Keywords

1 Introduction

Brunei Darussalam has a population of only 429,999 people (Department of Economic Planning and Statistics 2021: 1–2), more than half of whom are considered middle class.Footnote 1 The discussion in this chapter deals with this significant proportion of the population to explore how the middle class can be better understood. To date, the middle class has largely been measured and defined only on an ‘objective’ and quantitative basis. By contrast, the subject of food consumption habits was chosen because this research aims to look at the middle-class ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1984, 1990)—comprising the attitudes, behaviours and feelings of representative informants in order to illustrate their subjective traits. In order to do so, the research delves into mealtimes at home and the feelings that come from these experiences, dining out routines where one can witness middle-class affluence on display, and the prevalent behaviours and attitudes about the preparation and consumption of food. The discussion elucidates just how complex middle-class experiences can be—they always begin by expressing their joy and memories of food at home and then identify several reasons for eating out. The analysis begins with an overview of the complex history and ever-evolving meaning of the middle class.

2 The Brunei Middle Class

The class-based nature of Brunei society has been well established in the scholarly literature. Donald Brown (1970: 31, 168), for example, describes Brunei as a stratified society with a stringent social hierarchy. Victor T. King (1994: 181) goes further and coins the term ‘rank consciousness’ to explain how it shapes the Bruneian way of thinking. For his part, Pudarno Binchin (2004: 175) reveals the influence of ruling-class Malays who introduced social hierarchy to other ethnic groups in the country, such as the Dusun. Class, social hierarchy and social stratification are arguably deeply rooted in Brunei history and society. As for more everyday practices, Pengembara (C.H. Gallop) (2016: 116) mentions that car ownership is part of the Bruneian makeup, with the personalisation of number plates and the make of car indicating someone’s social class.

While Brunei is clearly a stratified society, this begs the question as to whether there is a distinctive middle class and, if there is, what its key characteristics are. Geoffrey Gunn (1997: 228) makes the questionable assumption that Brunei has no middle class. In order to interrogate this claim, I make some general observations about the middle class in postcolonial societies, and then refer to the work of Abdul Rahman Embong on the Malaysian middle class and discuss its relevance to Brunei. I then proceed to identify the ways I approached the examination of the respondents who helped frame the object of this study.

The formation of a middle class in the non-Western world, such as in Brunei and Malaysia, is mainly a postcolonial phenomenon. This should immediately indicate some differences in the historic experience of class formation between the Western and non-Western worlds. While the middle class in the former emerged from the advance of capitalist society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the much smaller middle class in colonised countries consisted of government administrators working in the state sector. In his study of modern elites in Indonesia, for example, Robert van Neil (1960) shows that an emerging middle class was almost exclusively a post-independence development, again dominated by those attached to employment by the state (see also Sutherland 1979).

Brunei and Malaysia are neighbouring states, with some obvious sociocultural comparisons and similarities. Abdul Rahman is the leading scholar of the emergence of the Malaysian middle class through a series of critical interventions (1995, 1996, 1998, 2001). He identifies the growth of a middle class over the course of a century, initially a product of colonial capitalism and the expansion of the British colonial state, with the most dramatic changes taking place during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Abdul Rahman calls this later phenomenon the ‘new’ Malaysian middle class. This new middle class includes ‘those in administrative, executive, managerial, clerical, sales and service jobs’, and who crucially received higher education or obtained university degrees (Abdul Rahman 2001: 88, 266). Because of their occupational privileges and rapidly rising incomes, the middle class has been able to provide better education for their children, enabling the class to reproduce itself (ibid.: 266). This middle class was and remains particularly conspicuous as consumers, who purchase cars, televisions and household appliances. In this regard, Homi Kharas (2010: 8–9) stresses that consumerism rather than wealth alone provides a workable definition of the middle class. Similarly, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (2008) also define the middle class as comprising those having a stable job with a regular income and oriented towards consumerism. And in his detailed study of Thai politics, James Ockey (2004) makes the same point that the middle class has been driven more by consumerism than ideology.

