ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider some of the factors which influence food choice in two very diverse settings in Britain. It aims to show that food choice is not simply a matter of individual taste, but rather needs to be seen in a social and cultural context. In the first section, we outline briefly some of the anthropological approaches to food and eating which informed the thinking behind our research before going on to describe the two locations in which it was carried out – a densely-populated south-east London borough, and a small town and its rural hinterland on the west coast of Wales – and the research methods we used. We then consider the extent to which food choice is socially and culturally constructed by examining four variables – gender, age, class and ethnicity – and demonstrate how they influence patterns of eating (see also Keane and Willetts 1993, 1994, 1996; Keane 1997; Willetts and Keane 1995; Williams 1996, 1997).
