ABSTRACT
To be a peasant in pre-industrial Catalonia, one not only had to live off the land and in the country, one also had to seem like a peasant. In a society that found itself halfway between the old and the new regimes, the codes that served to identify the distinguishing features of certain social groups were still unequivocal. A peasant – pagès in Catalan – came across unmistakably as a peasant, regardless of income. There is clearly a link between consumption habits and belonging to a specific group; but what was the cause and effect relationship between these two variables? In other words, was it class that determined consumption or was it consumption that determined class?1