I first identified my informants for this research on the middle class in Brunei at an ‘objective’ level—looking at occupation, annual income, education, family size, homeownership, geographic mobility and parents’ self-described employment (see Faizul 2020). I conducted interviews with Ain F. (female, aged 22), Amirol (male, 22), Anwar (male, 21), Ani B. (female, 20), Fatimah (female, 35), Hazirah (female, 24), Izzati (female, 20) and Munirah (female, 23). Only Hazirah and Fatimah were working in full-time jobs at the time, while the others were still university students. The parents of all the respondents were either civil servants or directors of private companies. Income is one major indicator of middle-class status, and obviously may vary according to the sociocultural context of a country. According to the government’s household expenditure survey for 2015–2016, 54.2% of the population own their own homes, a key measure of middle-class status, and have an income range of BND3,000 to BND8,999 per household per month (Department of Economic Planning and Development 2019: 10–11). All my informants met these criteria. Also counterintuitively when compared with Western social structures, the evidence suggests that Brunei’s middle class prefers larger families. My informants all had family households of between five and 10 people (for a comparison with Thailand, see Jumbala and Banpasirichote 2001).

Social class is a cultural phenomenon as well as an economic one. Cultural forces are at work in maintaining a class society and class distinctions. Variations in values, beliefs and practices make it difficult to define the middle class as having a homogeneous culture. To date, there is no significant scholarly literature in Brunei that examines the relationship between the middle class and its food consumption and eating habits. This makes the current research both challenging and innovative. I have therefore drawn on the secondary literature to some extent to make comparisons with social, economic and cultural similarities and patterns to those of Brunei’s middle class. In the next section, I discuss the cultural forces at work during mealtimes. This is where middle-class values and beliefs are apparent and where it all begins—at home.

3 Mealtimes at Home

Amirol was the first respondent to be deemed middle class according to my objective markers. Amirol, whose relationship with his family is strained, did not often eat together with them nor did they communicate easily over the dining table. However, when they did, he accepted that mealtimes were an opportunity that allowed for the family to come together:

So this is the usual dinner: fried fish, boiled fish and stir-fried vegetables which are all cooked by my mother. And this [shows a photo of a fusion dish] is one of the experiments by my sister. It is my mother, my father and my oldest sister who are always around [at mealtimes].

Amirol expanded on the family dynamics around the dining table which revealed a difficult relationship with his family:

They were not talking to me [during dinner], but they did talk to my sister. It is usually about work. It is usually my dad who starts the conversation. ‘How is work?’ The typical housework question [and] work-related questions. When he asked me questions, I [give him an] answer.

In contrast, Anwar felt positive about mealtimes which typically consisted of Western-style food at home:

For us, it depends on our taste that day. To me, I like Western [food] because the portions are big. Most of them are Western food.

Table talk influenced his dining experience and this was comparable to the other informants:

My mum always starts with some of the family issues at first and then we change it up a bit to make the conversation less moody. So we will bring in movies. We will talk about what is new, what is coming, and what [film] is available now that we can watch later. It is pretty much personal; I cannot go into details. Yeah, it is a family thing. Dad plans for us. He would ask us about what we are doing first.

While Amirol had a distant relationship with his parents, Anwar loved to spend time eating with the family:

Whatever my mum cooks, it is always the same thing that is on my mind every morning when I wake up. Yeah, because it is better to eat with [the] family.

Izzati lived with nine other family members in a single house. She described her family relationship as follows:

I think it is the way we talk and stuff [over the dining table]. The traditional stuff we do. Like eating together every single night [with] the whole family. Then, I think the fact that [our] grandparents like to make traditional pastries or delicacies [kueh] [when they are also there]. We usually cook them together. So each of us plan. Oh, you cook this and that. I usually cook modern ones [dishes]. The older ones usually cook traditional stuff.

When I asked if mealtimes are important, she replied:

They eat together. They discuss together. Get people together. [I try to dine in] every day. Yeah, lunch and dinner. If I am out, no. Kind of because everyone goes home at different times. I am sure I will be out more too once I work.

Izzati described the scene at the dining table:

Usually, it is just my dad sitting there and waits for everything to be served. Then the siblings just sit around. And then they talk about work. Events happening. The rest talk about school and stuff. [The] daily ‘what [did] you do [today]?’, that kind of thing. But when we eat, we just focus on eating. The quietest would be my parents. Sometimes they would talk more if the topic [was] engaging for them. But usually the siblings [are the ones] who talk the most. Though my dad starts [the conversation]. My dad eats [first]. But if he knows everyone is going to eat together, like everyone, then he waits [for everyone].

