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  3. Cultural rules determine every aspect of food consumption. Who eats together defines social units. For example, in some societie

Cultural rules determine every aspect of food consumption. Who eats together defines social units. For example, in some societie

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问题     Cultural rules determine every aspect of food consumption. Who eats together defines social units. For example, in some societies, the nuclear family is the unit that regularly eats together. The anthropologist (人类学家) Mary Douglas has pointed out that, for the English, the kind of meal and the kind of food that is served relate to the kinds of social links between people who are eating together. She distinguishes between regular meals, Sunday meals when relatives may come, and cocktail parties for acquaintances. The food served symbolizes the occasion and reflects who is present. For example, only snacks are served at a cocktail party. It would be inappropriate to serve a steak or hamburgers. The distinctions among cocktails, regular meals, and special dinners mark the social boundaries between those guests who are invited for drinks, those who are invited to dinner, and those who come to a family meal. In this example, the type of food symbolizes the category of guest and with whom it is eaten.
    In some New Guinea societies, the nuclear family is not the unit that eats together. The men take their meals in a men’s house, separately from their wives and children. Women prepare and eat their food in their own houses and take the husband’s portion to the men’s house. The women eat with their children in their own houses. This pattern is also widespread among Near Eastern societies.
    Eating is a metaphor that is sometimes used to signify marriage. In many New Guinea societies, like that of the Lesu on the island of New Ireland in the Pacific and that of the Trobriand Islanders, marriage is symbolized by the couple’s eating together for the first time. Eating symbolizes their new status as a married couple. In U.S. society, it is just the reverse. A couple may go out to dinner on a first date.
    Other cultural rules have to do with taboos (禁忌) against eating certain things. In some societies, members of a clan, a type of kin (family) group, are not allowed to eat the animal or bird that is their totemic (图腾的) ancestor. Since they believe themselves to be descended from that ancestor, it would be like eating that ancestor or eating themselves.
    There is also an association between food prohibitions and rank, which is found in its most extreme form in the caste system of India. A caste system consists of ranked groups, each with a different economic specialization. In India, there is an association between caste and the idea of pollution. Members of highly ranked groups can be polluted by coming into contact with the bodily secretions (分泌物), particularly spit, of individuals of lower-ranked castes. Because of the fear of pollution, Brahmans and other high-ranked individuals will not share food with, not eat from the same plate as, not even accept food from an individual from a low-ranking caste.
What does the author mainly discuss in the passage?
选项 A、Different kinds of food in the world.
B、Culture and manners of eating.
C、Symbolic meanings of food consumption.
D、Relations between food and social units.
答案B
解析 本文首句点明主旨；文化规则决定食物消费的各个方面，接着举例说明：在英国吃饭时提供的膳食和食物的种类与共餐人之间的社会关系有关：新几内亚社会中夫妻不一起吃饭；新爱尔兰岛上的莱苏以及特罗布里恩群岛上男女第一次一起吃饭表示确定夫妻关系，而在美国男女第一次约会时就可能一块吃饭；与图腾社会和印度的等级社会有关的饮食禁忌。这些例子都说明了文化的不同，吃饭的方式不同，故答案为[B]。[A]在文中未提及。文中举例提到男女第一次在一起吃饭的象征意义，只是本文一部分，故排除[C]。[D]只是英国人的例子说明的问题，故排除。
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