In the world of Save. Spend. Splurge.: The new, subtle ways the rich signal their wealth

4 Comments

• 

  Anne

  February 13, 2021

  Very interesting, and a bit weird, about the fake stuff being preferred. I don’t know exactly what makes processed foods taste industrial but I seem to be quite sensitive to it. I very seldom manage to eat them. Good thing that I love cooking 🙂

  When I was a child, I didn’t even know vanilla existed, vanillin was the only thing available. After tasting real vanilla, and truffle, I instantly preferred their taste. But I guess people experience taste in very different ways and that childhood memories can have a big impact on preferences.

  Reply
  • 

    Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.

    February 13, 2021

    Yes – I suspect it’s a range of things. I grew up with very processed foods, cans, and to this day, STILL have fond memories of that horrible beef mash in a can that I used to mix into rice and heat up in the microwave to eat. It’s truly disgusting when I look at it now today, but I remember loving bowls and bowls of it.

    But, I also ate very good food as well when my mother cooked, so it wasn’t all processed/canned stuff all the time, and I really enjoyed her cooking and recipes, which I suspect is what helped shape my palate.

    They’re saying in the book it is interesting how when you’re so used to chicken or fish only in forms of nuggets, it can be difficult for people (some not all) to switch to eating real chicken or real fish and liking that taste better/more.

    You also enjoy cooking which I think helps – as you don’t just eat the only salty, sugary, processed foods, which is what you’re used to, so “real” food, with its subtle flavours can taste bland because you’re so used to a salt hit. Cooking at home is very different from in a restaurant, and very different from fast food, let alone processed foods.

    I could go on forever. But there was that study that show how much people prefer vanillin over vanilla, overwhelmingly, as they think that’s the true taste of ‘vanilla’. That really stuck out in my head. They even talk about other things like ketchup and how it was more tomatoes before but then it became very sweet/salty due to the history of trying to avoid preservatives in food (which means you need to add more sugar/salt and less tomatoes to have it still keep well on the shelf), which made everything swing the other way.

    A truly interesting book.

    Reply
• 

  Anne

  February 13, 2021

  Thank you for sharing the article about the aspirational class. It makes me sad, though, that in a developed western country health, education, retirement and parental leave are luxuries. Where I am living, those are basic needs that the society guarantees for everyone. Of course the basic level is not always that high and wealthy people can get better quality health care and so on, but nobody needs to stop breastfeeding because they cannot afford it and everyone can retire. As education is free, every child has the possibility to get educated, even though the research shows that other factors contribute to the fact that children from less educated families more seldom get higher education than children of parents with higher education.

  I belong to the upper middle class now, I guess, but have always appreciated education and quality food. Also environmental sustainability is important to me, which is why I am not interested in consumption. I have never been interested in showing that I have money, or look like I have when I didn’t. Of course one can often see who are well off also where I live, but I don’t think showing distinction is quite as important here as in many other countries, since one can get a good life even without belonging to the higher classes. I also suppose, that in smaller countries, the limits between classes are not as tight, wealthy people can’t live in their own bubbles completely isolated from others.

  Reply
  • 

    Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.

    February 13, 2021

    I am hoping this will change here too, to be more like some countries in Europe. Truly, I think we have it all screwed up here.

    For the food bit – I am reading Swindled (Wilson) and it is making so much more sense why people don’t like ‘real’ food or can’t imagine/see the point in paying more for organic or good food as a bigger part of their budget (they pay so little here!), it’s because they’ve already been trained/brainwashed to think that the fake stuff is the real stuff and tastes better.

    Vanilla for example. The chemical vanillin is what people think “vanilla’ tastes like, so when they taste the real stuff, they think it’s disgusting when it is anything but.

    

    Reply