Ani B., who also lived in a large household and is the middle child of a family of nine, struggled to remember her meals at home with the family but remembered who was present:

If dinner, it is usually everyone except my older sister. Because she works at night. Usually, it is just a dish, vegetables, the usual, and then fish for my dad, I think there are different things. My second [sister] is [working] in China [for] Hengyi Industries.Footnote 2 Not really at home anymore [for mealtimes]. I am sure I will be busy working too.

She continued to shed more light on table talk around the dinner table:

My mum first starts with her religious talk [ceramah]. And then, usually, my dad would ask ‘what time [do] you go home tomorrow?’ because he must arrange [the schedule]. Because we are a lot [of people], right? So he must arrange everyone’s schedule and whatnot. And then basically ask about homework I guess, studies and all, not much. Oh, I do not know. Maybe every afternoon he plays badminton and so he sometimes talks about badminton, and even his work occasionally. Yeah, not [an] emotional [person], I think.

The informant seemed to feel agitated with her mother’s ceramah even though she claimed to be closer to her mother than her father. This might be because she felt that her father controlled their schedule to certain extent as the family’s planner and did not express his emotions easily. She continued to vent her vexation about the shared mealtimes:

It is a long table, with two chairs at the edges, my dad [is] in the middle and then my mum and then everyone else, the siblings, it is [a] fixed [seating]. We do not change [seats]. If my brother had his seat taken, he would get angry and say, ‘This is my seat!’ I would reply like, ‘I do not see your name on it’. Because the girls always like to tease the boys. For me, it is annoying though. It is specific already every time. Usually, [the environment] is noisy at times. It is quiet at first when my parents are around. Usually, my parents are the ones that start up [conversations] or occasionally my little sister. She likes to talk about school and what the teacher said that day. She likes to talk. We [older siblings] do not talk about our personal lives [to] our parents.

Ain F. only had her mother who raised her and all her siblings in a single-parent household. Her notion of mealtimes at home was different:

I think it is very important for family bonding. It is important. It is a way for us to communicate especially when right now, where each of us is in our rooms especially with their technology. So I think eating with the family is a great way to bond, and then when my mother cooks, she usually urges us to be in one room together [so that] we eat together. I have a big family.

Ain F. continued to mention how important communication over mealtime was:

Yes, when we sit together. When we eat [at the dining table], [it] is the perfect time to communicate. Because most of the time we are on our own. So even my mother is now on her own most of the time with [her] technology. She has Facebook to watch those proselytisation talks [dakwah]. Sometimes she shares them [dakwah] with us when we eat together too.

Ceramah and dakwah are significant activities in the everyday lives of many Malay Muslim families in Brunei and they are usually conducted at the dining table. Ani B. revealed her annoyance at this type of religious propagation. Islamic teachings are widespread in middle-class families. This echoes the Malaysian middle class which is generally conservative by faith but has easy access to the internet and other media (Abdul Rahman 2001: 88). Izzati noted having a good relationship with her parents and family members while the rest of the informants had issues or tension with their parents. Though in other societies larger families have historically been more common among the lower classes, having a big family is commonplace in the Bruneian middle class. The middle-class habitus is evident around the dining table when Ani B. and Ain F. both described the environment of having a big family as ‘noisy at times’ and ‘everyone is always shouting here and there’. Being in a large family in a single household can result in some members feeling ‘lost in the shuffle’, while others, like Anwar, felt a sense of closeness. Meanwhile, Izzati mentioned how the household members came to the dinner table late too. Food consumption and eating habits at home have exposed the ‘hidden obvious’. For Amirol, every mealtime routine ended with ‘everyone just going back to their rooms’ and with his mother feeling that ‘she is used to it. I am just used to it [too]’. The Bruneian middle class seems to be conscious of the importance of family. It tries to uphold certain ideals such as saying how it is ‘very important for family bonding’ when talking about it daily meals and its mealtime routine, in which it willingly participates.

