This is for a social stratification class.
A sociologist recently observed that there is a complex relationship between class and food consumptionfirst in the obvious sense that particular groups occupy different market situations in terms of their ability to purchase certain foods, and second in the uses various groups make of foods and food preferences as marking themselves as distinctive from or in some sense like other groups.
In this assignment, we will analyze the content of selected restaurant menus to determine how social class and food preferences interact. At the bottom of the page, you will find links to 6 restaurant menus from around the U.S. Study the menus closely, and consider the following issues while doing so:
– Are the prices easily accessible to a wide population?
– Does the menu assume specialized knowledge (wines, sauces, foreign languages?)
– Are there numbered entrees, or easy to read food names? How many entrees were offered?
– Are photos of the food used, or does the menu use other artistic images?
In approximately 3 pages, answer the following questions:
1) In what ways are the menus similar?
2) In what ways are the menus different?
3) What restaurants reflect upper class tastes? How do you know? What kind of cultural capital is required to dine in some of these restaurants?
4) In what ways does class influence a persons ability to dine in these establishments? In what ways to these restaurants, their menus, and the food they serve, serve as markers of social class?
5) What can something as mundane as a restaurant menu tell us about how social class is enacted in the everyday behaviors of people during their everyday lives?
6) Can you think of other settings in which social class and cultural capital affect ones ability to act and interact successfully?
Use these places menus –
Le Bernedin (Links to an external site.)
Del Posto (Links to an external site.)
Per Se (Links to an external site.)
Frisch’s (Links to an external site.)
Applebees (Links to an external site.)
O’Charleys (Links to an external site.)
