck and keep healthy.
•

As for chips being a British working class food, the best chips round here are cooked by a Chinese takeaway

◦
Where I was born and brought up the best ones were a Greek one, German one and one owned by a local bloke
named Billy.

◦
The first recorded combined fish-and-chip shop was in London in the 1860s owned by one Joseph Malin, a Jewish
immigrant.

◦
Jewish fried fish and Belgium frites are the national dish, or Tikka Masala

To put this discussion into perspective - food banks have to be able to provide food that either doesn't need any cooking
or only requires hot water to be added ('kettle boxes')

Mine's failing then- much of the food I get is ingredients. Thankfully.

•

Quinoa is a very healthy food. Anyone who leaves it out of their diet due to their perception of it being a marker of middle
class pretensions is shooting him or herself in the foot. You don’t have to eat a lot of it but now and again, it is good as
part of a balanced diet.

◦
Have you come up with that handle just now just to make that comment? Respect.

◦
Coincidence. I joined a few days ago (check my profile page), and I didn’t know at the time this article would appear
here.

I don't think dividing people up into classes is a very good idea.

◦
Indeed particularly when the idea of a working class as an entity is completely out of date .

◦
Unfortunately, any system based on ownership will do that whether it is a good thing or not.
•

Isn't all this a little bit beside the point.

I help out twice weekly at a food bank.

But it is bloody disgraceful that they exist in this over-fed country.

◦
Food banks exist in pretty much every advanced economy, they exist in far greater numbers in France and
Germany, for example.

◦
that there's hunger and food inequality in the Uk is morally repugnant.

I'm struggling to think of something pleasant to say

◦
"Advanced" - you think?

◦
You find it in every country.

◦
Bad things existing elsewhere does not make the bad things less bad here.
•

I believe lobster used to be food for poor people, some of this is fashion. For example offal

◦
It is a bit more complicated then that. Some people from working class/poor backgrounds will not eat things like
offal as it is a very real icon of poverty in some countries. Even the poor like to keep up appearances.

◦
Oysters.

◦
Yes but 50/60 years ago offal was massively popular in places like Bolton. It’s a fashion thing

◦
Or slippery choke-hazard slime bags as I call them

◦
Oysters were, "'It's a wery remarkable circumstance, Sir,' said Sam, 'that poverty and oysters always seem to go
together." Dickens, Pickwick Papers.

◦
In medieval times London apprentices had a clause in their articles that forbade their masters to feed them
exclusively on salmon.
 ◦
Offal is a really good thing. It's a shame to discard any bit of the animal if it's edible and it's often cheap and tasty if
you know how to cook it. Morrisons are good for it. But there are some things which are now snapped up by
expensive restaurants such as calves feet which are not available any more.

◦
That is a vast over simplifications.

I have a map showing all the tripe dressers and shops selling tripe. There were dozens. People ate it not because it
was fashionable, but because it was cheap, filling, nutritious and something a poor working family could eat with a
bit of dignity.

I worked at the Co-op 30 years ago and back then stock was tailored to the location of the store and what the local
customers were likely to buy.

Still is. All sorts of things I can't buy in north Cornwall which I now buy online.
•

It was only in July that I had my first ever mushy pea fritter from a chippy in Howarth.

As a Lancashire lad and mushy pea lover I'm almost ashamed to admit this.

The mushy pea fritter is a taste sensation up there with Marmite Hummus and Tarka Dahl.

Haworth
•

What about the environmental cost of these middle-class foods like avocados. The people that eat them really don't
understand climate change or perhaps they do and hope nobody notices.
Save the planet cancel avocados.

◦
What about tea? What's the difference?

◦
What about the environmental cost of these working-class foods like bananas? The people that eat them really
don't understand climate change or perhaps they do and hope nobody notices.
Save the planet cancel bananas.

◦
What about the environmental cost of these working-class foods like KFC & fishfingers?

Do these foods even realise that they're working class?

◦
Best of all, wait until the climate has really warmed up and plant your own avocado tree. Conversely, you could ban
all imported foodstuffs and that would solve the problem.
What? Brexit is already doing this?

◦
Save the planet - cancel the middle class.
•

When we say 'working class' in a paper, we generally mean white working class, otherwise it makes communication very
difficult! All of the things described as middle class ARE middle class! Price does not necessarily make something middle
class, it is the knowledge and time to use it. A family order from the crappy local takeaway is vastly more expensive than
your typical homemade middle class fare, yet the working class would sneer at people eating leaves for dinner!

◦
We'd sneer would we? Thank you for telling me how to react. Next time I eat rocket I will sneer at myself now that I
have been informed of the proper behaviour.

◦
Well, since the whole article is based on stereotypes I thought I'd pitch in!

I'm from working class roots - frequently working poor - and the best thing to do is learn how to cook for yourself and eat
healthily. So I'm a scratch cook and pastry maker, and eat an un-English amount of garlic.

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Garlic was brought over in Roman times, before the birth of England, so can properly be referred to as being as
English as any other food native to the country.

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Good for you. My antecedents were impoverished Balts that would eat every part of the animal, handed down in
the collective unconscious.