the majority of my friends are college or higher educated, and i guess u could call us culturally interested if not aware. We read, watch films, listen to music, appreciate art, etc. and food fits right in there with all of it. i suppose u could say that our interest in culture leads us to a kind of adoration of it - and one of the biggest cultural activities is food. and we more or less run the gammut economically; some of us are professionals who rake it in, some of us were born into money, some of us still live with the fam because we cant bring ourselves to make enough money to move out, etc.
the funny thing is that now more than ever i do have a clear view of "the other" so to speak. i understand who is and what constitutes an outsider to our little group - and the funny thing about that is that while the root attribute may be a general disinterest (in culture, or whatever), the outwardly identifiable DIFFERENCE is: THEY dont appreciate food. while WE do.
Like I have this friend who I grew up with. He's an interested guy - he reads and all that shit. He's a talented musician, has a lot of the same interests as the rest of us, but I realized that he just doesnt fit in when we were all eating a fantastic cassoulet dinner that one of us (a chef) made - u know kidneys and liver and all that. and my friend was totally disgusted by the food and just COULD NOT get past his narrow hamburger hotdog conception of what food is and enjoy it like everyone else.