Discriminating Taste
288 pages, 6 x 9
10 photographs, 5 graphs, 2 diagrams
Paperback
Release Date:24 Apr 2017
ISBN:9780813576855
Hardcover
Release Date:24 Apr 2017
ISBN:9780813576862
Discriminating Taste
How Class Anxiety Created the American Food Revolution
Rutgers University Press
Winner of the 2018 First Book Prize from the Association for the Study of Food and Society
For the past four decades, increasing numbers of Americans have started paying greater attention to the food they eat, buying organic vegetables, drinking fine wines, and seeking out exotic cuisines. Yet they are often equally passionate about the items they refuse to eat: processed foods, generic brands, high-carb meals. While they may care deeply about issues like nutrition and sustainable agriculture, these discriminating diners also seek to differentiate themselves from the unrefined eater, the common person who lives on junk food.
Discriminating Taste argues that the rise of gourmet, ethnic, diet, and organic foods must be understood in tandem with the ever-widening income inequality gap. Offering an illuminating historical perspective on our current food trends, S. Margot Finn draws numerous parallels with the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, an era infamous for its class divisions, when gourmet dinners, international cuisines, slimming diets, and pure foods first became fads.
Examining a diverse set of cultural touchstones ranging from Ratatouille to The Biggest Loser, Finn identifies the key ways that “good food” has become conflated with high status. She also considers how these taste hierarchies serve as a distraction, leading middle-class professionals to focus on small acts of glamorous and virtuous consumption while ignoring their class’s larger economic stagnation. A provocative look at the ideology of contemporary food culture, Discriminating Taste teaches us to question the maxim that you are what you eat.
For the past four decades, increasing numbers of Americans have started paying greater attention to the food they eat, buying organic vegetables, drinking fine wines, and seeking out exotic cuisines. Yet they are often equally passionate about the items they refuse to eat: processed foods, generic brands, high-carb meals. While they may care deeply about issues like nutrition and sustainable agriculture, these discriminating diners also seek to differentiate themselves from the unrefined eater, the common person who lives on junk food.
Discriminating Taste argues that the rise of gourmet, ethnic, diet, and organic foods must be understood in tandem with the ever-widening income inequality gap. Offering an illuminating historical perspective on our current food trends, S. Margot Finn draws numerous parallels with the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, an era infamous for its class divisions, when gourmet dinners, international cuisines, slimming diets, and pure foods first became fads.
Examining a diverse set of cultural touchstones ranging from Ratatouille to The Biggest Loser, Finn identifies the key ways that “good food” has become conflated with high status. She also considers how these taste hierarchies serve as a distraction, leading middle-class professionals to focus on small acts of glamorous and virtuous consumption while ignoring their class’s larger economic stagnation. A provocative look at the ideology of contemporary food culture, Discriminating Taste teaches us to question the maxim that you are what you eat.
'Finn's compelling argument about the role of class in today's food culture is sure to have a major impact on how both scholars and foodies think about the food revolution.'
Finn offers an engaging and compelling explanation for the rise of the modern food movement. It's one that the leaders of the movement will no doubt find unsettling.
New Books Network - New Books in Sociology' interview with S. Margot Finn
'Good taste' is all about class anxiety' by Rachel Sugar
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/26/20873938/good-taste-class-anxiety-s-margot-finn
'Finn's compelling argument about the role of class in today's food culture is sure to have a major impact on how both scholars and foodies think about the food revolution.'
Finn offers an engaging and compelling explanation for the rise of the modern food movement. It's one that the leaders of the movement will no doubt find unsettling.
New Books Network - New Books in Sociology' interview with S. Margot Finn
'Good taste' is all about class anxiety' by Rachel Sugar
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/26/20873938/good-taste-class-anxiety-s-margot-finn
S. MARGOT FINN is a lecturer in literature, science, and the arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Discriminating Taste
1 Incompatible Standards: The Four Ideals of the Food Revolution
2 Aspirational Eating: Food and Status Anxiety in the Gilded Age
3 No Culinary Enlightenment: Why Everything You Know about Food Is Wrong
4 Anyone Can Cook: Saying Yes to Meritocracy
5 Just Mustard: Negotiating with Food Snobbery
6 Feeling Good about Where You Shop: Sacrifice, Pleasure, and Virtue
Conclusion: Confronting the Soft Bigotry of Taste
Notes
Index
Introduction: Discriminating Taste
1 Incompatible Standards: The Four Ideals of the Food Revolution
2 Aspirational Eating: Food and Status Anxiety in the Gilded Age
3 No Culinary Enlightenment: Why Everything You Know about Food Is Wrong
4 Anyone Can Cook: Saying Yes to Meritocracy
5 Just Mustard: Negotiating with Food Snobbery
6 Feeling Good about Where You Shop: Sacrifice, Pleasure, and Virtue
Conclusion: Confronting the Soft Bigotry of Taste
Notes
Index
Related Titles
Resilient Kitchens
American Immigrant Cooking in a Time of Crisis, Essays and Recipes
Edited by Philip Gleissner and Harry Eli Kashdan
