It’s another slow day as the year creeps snailwise to its end, and I’m feeling dolorous and had another bad bout of insomnia last night. The good news is that there’s nothing intellectual afoot that I feel compelled to write about. The other good news is that you get to take a QUIZ, one pointed out in the NYT but located another site that’s free. Here’s what the NYT says (archived here):
Now, from IDR Labs, comes the social media-friendly Food Social Class Test, a casual online survey based on a data-driven academic report published in 2020 by Silvia Bellezza and Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania. That work was broadly derived from research into the connections between social class and the things we choose to put in our mouths — a link explored in the early 1980s by the French academic and intellectual Pierre Bourdieu.
Mr. Bourdieu’s work sharply skewered myths of social mobility in a postindustrial society. He found, unsurprisingly, that in many ways those at the top of the capitalist food chain go to considerable lengths to safeguard and maintain social privilege and generational wealth.
Which brings us to the twice-baked potato topped with melted Cheddar and bacon bits: Reader, I took the test.
In it, each of the 35 menu options is offered as a silhouetted photo with a bar beneath it for rating a selection. Users are encouraged to rate such things as a Cheddar-topped baked potato by indicating the degree to which they “agree” or “disagree” with it. Though there are plenty of things with which this reporter quibbles on a daily basis, seldom has a baked potato provoked him to argument.
. . .Simply select menu items with caloric values in the low triple digits and you are quickly aligned with high-class culinary ways. If it is true that you can never be too rich or too thin, as the Duchess of Windsor is believed to have remarked, it goes without saying that you cannot achieve the latter benchmark by scarfing down Sloppy Joes. We live, after all, in an Ozempic era.
So never mind the fried fish sticks, the potato chips, the defrosted pizza, the chicken nuggets, or the hot dog with all the trimmings. Forget the Mac ’n Cheese or even the Truffle Mac ’n Cheese, presumably featured on the survey as a snob trap. Adding two small discs of fragrant fungus to a dish that is otherwise a gloppy, glutinous cholesterol nightmare does not significantly elevate it on the class scale.
That seems rather snobbish to me; I just like food that tastes good, and that’s how I rated them.
Here’s the site and the first example. Click on the “Food Test” icon below to take the quiz (and you know you will!):
One example: here’s the first of 35 items I chose. You have five choices for each item: really bad, bad, so-so (leave it in the middle), tasty, and REALLY tasty. Just move the cursor to one of the four spaces or leave it in the middle:
And here’s my result: I have “upper middle class” food choices. I don’t know what to think about that (I added the arrow).
In truth, I liked nearly everything, but somethings more than others (I wasn’t keen on the truffle mac ‘n’ cheese, which is like putting a pig in a fur coat, or on the tuna tartare tacos, a bad concept). Take it yourself and let us know how you did in the comments below. I wonder if anybody will come out “lower class”. I urge readers to take the test because I want to know how people do!
upper-middle class (67.86%)
My test results were “lower middle class.”
Just FYI, that my parents were both school teachers, which I assume would’ve put me growing up in the middle class. And I am a retired physician, which probably puts me higher on the social scale. It would’ve been pretty easy to say I like caviar, and the like and boost myself up if I wanted.
Also was rated a “lower middle class” person. The high-status foods cost a lot more, and certainly not available in my neighborhood. I see this as economics issue only.
Your food choices resemble those of the middle class (82.14%).
Middle class, and a close 2nd place is lower middle class. I think looking at 2nd place, if its a close 2nd, lends additional insight into the range of your food preferences.
I did not see fast food.
I, apparently, have lower class taste in food. By a large margin.
A bit surprising, given my background (solid over-educated middle class), but can I be faulted for disliking caviar?
I prefer salmon roe to caviar.
I like some caviar, but only beluga straight or pressed. Other fish eggs I have no use for, and beluga is pricey and almost unobtainable. I’ve had it only twice, but when I did, I saw what the fuss was about.
I simply failed the test: “Your food choices could not be tied to any one social class.”
Woo hoo, that is an accomplishment.
Same for me. I was indifferent to a lot of the foods: I wouldn’t seek them out, but I wouldn’t turn them down.
