Wszechstronność upodobań kulinarnych. O dystynktywnych i komunikacyjnych właściwościach jedzenia

Abstract

Variety of culinary tastes: On distinctive and communicative facets of eating The bulk of the contemporary debate in cultural stratification research refers to the concept of omnivorousness. According to it, the stratification of tastes in modern societies resembles an invert­ed pyramid separating higher social classes with broad tastes cutting across the fine and popular genres at the top from lower social classes with narrow tastes at the bottom. The aim of the article is to shed light on this phenomenon by inferring the social and symbolic significance of the variety of food experience. The omnivorousness presents people with opportunities for demonstrating com­municative competence and for staking claims to social exclusivity. Based on a large survey into the exposure to a variety of foods, spices and ingredients, this article shows that omnivorosusness is a function of socio-economic position, although the relationship gets stronger as specific items are considered. Furthermore, the culinary repertoire depends on personal network characteristics such as size, diversity, access to resources and type of social relation. The celebration of variety makes it possible to operate in the postmodern world of diverse commodities and styles and to communicate with people of different cultural profiles.