Food for the masses

Abstract

This chapter examines three situations where food is provided within large-scale enterprises. The first section is devoted to fast food, and in particular to what might be called the burger culture of North America. Fast food, despite its advertised quantity, is almost minimalist in nature; everything is reduced to its sparest, most utilitarian form. Social, psychological, even ideological meanings are still to be found but they are transformed by the rationalising process in which they are embedded. The second section describes a Japanese food phenomenon known as Ekiben, to illustrate how aesthetic and cultural food values can be preserved in the realm of mass feeding. The final section explores the world of airline food, demonstrating how the social status function of food is reproduced and to a large extent exacerbated in flight.