Food, music and politics: The interweaving of culinary taste patterns, ‘highbrow’ musical taste and conservative attitudes in Finland

Abstract

This article addresses two key debates in cultural sociology: one on coherent lifestyle patterns crossing several cultural fields and one on pervasive lifestyles, which also includes, apart from the cultural elements, wider socio-political orientations. The study takes the point of view of three fields rarely studied together – food, music and political attitudes – employing a rich empirical research design utilizing both representative survey data ( N = 1,388) and qualitative interviews ( N = 28). Starting from the analysis of how culinary tastes are socially stratified in present-day Finland, three culinary taste patterns are identified: preferences for ‘heavy/meat’, ‘light/ethnic’ and ‘fast food’. The most salient distinction is established between the light/ethnic taste (indicating a trend towards high status, female and urban) and the heavy/meat taste (inclined towards low status, male and rural). Culinary taste patterns are closely related with ‘highbrow’ musical taste and politically conservative attitudes. In particular, the light/ethnic culinary pattern is strongly associated with highbrow musical taste and liberal attitudes. The results support the ideas of structural homology between cultural fields and lifestyle patterning, including an important political component. At the individual level however the ‘homology’ is often far from perfect.