Resource access alone creates lasting culinary conventions within a shared ethnic group.

Evidence

Isolated communities can also develop distinct conventions. Living in proximity to sugar factories, the Galician Jews of Ukraine and southeastern Poland came to prefer sweeter foods. Meanwhile, Litvak Jews, without access to beet sugar, ate saltier dishes. Despite their having a common language and genetic origin, the culinary distinctions between them became conventional, habitual, and imbued with meanings and norms. Even today Galician descendants still prefer sweet gefilte fish, while American-born Litvak grandmothers complain about those Galitzianers who put sugar in everything. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 148

Categorization

• CANDY: The sweet-versus-salty gefilte fish divide from sugar-factory proximity is a light, tweetable tidbit with immediate charm.