論法國飲食品味與社會階級

Abstract

品味是指對人、事、物的鑑賞能力，也就是說社會的意見領袖表達對美醜、好壞的看法;這亦是他們確立階級地位的一種方式，可藉此有效的操價值支配大權，將「不合適」的人、事、物摒棄於內外。而當有人開始掌握比別人較多食物資源時，飲食便成為區分社會階級和衡量社會地位的辦法之一。早期人類是以生食、熟食來區分文明與否，後來是依食物的數量、主人的食量與體型來打量其財富，乃至演變為注重食材的珍貴、品質的細緻、味道的可口、色澤的悅目…當然來賓的身份與言行、餐具及餐廳的擺設、甚至餘興表演，都會流露主人的品味，一頓餐敘儼然成了一場感官的饗宴。此外，人們的品味可能因時空不同而有所差異，但也可能出現普世共適的見解，而以品味美食掛帥的法式餐飲自是值得我們研究的課題。

Taste, by which leaders of social opinions express their attitudes towards beauty and conscience, means the ability to appreciate people, things and objects. This is also one of the ways to establish their social status and they can manipulate the great power over values to spurn away the "improper" people, things or objects. When someone begins to command more food resources than others do, food becomes one of the measures to distinguish social classes and to estimate social status.People in the early period are demarcated civilized or not by whether they ate row foods or cooked foods. Later we reckoned people`s fortune according to the quantity of food they prepared and their appetites and figure. Later on, we do that according to the preciousness of food material, the fineness of food quality, the taste and the color and so on. The status of guests, their words and deeds, the dinnerware, the ornament in the dinning room, and even the entertainment will undoubtedly reveal the taste of the host. A repast becomes a real banquet of senses.Besides, our taste may vary for time and spatial differences, while universal conceptions are also possible to be achieved. The French gastronomy, commanded of state, is worthy of our study.