Social status and food preference in southern Brazil.

The prestige value of food and food behaviors is a topic of inquiry that complements the study of nutritional aspects of food use. In this work, varying social groups in Brazil are examined with regard to their evaluation of the status of available foods, and in turn, the frequencies with which they consume high and low status foods. Ethnographic and structured interviews were used to collect data, with agreement among groups tested by using Cultural Consensus Modeling. It was found that most social groups had a distinct notion of what foods are prestigious, although the high consumption of these same foods did not necessarily follow.