Thursday, December 3, 2009

Are posh people thinner?


Zoe Williams writing in today's Guardian praises Delia Smith for her retro-style. Slightly too formal wear and never licking a spoon or using 'just a bit' of something. Quite right, too (Nigella's last series, which involved her going to the fridge in the middle of the night to eat cold custard straight from the bowl bordered on the obscene).

Then this:

She mentions the fact that double cream is highly calorific, and therefore should only be used as a special treat (it has become very unfashionable to admit that some food is more fattening than other food. I suspect this is a snob thing; that rich people don't do it because they are kept thin by, I don't know, horseriding, bone structure, inadequate central heating . . . If rich people don't do it, then it is not posh, and the rest of us shouldn't do it).


Again, it's someone confusing 'posh' with 'snob' but I don't mind. It's quite funny here. It's also alluding to the idea that we all would rather be seen to be doing what posh people do.


I do actually think that people were a bit thinner in the old days partly because their houses were so much colder, especially those who lived in draughty country houses. I.e. the posh.


Think I'll turn the thermostat down today and then I can have scones with cream and jam for tea. 

2 comments:

  1. posh people always serve very mingy portions when you are invited to their houses for dinner. I regularly think about how posh the people we are having dinner with and make sure i have suitable "first supper" to ensure i dont come home ravenous. They are also satsified with two vegetables at the most. unlike my very common mother in law who will regularly cook a sunday roast with 7 vegetables including cheesy leeks. def not posh. and actually very yuck.

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  2. This is what everyone said on Facebook

    Andrew RocheNicholas Soames........
    Yesterday at 12:54 · Delete

    Allyson Spindlerlook at posh!
    Yesterday at 13:13 · Delete

    Kerry DaynesI think so. I'm due to start my radical, medically assisted diet programme in a couple of weeks; but as the ponds drop off, will I become posher? I hope so. I've bought a pashmina and a garlic-press in preparation...
    Yesterday at 15:37 · Delete

    Peta Stuart-HuntOh yes 'cos they've been taught by nannies to always leave food on their plates!
    Yesterday at 17:58 · Delete

    Josa YoungWell, there are some wonderfully stout ladies out in the sticks with head scarves, shooting sticks and red faces. And some very large men squeezed into brightly coloured corduroys.
    Yesterday at 22:32 · Delete

    Adam Carrollnot sure
    2 hours ago · Delete

    Peta Stuart-HuntThis is bliss and what makes Great Britain great! I am sure the general answer to this question is yes.

    The gloriously ruddy-faced and stouter gentry that can be seen striding along country lanes and in the aisles of Waitrose with thumb sticks, shooting sticks (and sometimes even pooh sticks in their pockets), were clearly very naughty behind nanny's back and pinched biscuits, cake and cheese from the pantry when she wasn't looking.

    Better press on and iron my 'head square' as my mother used to call it. She wasn't really that posh, but she was thin.
    2 hours ago · Delete

    ReplyDelete