“Can I be faulted for disliking caviar?” In the test yes. I got “lower middle class” bc I dislike most of the seafood options in the test (excepting the sushi).
I too have low class tastes.
But I’m a super taster that likes mostly plain food. My sister is the same.
We don’t come from a low class background. Our mom tried to get us to eat more but it didn’t work.
LOL!
I’m going to pick all proletariat foods to screw with them… because, of course, I have the gnos for prole food!
*alternate but more obscure pun :
nous – Greek concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.
Food, upper class, but just barely. I don’t care for caviar, but I was introduced to fine dining 15 years ago, and it turned out I really like it. Still like a good grilled cheese sandwich with a hint of honey.
You know, pizza crust dipped in honey is pretty damn good!
Never tried adding honey, but as I like grilled cheese, pizza and honey, I will try this, and elevate my status!
Honey with red chili flakes. Or cinnamon.
Like Matt, I am lower middle class. That was my childhood, with farmer parents who had to quit high school to help out with their many siblings. Even though our family moved up the social and educational scale, I guess my food habits didn’t 😄
I’m decisively middle class (33.29%). I guess that’s because I rated almost everything on the menu below par. I didn’t see a single cruciferous vegetable. No kale, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi. Nothing. I was tempted by several of the mac-and-cheese selections, but they only rated in the middle of the scale. Too much fat. Too much bread. Not enough veggies. No hummus? What kind of diet is that?
For day to day eating, not special occasions, I’m with you. Lots of fresh veggies and fruit, moderate carbs and fiber, moderate protein.
I think that they consider fruits and veggies as not very good indicators of social class.
That’s gotta’ be the reason those dishes are so lacking in them.
“I’m decisively middle class (33.29%). I guess that’s because I rated almost everything on the menu below par.”
Same here. Perhaps not a representative test for someone who shuns fast food, sweets, and meat that neither clucks nor swims. I retook the test reflecting how I used to eat when young—still middle class, with a much stronger lean toward lower middle with its more affordable, commonplace foods.
Hear hear
Solid middle class. 85.7. Wish there had been a super OTW agree for sloppy joes…one of the stars of college cafeteria menus.
At SUNY-Binghamton in the 1970’s, one of the dining hall “treats” was Mock Lobster. What’s Mock Lobster?! No one knows. I rarely ate in the dining halls, but when I did I always visited the soft-serve ice cream machine. Unlimited ice cream!
The problem with this test, from my perspective, is that there is way too much raw food in the survey. I dislike raw foods because of the health risk that they involve. I taught two classes (Mummies and Modernity & Disease) and written a book (Paleopathology in Perspective) that covers these issues.
I respect your food choices and I bought your book. So there!
👍
Thank you so much!
Bought your book too.
And, thank you too!
Lower middle class, though middle class was a close second. I’m beyond chuffed that I missed serf.
+1 HA!
I wonder if serf and TERF exists.
My balance book begs to differ, but apparently I’m upper class.
I came out as “lower class” and “lower middle class”, but then again, I don’t like any food that comes from the sea, and I don’t like vegetables (potato excluded).
I also came out as “lower middle class” and I also think it’s because I don’t like ANY food that comes from the sea, either. The menu choices seemed to be really heavy on fish and shellfish dishes with a distinctly upper-crust spin.
It’s that or I really DO have lower middle class food tastes — although I don’t think so.
But I DID click 5 on potato chips. Does anybody actually dislike them?
I came out low class due to being a lifelong picky eater. I am not from a low class background.
Veggie people are likely to come out relatively “upper class” since so many of the dishes are meaty or fishy.
Lower class, 85.71. Doesn’t surprise me a bit. When I go to a restaurant, I study the menu pretty thoroughly, try to figure out what will taste the best. For me, it’s always about the taste, never about the $.
“How much would you like to eat X?”
“Agree … Disagree?”
That’s a very odd response to that question…
Regardless, I got lower class. But I also rejected nearly everything because almost nothing in all those items was vegetarian! It was mostly the desserts. That selection would make an awful restaurant.
