For Bourdieu, it is not only the item consumed that is significant, but also that the symbolic power of taste preferences reinforces the space of social positions in ways that vary by gender and social class, among other dimensions. Bourdieu then developed an argument that social class tastes are shaped by class-based habitus – for example, among the working class, economic constraints play a significant role in how individuals make food choices. From this work, he advanced a hypothesis that “ecessity imposes a taste for necessity which implies a form of adaptation to and consequently acceptance of the necessary…”1984 p.372).
Some of the most durable thinking on the symbolic roles of tastes in our social lives was originally advanced by Pierre Bourdieu, who examined tastes in food and cuisine as part of the 1960s–70s French lifestyle. I argue that paying close attention to a person’s food choices and social relationships gives needed depth to an underdeveloped dimension of Bourdieu’s influential “taste of necessity” hypothesis, illuminating additional pathways by which our social environment shapes what we consume. Yet despite these notable contributions to what might be described as the sociology of food and eating, the American sociological gaze has given surprisingly little attention to what individuals eat and how social relationships with others may be implicated in food choices. It has also been shown that culinary professionals adopt parts of food-related practices they observe from others, leading to the creation of new hybrid forms ( Rao et al., 2005), and that consumers have been shifting towards an ethos of cultural omnivorousness in their food choices as a marker of social distinction in modern times ( Johnston & Baumann, 2010). We recognize that dining practices are shaped by cultural context ( Visser, 1991), and that the development of cuisine and the field of professional food preparation and consumption, consisting of multiple individuals interacting in multiple roles, is an ecology unto ( Ferguson, 2004).
In addition, sociologists have a long tradition of illuminating how food rituals are an integral part of being a functioning member of human society ( Elias, 1982 Simmel, 1997). The topic of the food we consume, and how these foods are connected with our social, cultural, and economic circumstances has been the subject of extensive sociological inquiry ( Bourdieu, 1984 Mennell, 1996 Grignon & Grignon, 1999 Beardsworth & Keil, 2002).
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