Blog Post 3

Michael Miller

Socioeconomic Factors for the Life of Foodie’s

Foodie can be defined as, “a person with a particular interest in food.” Socioeconomic status usually deals with a person’s/families income, occupation, and social status involved in the world. Everyday across the world, individuals coming from all different backgrounds eat food. The meals they eat everyday depend on many different secondhand reasons. The overall status of each human being depends a lot on what they tend to eat. The rich will eat more expensive foods, depending on the amount of time they have per day for their meals. Also, the experience and knowledge on food that people have will affect what they eat, or how well their meal will actually taste. The definition of a foodie starts out with using the word person as the subject, when quite frankly every living human being has somewhat of an interest in food. Each and every one of us living is actually a foodie, but each and every one of us has a lot of different opinions on food based from our economic status.

Five star gourmet restaurants and thousand dollar desserts are no doubt mainly for the rich. A five star restaurant creates their meals per day based on the wealthy, and rich. Knowing that the main people who walk through their doors have a lot of cash, these restaurants price their meals accordingly. A fifteen dollar appetizer of mozzarella sticks at a high class restaurant, might not taste as good as a five dollar appetizer of mozzarella sticks at a low class restaurant; however, the price of the higher end restaurant will not change because of the type of people that dine there. On the other hand, the rich tend to have an advantage on the quality of their foods. The five star restaurants tend to higher the more skilled chefs, while the average middle class restaurants tend to higher the chefs that are not good enough for the higher end restaurants. The bottom line is that the rich have the advantage on the middle and lower class when it comes to food.

Not only do the rich have the enhanced food, but they usually receive the more improved service. For example, when reading the book, Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl reviews different restaurants as a different character. When she dressed as a poor older lady, she was thrown into an eating section that she specifically asked not to be in; however, when she dressed in a high class outfit, and ate dinner with the boss of the New York Times food review, she was treated with more respect than she even asked for. At a five star restaurant, the waiters and waitress are dressed in expensive clothing, and serve their customers with more care than actually needed. In contrast, when eating at a sports bar the waiters and waitress tend to wear t-shirts, and come by the table once or twice. Not only do the higher and lower restaurants differ on their service abilities, but they also differ on their overall themes. Usually a four to five star restaurant mainly serves romantic couples in a more serious and mature fashion, while the average restaurant tends to be laid back and for large families or teenagers. The problem remains, that the wealthy and the rich will always have the choice of their preferred service, while the middle and low class rarely receive the opportunity to eat at the more respected and romantic restaurants.

When differing between the middle to higher class and the extremely poor, the variety of foods become a main topic. The families living in poverty usually eat the same type of food every day. For example, the poor will eat rice and drink water for the whole week, while the middle to upper class will only eat the same meal once every two to three weeks. The amount of money a foodie has will strongly depict the type of service and food they receive. The choice of food depends a lot on what taste a foodie prefers, but for some foodies there is no choice, they take what they can afford.

Although money becomes a huge detail when relating a foodie back to their socioeconomic status, experience and knowledge about the art of food is the second most important factor. A mom or dad who cooks for his or her family will know how to manage certain types of food that will satisfy them and their children. On typical occasions, a parent will then take their family out to eat, to receive food from a more experienced chef. The food produced from a typical parent will be different than a meal from a chef, due to the knowledge of cooking. Not only will the flavor of the food from a chef be more superior than from a parents cooking, but also the time it takes for a chef to create the food will be much shorter than coming from a parent. When a connoisseur has great knowledge and experience of the background of meals a lot of wasted time is pushed to the side, and the meal is generated quickly. For example, when TV chef star Rachel Ray performs her shows on the Food Network, she makes a full course meal for a whole family in about thirty minutes. With her knowledge on the background of food, she is able to express the meaning of her cooking to the audience even while making the dish. Also, the experience she portrays while cooking allows her to cook two to three different parts of a meal at the same time, which cuts down on the amount of time it takes to make the meals. When a foodie has the ability to cut down on their cooking time, it allows for them to focus more on the eating and enjoying part. Therefore, a foodie with experience and knowledge on the background of food is able to spend less time on the creation of food and more time on the enjoyment of their meal.

A chef or foodie is able to create delicious meals for others at their own pace, but when put under the pressure of a boss or time limit, the real chefs are distinguished from the average chefs. Everyday throughout all different kinds of restaurants, chefs are forced to make their finest possible dishes under the socioeconomic status of others. First, pressure becomes a huge dilemma for cooks to make their best dishes. Not only are they worried about making the dish the proper way, but they quickly begin to agonize if they are going to make the dish in a convenient amount of time. For example, the show Hell’s Kitchen is famous for the pressure that is put on the chefs participating in the show. The host of the show, Chef Ramsay, has a strategy of intensely yelling at the chefs to hurry them up and make the food right way. When watching the show, one can easily see how a foodie is easily distracted from the yelling of a superior. The chefs picked for this show are somewhat experienced chefs, and even they make the most ridiculous errors. For example, when one of the chefs on the show was forced to make a chicken leg in certain amount of time, the pressure got to the chef, and the chicken turned out to be completely raw. Now even a foodie who has never cooked in their life knows not to serve a raw chicken, but when under pressure, a foodie begins to lose track of the important parts of creating meals. Unlike parents at home cooking, cooks in a restaurant atmosphere do not have the option of trying a meal over and over again. They might be allowed one mess up, but they have to be precise and accurate with their dishes. The status of a supervisor puts a lot of pressure on many connoisseurs every day, but the foodies that can strive under pressure tend to become the more well known in the economic atmosphere.

Finally, a foodie, or should I say a human being is very dependable on his or her socioeconomic status when it comes down to the type of food they receive. The rich most likely will receive a more respected dish and service, while the poor tend to take what they can afford. Also, the more knowledgeable and experienced foodie will spend less time on creating a dish and more time on enjoying the dish they have created. Each person in the world has their own opinions and interest when it comes to food based on his or her economic status, but consider the foodie world if social and economical statuses were not a factor. Would restaurants be different, or would they all serve and cook the same way? How would cooking shows be able to reach out to people if everyone had the same knowledge and experience on food? I know the foodie world would never be in a neutral atmosphere like that, but it goes to show how much of a factor the socioeconomic status affects the interest of people.

References:
• Web Site: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea7lk5.htm

• In Class Material: Garlic and Sapphires by: Ruth Reichl, TV show (Hell’s Kitchen), TV show (Rachel Ray from the Food Network)