Well… Here’s what I know about this topic (and of course, this is largely from an American perspective).
Throughout history, various foods were categorized as rich or poor people’s food due to price or quantity, or both. Like, for example, lobster, back in the day, was deemed “poor people food” because there was so much of it at all times, that it was fed to prisoners amongst many others, and was even referred to as “poor mans chicken”. 🥴 A modern day example I know of is that something like instant noodles here in the US, is referred to as “poor people food” (whether it’s jokingly or not, I think depends on who is saying it) because it’s typically super cheap, and notoriously what broke college students eat a lot. And also, a lot of heavily processed foods, in general, tend to be cheaper than whole foods that contain more nutrients, which is why many low income households largely rely on them to get by, sadly.
However, it seems that this varies between countries and is not a “one size fits all” situation. And that likely goes for many cultures too, depending on what food prices are, and what is traditional to eat for those people. The cultural side is not something I have really any knowledge on though, so I’d need to read up on that. 🤷🏼♀️
If we’re getting real technical about it, I guess you could label any food/dish as being primarily for “rich” or “poor” people depending on who has the most access to it, or who relies on it the most. But I’d say the classification of “poor” food by rich people is likely more prominent because rich people can basically afford any food they want, whereas poor people, sadly, cannot. 🤔 And even more sad than that, rich people tend to look down on poor peoples lifestyles in general… They harshly critique a poor persons food choices without having a single clue what food insecurity feels like, and to not have enough money to be certain that they’ll even get a meal that day. Or to have to ration the little food they have, and stretch it for days or maybe longer, in order to make to their next paycheck, or get food stamps, etc. But, they don’t care about that, cause they eat anything they please… So they just turn their nose up and judge unfairly. 😒
So, I think, technically, can foods be classified in those ways? Yes, because depending on where you live, and what you commonly eat/can afford, you might view other foods outside of that to be out of your range, or notice that it is marketed towards a different segment of the population than you. Is it good that this happens? No, not at all. Is it absurd? Yes. But it doesn’t stop it from continuing… Cause even I grew up hearing people around me use that terminology fairly regularly. 😅
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