Food as an Expression of British Class Warfare
Over at the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog, Matthew Fort rallies the proletariat with an ode to Jamie Oliver.
"In most other civilised counties, everyone feels as if they own their food culture. Only in Britain has it been a weapon in class warfare.”
Of the alleged schism created when the well-heeled write about food, Fort states, "Ever since the sainted Elizabeth David put pen to paper, and even before, food was used as a form of social exclusion rather than something that should be accessible to everybody."
But Oliver is an agent of change. Fort champions Oliver as a hero of the masses, saying, "He didn’t go to university and he doesn’t treat food as the exclusive province of the well-educated and well heeled.... He doesn’t speak in the clipped tones of the middle classes. His vocabulary is distinctly limited. Much of his cooking is, frankly, slapdash. But he addresses directly a mass of Britons who formerly had been completely ignored by the clever clogs who clutter up the columns of print media and the ever-multiplying sequence of food shows on television. He makes extra-virgin olive oil and rocket seem as homely as dripping and cabbage. He makes passion about food and cooking seem normal."
Is food as social exclusion a problem unique to Brits or are we in the U.S. similarly plagued? Who are our food champions?
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8 Comments:
Jamie Oliver looks like brad pitt kind of, huh?
Prairie at 4:24PM on 01/14/09
I'm surprised at some of the statements in this article. I lived in the UK for several years, and I don't remember Jamie Oliver being perceived as a working class hero.
Most people thought he was "mockney"--a member of the middle class trying to pass himself off as Cockney. (He's actually mentioned as an example of the phenomenon on the Wikipedia entry for mockney.)
Furthermore, his televised campaign to overhaul "school dinners" (that's school lunches to Americans), replacing turkey nuggets and the ubiquitous chips with couscous and tagines was widely seen as obnoxiously classist.
I don't have a problem with him, at least not in a classist sense, I'm just surprised at this analysis from a British news source.
Michele Humes at 4:45PM on 01/14/09
wow, that guy is really up jamie's ass. food culture isn't defined by the voice/vocabulary of print media and tv cooking shows. not speaking in the "clipped tones of the middle classes" doesn't mean that you are ending class warfare. i don't get it..maybe because i don't know britain from my elbow, maybe because it's a crappy column that doesn't make any sense...
sloppy at 4:50PM on 01/14/09
I think there is an interesting divide in the US over what is and isn't a "nice" dinner. To some it's surf and turf and you pick a soup or salad and how you'd like your potato done. To others, the emphasis is on local, fresh ingredients and... well, I don't know how to define it, but I think many Serious Eats readers would have the same vision. I'm not sure if that's a white collar/ blue collar divide, or an urban/suburban/rural divide.
VLSmith at 5:28PM on 01/14/09
When it's easier and less expensive for a single parent to grab a fast food meal to feed the family than it is for them to buy fresh vegetables and a lean protein--much less find the time to cook it--of course food is a social/class issue. On the flip side, if the food you're buying is cheap, it's likely because in the process of producing that food, an animal has been mistreated and, more importantly, a person has been exploited for cheap labor.
Who are our food champions? Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah, can't really think of any.
maered at 5:29PM on 01/14/09
@Michele Humes--I lived in England for two years and I also heard Jamie Oliver's speech called 'mockney' by a number of people, some of whom considered themselves working-class, others who did not--it's been my experience that Oliver is respected much more in the US than he is in the UK.
Mockney or not, I like Oliver and think he's done great work in promoting healthy food, as in his campaign for Sainsbury's (a UK supermarket) and his work in bringing in people from non-traditional backgrounds into the industry.
Food can be used as a vehicle of social exclusion and snobbery in any society--again, this is just my experience as an American living abroad--but in England there is at least an open acknowledge that social class exists and affects one's chances in life, but in America that is something lots of Americans still don't like to acknowledge and insist America as 'classless society.' But that is changing.
HeartofGlass at 7:05PM on 01/14/09
Oliver's work on school dinners alone makes him okay in my book. I remember one problem he had early on is that a lot of people who worked in school kitchens had no idea how to cook...they only knew how to heat things up. So sad. And 'turkey twizzlers' are just an evil invention. Must all foods come in nugget form?
NotAmerican at 9:36PM on 01/14/09
If you watch UKTV Food or the programmes on the BBC, or read the newspaper, you know that Matthew Fort is right on and that much food programming and writing is not aimed at people who don't know how to cook, don't want to cook, and are middle class or higher. Most people talking about food here are easily identified as "posh", (whether or not they actually are) and they talk posh - Nigella, Hugh, Gordon, Mathew Fort, Marco, Rick Stein, Nigel Slater, and even Saint Delia herself.
While Jamie is quite "Mockney" and middle class, his latest book and television series on this side of the pond - "Jamie's Ministry of Food" is directly aimed at the lower and working classes. The people shown on the new series were miners, doormen, hairdressers, and single mums on benefits. They are not people Nigella or Ina would invite over to enjoy what they've cooked.
His new mission involves teaching ordinary people how to cook simple, straight forward, and tasty dishes with fresh ingredients that are readily available and then asking them to "pass on" the recipe by teaching their friends and family. The book is full of photographs, written in an easy to understand manner, and offers loads of alternatives and ideas of how to expand on the very tasty dishes. I've yet to make a bad one from the book.
Essentially, Jamie has taken Delia's mission of "How to Cook" of 10 years ago that was aimed at the middle class, and repackaged it in a modern and updated version for (young) people who never learned how to cook and those who have been largely ignored by the food media. He is teaching people how to cook healthy meals rather than eating ready or take away meals.
I think with this project, he has gained a lot of respect and admiration in the UK. The book is amazing, and has quickly become the one in my kitchen most nights of the week.
london_janice at 6:20AM on 01/15/09