Cooked Dinner Essay

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As a direct object, the concept of dinner is routine, habit, sometimes mundane and possesses a feeling of familiarity. Dinner is such an ordinary event however means so much more than the deed of purely eating. It has particular significance by virtue of the fact that in one fashion or another, we all do it, usually daily, while rarely considering the often invisible dynamics that can differentiate it. Additionally, the meal we consume, our food choices, preparation and consumption, is a point of connection to our everyday bound up in cultural markers of gender, ritual and class. This essay will discuss the role of gender in relation to the “cooked dinner” (Murcott, 1982, p. 679) and how the media reinforces our perceptions of gendered roles in relation to food. Secondly, the role of ritual in cultural value, as an ideal and as a reality and thirdly, how our food preference and consumption is a statement of an individual’s class. The origins of modern Australian cuisine are based on our firstly British heritage which involved a focus on roasted meats such as beef, lamb, pork and chicken and a limited vegetable …show more content…

Our individual food choices are not independent of our cultural traditions and these are steeped in our social group relationships. Finkelstein (1989) asserts that a preference for favouring red meat, ample portions and simplicity of food choice such as meat and vegetables, implies a working class status. Mohr and Hosen (2013) expand on this assertion by adding the need to eat economically in order to sustain physical labour. Similarly, both also linked experimentation with ethnic and exotic food to those of higher class and education levels. The familiarity of the image of the family all sitting down to eat dinner together suggested an opportunity for those of the middle classes to teach about family life and manners (Murcott,

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