Regardless of the indifferent relationships with their families, the respondents stressed the value of mealtimes with the family at home; they needed to partake in the activity irrespective of how they felt about it. Eating together is one of those practices that may overstate ‘the unity’ of the middle-class family which is absent in much of ‘real’ daily life. Amirol not communicating with his family, Ani B. trying to dine out more and Ain F. feeling strained are examples of what ‘real’ daily life presents in comparison to what is propagated and imagined during mealtimes. Dining in with the family is about self-presentation and self-preservation. Nevertheless, whatever image they present, as an ‘idealised family’ or not, may not be the most important matter. More fundamentally, their food consumption and eating habits have made me realise that they are ‘conscious’ about the state of the family.

The habitus reflects this consciousness and we can observe this in table talk. In this respect, the ‘habitus bounds a set of attitudes, beliefs and behaviours which belong to a particular group of people; it is a series of systems which … is the “milieu” in which individuals live with a collective (un)consciousness’ (Wills et al. 2011: 727; see also Bourdieu 1984, 1990). Amirol noted that his father, mother and oldest sister were the mainstays and table talk centred mostly around these three while he was usually passive. Ani B. shared this sentiment with her description of her father sitting in the middle of a long dining table, which showed who is the head of the household, while everyone else’s seats were also fixed, presumably according to seniority. In general, Malay families in Malaysia used to sit together on the floor as the preferred style of eating (Koh and Zainurul 2017), which is atypical of the Bruneian Malay middle class who sit at big tables as described by Ani B. and Ain F. Ani B. also claimed that her mother talked about shopping while her father asked about school and sports, topics which she considered ‘superficial’. Izzati also agreed with this fact as her father usually initiated the sequence of family reporting. The interchanging of roles between father and mother and between the parents and children during table talks was not uncommon.Footnote 3 Ani B. continued to call her father the ‘planner’ and Anwar similarly claimed that ‘Dad plans for us’. These roles resemble a structure or framework to adhere to at the dining table because they are developed over time and between generations; each member of the family unconsciously follows them. However, as each family member enacts these roles, they are conscious of the organisation of the family.

One of the earliest studies of the social significance of table talk is that of James Bossard (1943), who argues that this is the site where reputations and impressions are formed. Parents construct themselves in the ethics and ideals of parenthood and children are constructed as subjects who must be trained, watched over and disciplined—parental reputations are built over the dining table. There is also a class dimension to the dining table. Robin Jarrett et al. (2014: 2), for example, note that middle-class families are more likely to have mealtimes at home and engage in table talk in comparison to those with a lower socioeconomic status. The Bruneian middle class reflects this with ample mealtime activities at home. The father is regarded as the ‘planner’ which is essentially a ‘leadership role’, much like his role as the perceived head of the household. This is comparable to Wendy Wills et al.’s (2011) study of family food and eating practices of British working- and middle-class families, which are patriarchal and the imagined representation of the idealised family.

Ordinary questions are designed to elicit information about the day’s events in the form of ‘stories’ (events that have a central problem) or ‘reports’ (accounts of an activity). Bossard (1943) claims this type of family reporting has two functions: ‘family interaction’ and ‘the transmission of family culture’. There are imagined benefits for the middle class to overplay the significance of their family mealtimes. Bossard suggests that the family meal is seen as a homecoming; an affirmation of family unity—something Ain F. and Izzati asserted, while the others did not share the same view. Pat Caplan (1997) argues that family reporting can also create social order (while it may have not worked in every case like Amirol and Ani B.) and boundaries within families. In other words, we should not be surprised that these cultural forces are at work in the presence of food. Food is the most elementary but simultaneously the most social level of interaction. For Anwar, it was not the type of food that identified a social class, it was how it was experienced. This provides the basis for looking at the habitus within the context of food. The Bruneian middle-class family tries to shape self-identity through table talk, mannerisms, relationships, rituals, seating arrangements and performances during everyday mealtimes. Practices and rituals of the typical family are performed repeatedly, and roles and reputations are built repetitively—these actions are passed down continually from parents to their children.

