When did cheap staples from other cuisines become “middle-class”, asks food writer Jonathan Nunn
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, 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 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”.
All of this is supercharged by post-Brexit politics and its discontents...
The disapproval of a shopping list or what other people are eating these days is ultimately about insinuating that anyone concerned with Brexit-induced food shortages is a paid-up member of the Ocado elite; reinforcing a narrative that Brexit itself was simply about the divide between working-class towns (one Waitrose per 100,000 people) and middle-class urban centres (one Waitrose per person).
