Table Of ContentTHE SOCIOLOGY OF FOOD AND EATING
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The $ociology of Food and
Eating
Essays on the sociological significance of food
edited by
ANNE MURCOTT
University College, Cardiff
and Welsh National School of Medicine
Gower
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C Anne Murcott 1983
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Published by
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Reprinted 1984
British Ubrary Cataloguing In Publ~don Data
The Sociology of Food and Eating
1. Food - Social aspects
I. Murcott, Anne
306'.4'0941 TX355
ISBN 0-566-00580-8
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn
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Contents
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Acknowledgements vii
List of Contributors
Vlll
1 Introduction Anne Murcott
SECTION I EATING, CULTURE AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION
2 Eating Virtue Paul Atkinson 9
3 Vegetarianism and the Meanings of Meat Julia Twigg 18
4 Living from Hand to Mouth: the Farmworker, Food 31
and Agribusiness Howard Newby
5 The Hierarchy of Maintenance and the Maintenance of 45
Hierarchy: Notes on Food and Industry Eria Batstone
SECTION II FOOD, HEALTH AND GENERATION
6 The Management of Food in Pregnancy Sally Macintyre 57
(7).,. __\
7 A Question of Balance: Asian and British Women's 0
Perceptions of Food During Pregnancy Hil<ZI'y Homans
Food for Equilibrium: the Dietary Principles and Practice 84
of Chinese 'Families in London Erica Wheeler & Tan Swee Poh
9 The Goodness is Out of It: the Meaning of Food to Two 95
Generations Mild:t>ed Blaxter & Elizabeth Paterson
10 The Salt of the Earth: Ideas Linking Diet, Exercise 106
and Virtue among Elderly Aberdonians Rory Williams
®
11 An Apple a Day •.• Some Reflections on Working Class
Mothers' Views on Food and Health Raisin Pill
12 The Sweet Things in Life: Aspects of the Management of 128
Diabetic Diet Tina Posner
SECTION III COOKING, GENDER AND HOUSEHOLD
13 Lobster, Chicken, Cake and Tears: Deciphering Wedding 141
Meals Saro Delamont
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14 You are What You Eat: Food and Family Reconstitution
Jacqueline Burgoyne & David Cl-ark£
15 The Way to a Man's Heart: Food in the Violent Home 164
Rhian EZZis
16 Men in the Kitchen: Notes from a Cookery Class 172
Tony Coxon B
17 Cooking and the Cooked: a Note on the Domestic
Preparation of Meals Anne Murcott
Bibliography 186
Index 194
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Acknowledgements
In the last few years a growing number of people have agreed with me
that the sociological significance of food and eating is important. I
am grateful to them all for their encouragement to persist, in
particular to Virginia Olesen and to colleagues in Cardiff. I would
especially like to thank Sara Delamont and Bill Hudson who, in addition,
generously made time to help with the final practical stages of
compiling this volume, and Val Dobie who prepared the typescript with
such good humour.
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List of Contributors
Paul Atkinson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University
College, Cardiff .
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Eric Batstone, Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
Mildred Blaxter, MRC Sociologist, MRC Medical Sociology Unit, Aberdeen.
Jacqueline Burgoyne, Senior Lecturer, Department Applied Social Studies,
Sheffield City Polytechnic. .
David Clark, MRC Sociologist, MRC Medical Sociology Unit, Aberdeen.
Tony Coxon, Professor of Sociological Research Methods, Department of
Sociology, University College, Cardiff.
Sara Delamont, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University
College, Cardiff.
Rhian Ellis, Research Officer, Economic Policy and Research Unit, Mid
Glamorgan County Council.
Hilary Homans, Research Fellow, University of Warwick.
Sally Macintyre, MRC Sociologist, MRC Medical Sociology Unit, Aberdeen.
Anne Murcott, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University College,
Cardiff and Welsh National School of Medicin~.
Howard Newby, Reader, Department of Sociology, University of Essex.
Elizabeth Paterson, Research Fellow, Institute of Medical Sociology,
Aberdeen.
Roisin Pill, Research Fellow, Department of General Practice, Welsh
National School of Medicine.
Tina Posner, Attached worker, Department of Co111DUnity Medicine and
General Practice, University of Oxford.
Tan Swee Poh, Research Fellow, Department of Human Nutrition, London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Julia Twigg, Former Research Student, Department of Sociology, London
School of Economics.
Erica Wheeler, Lecturer in Human Nutrition, London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.
