The meal as a symbolic capital; an ethnological study of food, middle class and identity founding

This paper aims to investigate how human beings uses food to found an identity, with regards to how social class affects their choice of food and if trends play a part when it comes to cooking and purchasing food. The paper applies theorist Pierre Bourdieu's concepts such as habitus, capital and field. The main part of the material is composed of four interviews with seven informants; all of which is middle class. The paper also looks at how lifestyle, taste and attitudes to consumption are used when the informants build identity. The empirical part is split into three main subjects, where I first seek to find each informants food habits. What do they eat, and what do they not eat? It showed that a large part was due to their varied lifestyles, however generally speaking the day to day meals should be quick while meals during the weekends could take longer and also cost more. The second part attempts to find if social class plays a large part when it comes to the choice of food. It would later show that the informants social and cultural background was to determine how they eat and consume and in a large degree made use of their habitus. It also shows that food in media can significantly affect the informants choices when it comes to food habits, all of which perceived that trends shown in, for example TV shows, cooking books and food magazine were not only enjoyable but also important when it comes to the development of an identity and lifestyle. How people choose to eat is not down to chance, it is instead founded in each person’s background, taste and how they would like to be perceived in a social society. Keywords: Food, meal, identity, identity founding, consumption, lifestyle, taste, social class, middle clas