Food, Social Class, and Class-Resentment.

I rather be writing about mushrooms (and would that make me a "liberal" or a "conservative"?), but I will step aside and urge you to watch Rod Dreher wade into the swamp of issues of food and class.

Americans cannot talk about class honestly. A lot of our talk about "race" is actually about class, which is why it is so illogical and even dishonest.

When you mix in food prejudices, you might find yourself meeting yourself coming around the corner.

I have had older students run the "I can't afford to buy organic foods" routine on me, but without examining their monthly spending patterns, I could not say if that was true or not.

Lots of good lines in Dreher's article. Here are some:

The food snob is a comedy staple (ever seen the BBC’s hilarious “Posh Nosh” send-up of culinary elitists?) and, for many conservatives, an object of political derision. It’s easy to make fun of liberals who glide up to San Francisco farmer’s markets in their (metaphorical) limousines, agonizing over the purity of the squash’s provenance with the anxious attention of a medieval Scholastic to the immaculate qualities of his syllogisms. You get the idea that you could chase some of these people all the way to Canada with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos tied to the end of a pole.

But far fewer people pay attention to reverse food snobbery—to folks who are proud of eating junk, and lots of it, in part out of the conviction that doing so offends Whole Foods shoppers, who, on this view, “think they’re better than us.” When Michelle Obama announced her program to encourage American children—one in three of whom is overweight or obese—to eat healthier meals, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin attacked the First Lady as a busybody and a fatso.

But do read it all. You will find yourself agreeing with at least one of the commenters, too.