Middle to lower-middle class. I have no use for truffles or the tuna taco things, let alone a foie gras burger. Oddly, while there were quite a few things I strongly dislike, there were few or maybe jut one that ranked top top tier.
hundreds of test options come up but not the food one described
You have to scroll waaaaaaaay down, and it’s easy to overlook.
Edit: I went back and counted – it’s in the 17th row down.
Also, for some platforms and browser choices, you can pretty easily invoke a “find in page” search. For Chrome or Brave on Windows I use ctrl-F. Doing this and looking for “food” took me right to it.
Could not determine. The trouble is that it almost all looked pretty yummy.
Lower middle class. What a terrible selection of food offerings. I guess eating healthy mainly, fruits and vegetables with a little dairy excludes me from the upper classes.
I did not get a score – lower class and middle class about tied at what I take to be 60 %. May have to do with my not eating dead mammals, nor shellfish, dead or alive.
Yes, not a very vegetarian friendly survey.
Very solid middle class 78.57%. But I imagine my untypical palate confused the algorithm. I’m very diligent about never putting nutritionally worthless food in my mouth. I have zero sweet tooth. I despise soda. I’m not aware that I’ve had a donut this entire year and the number of cookies could easily be counted by the fingers of two hands. Never junk snacks such as pretzels or chips (maybe chips if I’m at a party and there’s interesting clam dip or something).
But as for real food (i.e. dead animals and plants and fungi with minimal processing), I’m at home with highbrow food such as escargot, truffle, pate de foi gras, lobster, sushi, caviar, frog, etc. I am equally at home with hillbilly food such as chitlins, pigtail, catfish, pork kidneys, collard greens, parsnips, rutabaga, pumpkin, etc. Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies show would enjoy feeding me since she would get sincere compliments for her food.
There are many other tests, ranging from what pop diva you resemble, to whether or not you may be a psychopath.
Though I love taking silly tests, I wlll pass on the pop diva and psychopath. Wouldn’t want to resemble either.
I did take several tests, including the one for psychopaths. I was not pegged as one, but was listed as leaning that direction. A bit surprising considering the questions and my responses . . . hmmm. Not sure about that one.
There are several classic understandings of “social class” in the literature, and forms of consumption are certainly one of them. But this whole exercise reminded me of a project I worked on many years ago, for a research firm in Chicago. One of the standard components of surveys conducted by the firm, especially in market research, was a social class evaluation of each respondent, based on answers to a few key questions (for you social science types, it was based on Lloyd Warner’s book “Social Class in America…”).
The interviewer, someone from a firm that contracted to conduct interviews around the country, had typed one respondent as “working class”, but when we looked at the details of the respondent, he lived in Washington D.C. and was a paleontologist, probably a scientist at the Smithsonian. I asked the interview firm to check with the interviewer about how that fellow got listed as “working class,” and the response was that, when the interviewer asked him what a “paleontologist” was, he replied — obviously jokingly — that he dug up old bones, and the interviewer took this to mean that he was basically a ditch digger!
This is all off-topic, I know, but it was a good lesson on the kind of errors that can creep into social research.
Vegetarian here. There were only two items that I might eat including those little cakes. (Cake . . .mmm).
But that’s okay, I already know what class I am.
Lower class all the way. Beef, chicken, potatoes, root vegetables and ethnic food, mostly from Asia and south of the border. Those are my goto foods of choice. Anybody want to join me at a taco truck or Thai restaurant? The quiz made me hungry.
OK, it’s what I figured – sociological gnosticism in computer coded form. Not surprised there are tests for numerous Woke agendas.
The food questions are ridiculously loaded – from caviar, gold foil ice cream, to meatloaf and fish sticks – and then fancy names like “sacher torte” instead of just “cake” – is that supposed to mean poor people won’t know what “sacher torte” is? – but ok, based on their chart I scored :
• lower class 100%
• lower middle class 90%
• middle class : 10%
I was wondering if they’d use lobster as a trick question in that working class used to eat them until the rich found out how good they are.
I might try going through and picking some other mixes to see what happens until they deny service.
Re names like “sacher torte” instead of just “cake”, it’s not just a name. Despite my Lower Middle Class rating (57.14%) I adore sacher torte and other sybaritic chocolate experiences. For me, calling sacher torte (chocolate sponge cake + apricot jam + dark chocolate glaze) a mere “cake” would be a serious insult to Herr Sacher.
