"Alex Rast" > wrote in message
>
> How much of this is responding to social pressure rather than individual
> taste? IME a majority of people are more concerned with social
> acceptability than with the exact gratification of their specific desires,
> and in food, for instance, will often swallow down things they might not
be
> particularly fond of in order to fit in.

Unscientific, but a group of mixed ethnicicy and a group of foods of mixed
styes is what I have seen. At a luncheon buffet consisting of oriental,
Italian, some loosly defined foods everyone had a choice of anything on the
table. The older orientals tended to eat the rice, spring rools, fish. The
younger ones (a couple from the same family) tended to eat more of the other
foods.


> Undeniably pizza and burgers in
> the USA are social foods - the occasions on which they tend to be eaten
are
> ones where the social interaction is usually far more important than
what's
> being eaten (which is, in addition, a big reason why so many abysmally
poor
> burger joints and pizza parlors stay in business).

How about when they eat pretty much alone? In our plant breaks and lunches
are staggered. The people bring their own. Most bring dishes typical of
their native lands. In one case a husband and wife in their 30's. She will
have chichen or fish and always rice. He is likely to microwave a buger.

> Older people are less
> easily swayed by social considerations because by a certain age people
> establish their social identity by and large and without a conscious
effort
> to change it usually don't change all that much.

Agreed. But you don't see the kids clamoring for some of their foods of
national origin.
Ed

http://pages.cthome.net/edhome