Since everyone must eat, what we eat becomes a most powerful symbol of
who we are. To set yourself apart from others by what you will and will not
eat is a social barrier almost as powerful as the incest taboo, which tells us
with whom we may or may not have sex. Some cultures equate the two
taboos. Margaret Mead quotes a New Guinea proverb that goes, Your own
mother, your own sister, your own pigs, your own yams which you have piled
up, you may not eat. Own food, like related women, is for exchange, for gift
giving, for social generosity, for forging alliances, but not for personal
consumption. The obverse of this is that you identify yourself with others by
eating the same things in the same way. To achieve such identification, people
will struggle to eat things they loath, and avoid perfectly tasty food that is on
the forbidden list. In the process of social climbing people have to learn to like
caviar, artichokes, snails, and asparagus, and scorn dumplings, fish and chips,
and meat and potato pie all more nutritious, but fatally tainted with
lower-class associations.