In my last post I discussed, with reference to Samuel
Richardson's 1740 novel, Pamela, the way food is frequently used as an
indicator of social status in literature - http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/food-and-social-status.html Jane Austen, writing in the last decade of
the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th, produced novels which
combine romantic fiction with social satire.
Her characters mainly come from the landed gentry - landowners who do
not need to work to earn an income - though there is significant stratification
within this social class dependent on characters' wealth. When food is mentioned in Austen's novels it
is drenched in social significance and ideas of status.