BTW, at least some of the site’s methodology is based on the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator (MBTI), shown at the Type tab on the page. IMO it’s better than astrology, since there are 16 categories rather than 12, but AFAIK the Jungian woo behind it lacks evidential support (i.e. it’s bollocks).
Interesting!… for the Lower Middle Class, that is ;^)
I came out as lower middle class. Which certainly fits my small paper mill town origins. My grandpa was a foreman, but did have an uncle who went to college, the first in family on either side.
I hover between lower middle and middle class it would seem. Possibly because I absolutely hate oysters!
Upper middle class. Woohoo. Well I guess this means I will be polishing my tiara and shuffling my holiday homes and investment portfolio around now.
A lot of the food was carb heavy and I didn’t react strongly to it. Maybe it was the strength of the response that dictated the level. Dunno.
This is unrelated to Professor Coyne’s request, but it caught my attention:
Mr. Bourdieu’s work sharply skewered myths of social mobility in a postindustrial society. He found, unsurprisingly, that in many ways those at the top of the capitalist food chain go to considerable lengths to safeguard and maintain social privilege and generational wealth.
It was reading a translation about 40 years ago of one of Bourdieu’s highly recommended books on cultural reproduction, packed with statistical tables and long, complex, densely written sentences, that accelerated my drift out of idealistic, youthful leftism: I realised that the page I had re-read several times before understanding it could have been written and understood only by someone who had mastered the very language skills that Bourdieu denounced as gratuitous educational barriers imposed on lower classes to exclude them from power.
The book also began my apprenticeship in understanding and interpreting statistics – hitherto abysmal – including the notion that correlation is not causation.
Squarely middle class. Raw tuna, steak and oysters prepared in any way are disgusting!!
Upper middle class. But what a silly test. I quite like lobster (though I prefer crab) but having it in a claggy cheese mixture is bizarre. And I like raw tuna, but…tacos?
I see there are dozens of other ‘tests’ you can take. Sorry, life’s too short!
Sorry, don’t know what happened there; I didn’t mean to reply to #30. But since I have, I might as well add that I like rare steak and oysters prepared any way, as well as raw tuna. It takes all sorts!
I came out middle class but with far less representation around the wheel than Jerry. Most of the foods were yucky to me.
I love a baked potato which to me is a potato that is baked for an hour at 400 degrees, not that thing that they had pictured there. So I said no to that orange cheese bacon monstrosity although without the picture I would have said yes with enthusiasm.
Fun test.
As an aside(dish), I am on a Paleo-vegan diet, which means I eat animals that only eat grass.
That’s pretty funny!
My problem is that I have some food allergies, which affects my ability to eat certain foods. I might “like” to eat a particular food but sadly cannot do so.
So I don’t think that any score I might receive would be valid.
86% Middle Class.
The test, though, happened to be loaded with foods I can’t abide. Seriously, test guys, oysters and lobster twice each? Caviar? Truffles? Gold Foil??
Where was the Beef Wellington, lamb chops, Sole Meunier, a juicy Porterhouse, Coq au vin? Beef Bourguignon? Risotto, veal piccata, shrimp Diablo or Scampi? Tiramisu? Crème caramel? Chef or Cobb salad? A green vegetable?
I must admit the hamburger pate au foie gras get me salivating.
Maybe I’ll go raid the kitchen …
Solidly upper class dontcha know! Ridiculous test. I’m lower class, always have been, always will be. Some of the combinations offered were bizarre to say the least so I was rejecting them even though I liked the ingredients.
71.43%, middle class. Yippy-Ki-Yay. I want my oysters and other seafood broiled or fried for health purposes. I would want the tuna in my tuna taco more than pan-seared. I’ve experimented with good results seafood (specifically scallops and shrimp) pizza. What’s the practical difference between that and seafood alfredo or any other seafood pasta dish? And, pray tell, where is the delicacy (“Cathead”) biscuits and gravy? And are there social status preferences regarding the type and viscosity of the gravy? Or would the Masters of Mankind elite not be caught eating biscuits and gravy? How about Cracker Barrel pancakes with (actual) maple syrup?