Rory Williams, MRC Sociologist, MRC Medical Sociology Unit, Aberdeen•
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1 Introduction
ANNE MURCOTT
Study of the social significance of food and eating has mostly been left
to social anthropologists[l], social historians[2),social nutritionists
so-called[3] and other social co11111entators(4). Sociologists, especially
in Britain, have paid the matter virtually no sustained attention (but
cf. Mennell forthcoming). There is, then, no identifiable sociological
literature dealing with British culinary practices, menus and manners,
with beliefs and concepts about food and its value, with the social
organisation of the provision of meals - leave alone how they all may
relate to the position of those able to overeat while many must go
short. Yet as Goody (1982) has observed, academic concern with these
questions is by no means frivolous. As part and parcel of the culture
and structure of the societies in which they occur they have a bearing
on attempts either to create change or to appreciate its consequences.
These original essays have been gathered together to begin remedying
this oversight. [5)
The general orientation of this collection owes .obvious debt to the
anthropologists. Recognising that people eat food not feed (Douglas,
1977)[6] provides for study of 'philosophies' of eating, of what, in
other words, is believed to be food's goodness - medically and
gastronomically. Further, such beliefs are to be considered not in
isolation, but in the context of the social mores in which eating and
drinking are done. So eating habits are viewed as a matter of culture,
a product of codes of conduct and of the structure of social relation
ships. Indeed what and how people eat or drink may usefully be
understood in terms of a system whose coherence is afforded by the
social and cultural organisation with which it is associated.
The approach is extended here to empirical instances in modern Britain.
Only four chapters (2, 3, 8 and 17) derive from studies expressly
intended to explore what Wellin (1953) has called food ideologies, two
(13 and 14) capitalise on fairly limited evidence in order to ponder
relevant lines of thinking, and the rest are based on research in which
a concern with food and eating was either incidental, or assumed
importance only as an afterthought. All are somewhat exploratory and
speculative. They are arranged in three sections - references have been
consolidated in a single bibliography at the end of the volume and
documents, such as pamphlets or cookbooks considered as data, are mostly
identified in the footnotes to the relevant chapter.
Two major themes recur throughout the book. One concerns the way
eating is a matter of morality (cf. Turner, 1982). In order to under-
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line the point, contributors have unrepentantly traded upon sayings and
cliches highlighting the coDDDOnplace equation of nutritional with social
values. 'Eat up, it ' s good for you' connotes not only medicinal virtues
- and perhaps tastiness - but also the moral assurance that this is the
right and proper way to behave. The right food - whether for health, in
sickness or as the appropriate menu for the occasion - also conveys a
message that the proprieties are being observed.
The other main theme goes beyond the conventional meanings with which
foodstuffs may be invested. What is eaten, how it is cooked and served,
the range of choice, who does the preparation, all are also a matter of
material and social relationships. They are integrally located in a
hierarchical social structure where power, wealth and freedom of choice
are unevenly distributed •
.
The four essays of Section One i l lustrate each of these themes.
Looking at rhetoric surrounding both so-called ' health' foods and
processed, highly refined products , Atkinson illustrates the general
issue of the way food is available to carry meanings about what is
natural , proper and virtuous. Twigg takes this up and shows that modern
vegetarianism is a philosophy of eating which, far from being i solated
from the meat-eating ideologies of the dominant culture, instead
reflects and reworks them. Newby follows, exploding the myth that those
who work on the land somehow enjoy thereby privileged access to a store
of unusually fresh and wholesome foodstuffs . Not only is the agri
cultural labourer's cuisine strikingly similar to that of the city
dweller, ironically it also costs more as a result of the now
corporately organised production and distribution of food. Farmworkers
and their urban counterparts are each alienated from what they produce;
the work of each constrained - and by the same token meal breaks
controlled. Based on a number of years of observational research
Batstone discusses how car workers' limited discretion over the timing
and place of meals at work contrasts starkly with the degree of freedom
allowed company directors. The extremes of the industrial hierarchy are
thus reflected and reaffirmed.
The morality of diet continues through Section Two. Good food is more
than a mere matter of nutritional value - a balanced diet more than just
a matter of health. Monitoring bodily wellbeing is reflected in notions
about suitable eating and bodily experiences impinge in ways that demand
management. (7]. Although pregnancy is widely held to be a time of
bizarre food habits Macintyre concludes that medical textbooks and
popular advice handbooks pay little attention to changes in appetite and
taste, treating them as trivial and peripheral. She draws in detail on
a study of married women expecting their first child to show that such
changes are not necessarily limited to the early stages and that they
assume a greater social, and perhaps, medical importance than is
supposed in the literature. Homans also considers the change that
pregnancy means. By juxtaposing perceptions of Asian and British women
she finds that dietary balance is a watchword for both groups. In
Wheeler and Tan's account of the views of Hongkong Chinese in London
balance, though construed differently, is once more the key. Food is
held to play a central part in maintaining a harmony between the body
and the environment that will ensure good health in infancy, during
pregnancy and motherhood and into old age.
Geographically, and more especially culturally, distant the epitome of
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