Finally, what is eaten establishes one's social, religious, and ethnic memberships. The coarse black bread that is the standard food of a European peasant is a function of social rank, and so is the meal of roast dog that was served to the Aztec noble. Who can mistake the status of a German who drinks Trockenberenauslese, a wine made from grapes so rare that finding enough to produce a single bottle is a day's work even for a skilled picker? The surest way of discovering a family's ethnic origins is to look into its kitchen. Long after dress, manners, and speech have become indistinguishable from those of the majority, the old food habits continue as the last traces of the previous culture. Taboos against certain foods mark one as believing in a particular religion: Moslems and Jews reject pork, Hindus beef, and some Protestant groups alcohol. Food customs as a badge of rank are particularly evident in India, where rules for each social group define both whom a person is permitted to marry and also with whom that person is permitted to eat; the interweaving of these prohibitions tends to keep young people in the same group as their parents.
adj. 粗糙的,非精制的,粗俗的