It can be argued that Izzati happily participated in mealtimes along with the performative activities that went with them to create a positive image. However, as John Gillis (1996: xv) suggests, the families we live with are ‘[o]ften fragmented and impermanent … [and] much less reliable than the imagined families we live by’. This seems to be evident when Izzati talked about the cynical future of mealtimes at home. The most telling and arguably common feature found is the belief that these shared mealtimes will end. Like the rest of the informants, Ain F. resonated the same view of moving away from shared and fixed mealtimes at home. My informants expressed different attitudes, behaviours and feelings. For some, there was affection and eagerness for a big family meal together and enthusiasm for being part of a noisy conversation, while others like Amirol felt uneasiness at the inevitability of leaving his family household after marriage without consequences. Izzati talked about uncertainty because of the demands of the workplace and spending more time dining out. Ani B. used higher education as an excuse to be out of the house more often while Ain F. feared leaving home after witnessing her sister-in-law moving out. These are telling signs of what is to come. Whether their reasons are attributed to work, recreation or marriage, they reveal some anxiety over the decline or end of the family meal.

Every interview began with expressions of fondness for food on the table but ended with revealing experiences that exposed the habitus of the Bruneian middle class. Through the observation of food consumption and eating habits, the family has taken centre stage: middle-class families are concerned about ‘looking the part’ (Morgan 1996: 157). However, I have come to realise that while there is uncertainty looming over the family mealtimes, there is also uncertainty about what family life means to each of the respondents. What I did observe was the awareness of participating in food consumption and eating habits over the dining table—the Bruneian middle class is conscious of the state of the family. In the next section, I suggest that the middle-class habitus is not just exclusive to mealtimes at home but also when eating out.

4 Eating Out

Anwar was one of the informants who shared his experiences of eating out because he and his family frequently do so together:

We love it [eating out]. Especially the restaurant [that we recently went to]. The service that they give us was good. They are friendly, they are not that distracted. The last time when I went to this one restaurant it was all too, how do you say, let us say moody. Everyone has emotional issues. I do not really like that kind of thing so that is why I picked Modesto. I like the service there—friendly and approachable.

The Bruneian middle class also likes to treat others and they like to indulge:

It is [the Thai restaurant] at Jerudong. Supposedly, we were having a steamboat but then my uncle said he is the one who is paying for everything. He said that we can have any individual food that we want.

Going to a variety of restaurants and eating an assortment of dishes are noticeable trends now, but it is easy to overlook the act of dining out when we look at the middle-class family. When dining out, we may see familiar performances around the dining table that reflect the middle-class habitus. Ang Shu-Zhen (2010: 3) reminds us that the middle-class family in Singapore, for example, is far from static; it is instead a unit that is continuously produced and reproduced through social practices such as family meals. Among the middle class, family meals have long been considered an important setting where friends and families can gather over food, and it is an experience widely shared and firmly embedded in individual memory. However, family meals are not only confined to home (ibid.: 16). The family also seeks to project a positive image of itself to non-family members. The representation of family is even more evident when dining out, as this family activity is now conducted in the visible presence of strangers in public in what Gillis (1996: 72) refers to as the family ‘[putting] itself on display’.

Dining out becomes a stage for family members to present an image of unity and it is another means of self-presentation and self-preservation that is performed outside the home. This finds echoes in Abdul Rahman’s (1995, 1996, 1998, 2001) observation that the Malaysian middle class possesses a culture of conspicuous consumption. Similarly, Solvay Gerke (2000: 143) highlights the fact that the middle class in Indonesia ‘earn enough to participate in a modern consumer culture’, while Antonio Graceffo (2016: 8) supports this idea and notes that the middle class in China likes to express their affluence—‘conspicuous spending on luxury goods’ and dining out are considered ‘necessary to achieve true middle class standing’.

Food has been a social status symbol for the modern middle class in many parts of Asia, and conspicuous spending on food, especially on family members and friends, amplifies that as is the case in Brunei. This middle class enjoys eating in restaurants, while in China for example, ‘eating at western restaurants … [has] also become a status symbol’ as ‘aspiring … elites with a fair amount of disposable income’ consider particular restaurants ‘as the ultimate place to be seen’ (Zhou 2008: 176). However, it should also be noted that middle-class individuals also dine out more often for several reasons aside from family gatherings, including work, pleasure and the ‘search for varied experience’ (Martens and Warde 1997: 140–141). Ang (2010: 1) notes that family meals are a ‘must-have’ in the eyes of the family, but that entering the workforce leaves little time for some individuals to spend with the family at home. As a result, Frances Short (2006: 51) projects that the urban middle-class family will use a busy work life to give up the mealtimes at home—seeking fast and ready-made food outside. In a similar vein, Frances Fraikue (2016: 3) notes that the consumption of food outside of the home has become a necessity out of convenience for the work–life balance of the middle class. However, the middle-class attachment to memories about food will always call them back home. After all, nostalgia acts as an anchor in an ever-changing world. In the current era, there is no question that modern family life is marked by a busy schedule, multiple demands and, at times, a sense of urgency to get the most done.

