Social Status

Both articles showed the connection that food can have to a culture and or a certain social status, yet both authors chose very different settings to carry out their research and by doing so have created unique stories that show the importance of certain food in both a prison setting and in Shenzen, China. In the article about Eating in Shenzen it talked how Shenzen’s population had grown over 40 times its previous size of 300,000 and because of this the traditions and or culture of Shenzen was drastically changing. A great way the author found to distinguish between the long time Shenzen citizens and the new comers happened to be the food that each group chose to eat, and in this food came histories of both people from Shenzen and not. The connection I drew from this article to the article about prison food or “Spread” was the way in which class and or social status was determined through the food you ate. In Shenzen the food you ate determined whether or not you were a local Shenzen citizen or just someone from a different part of China looking to be successful, in prison, even having the ability to buy ingredients to make the spread showed that you either had or did not have money and because of this placed you in a certain group. Different ethnic groups made different spreads with different ingredients and because of this it is very easy to see which group certain people belonged to. In jail, “Spread” is a delicacy that only well off inmates, either financially or politically, have access to, and because of this, either the absence of such a delicacy or the presents of it says something about the group that you belong to as well as what your status is in the prison system.