Certainly, vegetables got the short shrift in the quiz. How about steamed cabbage sections with onion and bell pepper slices, carrots and pepper. And maybe also parsnips and shallots to squeak me into the “upper class”? Where’s the baked sweet potato sufficiently cooked that the skin peels off handily? Fried (and also steamed) okra (my aunt’s was ambrosia!), with cornbread (white, not yellow and sweetened, though I am otherwise not biased against yellow) meal and pinto (and also others including those giant butter) beans with a slice of onion?
I could go on but I’m getting hungry.
If memory serves me, a hundred or so years ago refined white bread was all the rage in elite upper class circles, whole wheat bread being for the less than upper class. As of 30 or so years ago, didn’t that situation reverse?
(By the way, why isn’t “Working Class” listed as a category? Or Thorstein Veblen’s “Leisure Class”?)
Middle Class for me. A guess at some of foods as to what they were exactly. I don’t like raw things except maybe lettuce.
My result was lower-middle class, which I do not believe accurately describes my food tastes. My results were skewed because I won’t eat raw beef, I dislike most mushrooms, and I like well-made comfort classics like meatloaf and chicken sandwiches. There are wide ranges of those items, but the test seems designed on the assumption that comfort classics are inherently low-class.
Dissatisfied with the food test, I took the South Park test, which returned the result that I am most similar to Kyle. That’s much more accurate than the food test!
My wife took this tonight and results show we need a DIVORCE. I was 87% pure middle class this morning with zero upper middle or upper class. My wife just finished 100% in upper class with upper middle second and middle as lowly thiird. She loves caviar, lobster, and those garlic infused snails. Oy!
Thanks for this amusing link, jerry.
Lower middle class. I liked almost everything. I think my distinctions were only between one and two thumbs up. I like sloppy joes and caviar and mussels and wouldn’t mind the tuna tartare tacos!
Solid middle class. But I’m a Jew who doesn’t eat pork or shellfish, which I think was a confounding factor.
Ha. I’m a Jew who, with a tip of the hat to laws of kosher, only eats pork that is smoked, barbecued, shredded, and put in a sandwich, and restrict my shellfish consumption to jumbo lump crabmeat and shrimp cocktails.
“ Your food choices could not be tied to any one social class.” I knew it.
Like you, JC, I liked most items and the test placed me in 3 categories: Upper-middle, Middle, and Lower-middle. Some of the choices were just wierd…
I switched to a 90% or more vegan diet in the last couple of years with the result that I lost a tonne (about 60 pounds) of weight and improved my health significantly — the exception being the occasional dairy based Yoghurt and cream of mushroom soup indulgences, so I marked everything in the questionnaire as at best neutral, with the stuff I used to eat regularly marked as one step up from the stuff I wouldn’t touch with the proverbial 10 foot pole because I find it gross and as neutral the stuff I really liked a fair bit before adopting the vegan diet. The end result was that my responses couldn’t be matched with any class. My late wife always thought I was kind of classless. 🙂 Since everyone seems to be indicating their ethnicity, I’m not a Jew, born of a couple of nominally Lutheran Germans who were in the Hitler youth as was everyone in Germany of that age cohort at the time. My late wife and my daughter was/is secular Jewish, but sadly, my daughter seems to be somewhat influenced by the tsunami of lies about Israel’s role in the Middle East being pushed by the axis of Jew-hatred involving much of Western media and pushed by the worst dictatorships in the world. I’m a staunch supporter of Israel in the war it did not start and seems to be being hamstrung it is entirely justified efforts to win by Biden’s pandering to the Pseudo-Woke ideologues infesting the DEMs.
This quiz couldn’t give me an accurate reading because I had to “disagree” with almost every single one of the food choices. I’m a lacto-ovo vegetarian and I mainly eat steamed veggies, quinoa, fresh fruits, hard boiled eggs, grains, multigrain and sourdough breads, lots of cheeses (including cottage, Brie and Swiss), hummus, tabbouleh, chickpeas, brown rice, tofu raw nuts, and a bunch other health foods.
In other words, I would assume my diet falls into the health conscience upper-middle class if I were to grade myself.