While Finn focuses on the emergence of this discourse in the United States, in particular in reference to class anxieties of the 1980s, the values of the food revolution are performed by (aspiring) middle-class consumers all over the world (see for instance, Chaudhuri, 2019). Avocado, granola, quinoa, kale, brewed cofee, and craft beer are just few of the “universal” symbols of this gastronomical imaginary, adapted in varying intensities and degrees in local cuisines. Similar to the aspirational class, the new food consumers are mainly “college-educated, afluent, and liberal” crowds (Currid-Hackett, 2018:13), who value informed or even oppositional consumption (see Section 3.5); they come from “the professional middle class, or even more narrowly, the left-leaning part of it sometimes referred to as the liberal elite” (Finn, 2019: 21). However, these new consumers can also be conservative or apolitical, who simply engage in feelgood and purpose-driven consumption (Pine; Gilmore, 2007).
As these new food consumers overwhelmingly reside in urban settings, the “rural” becomes a romantic component that bestows distinction to food. This is an aspect that the experience economy both exploits and performs. To go back to the previous section, Pine and Gilmore target the urban and aspirational dwellers who desire “active, authentic, and participatory experiences” in “more authentic, indigenous, or organic venues” (Gilmore and Pine, 2007: 4), for whom distinction and aspiration are interwoven in acts of self-perception. Yet, as the quest for distinctive food experiences becomes a prevalent consumer and business ideal, at least in big metropolitan centers, Currid-Hackett’s idea of an aspirational class may be delimiting as it fences of a specific group of elite consumers from the rest. Similar to what was argued in the previous section about “authenticity seekers”, we can argue that aspirational consumption occupies a wider structure of feeling in neoliberal societies, to borrow again Raymond Williams’ term (1977), that is, an emerging sensibility that colonizes working- and middle-class desire. The spreading of this sensibility, extending from apps with Curated News8 and Experiences of drinking with locals, is a result of the expansion of the institutions of the market in more spheres of life and the ideology of interlocking consumption with personal fulfillment or success. Speaking about the gastronomical imaginary, Finn summarizes the contours of this structure of feeling as follows:
Gourmet foods are supposed to taste better, at least to people with welltrained palates, often because they contain more expensive ingredients.
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Cultures of Platform Capitalism