The informants in this study had much to say about the variety of reasons behind eating out. Munirah, for example, said that the family made the decision to eat out when they were not keen to cook, and there was always a variety to where she and her family ate:

[We] eat out when everyone is lazy to cook. I do not know [why], usually my mum will say she is lazy to cook, and I will be lazy to cook too. Usually, we go to Jerudong Park Food Court. There are choices.

When asked if eating out is similar to eating at home, she replied:

I think so. It is the same people. [Of course], eating at home is better. The food is better. It is [still] quality time [when eating out].

It is apparent that the informants negotiated between eating in and out—they began with noting their fondness for and memories of food at home and then admitted to the joy of eating out. Munirah said that there were two reasons for eating out: laziness to cook and treating other family members. She and her family had an option to cook or not to cook. Being free to make this choice is a distinctly middle-class trait, and not afforded to many of the working class (Wills et al. 2011; Jarrett et al. 2014: 2). The Bruneian middle class can easily seek food outside the home. This echoes what others have noted about the middle class in China, which is ‘determined to display … independence through their consumption’ (Barton et al. 2013).

Much of the appeal of spending money on food consumed outside the home is to be seen in the right places. In China, global companies like Häagen-Dazs and Starbucks have begun focusing more on ‘outdoor consumption’ where it is considered impressive to be seen at ‘exclusively expensive indulgent [venues]’ (Doctoroff 2010). Similarly, the Bruneian middle class can afford to spend a large amount of its disposable income on treating other family members, distant relatives, friends and colleagues at their favourite restaurants. Variety is also not an uncommon feature of eating out for them. Munirah shared this too when she said, ‘There are choices’. With the choice not to cook comes a large number of eatery options that Brunei has to offer. Hazirah was also one of the informants who frequently ate out since she had just entered the workforce. She first shared a glimpse of her domestic life and noted that it was a woman’s responsibility when it came to preparing meals at home:

Because being a daughter, I think [because] I am the only daughter, that’s my role. So I would do a lot of kitchen work. That means cooking, washing the dishes, buying groceries, [it] includes that.

Hazirah’s complaint about the gendered division of labour at home reveals the ideology of the patriarchal middle class (see Wills et al. 2011). A patriarchal ideology within the Malay middle-class family is necessary to create an imagined representation of the idealised family. Hazirah emphasised the joy of eating at steamboat restaurants with eating out being an excuse to get away from her chores at home: ‘It is just so exhausting to have to do real cooking. I am already working’. At 35 years, Fatimah was the oldest informant that I interviewed. She talked about her love for sushi and eating out:

My taste palate is, I think, totally different from them. I am a regular [sushi eater], so my cuisine is ‘higher’. I am mostly on Japanese food. Less oily than Westernised steak. So if I do dine out with my parents sometimes, they do not have the appetite. I forced them to come to eat with me at the latest one—I brought them to Kaizen. It is my favourite place here.

Eating out can be considered a social obligation for informants like Anwar and Munirah. According to them, they did not see it as just a superficial form of enjoyment. Anwar, Hazirah and Fatimah enthusiastically explained at great length the food they consumed; they either savoured or critiqued the cuisines. From American dishes to Indian cuisine, a wealth of options that are available to them as part of what Gerke (2000: 146, 153–155) calls ‘lifestyling’ behaviour. According to Brunei’s household expenditure survey, on average Bruneians spent 12.5% of their monthly income on food and another 9.9% on restaurants and hotels (Department of Economic Planning and Development 2019: 13). These are the third- and fourth-highest items, with only housing and utilities (water, electricity and gas) and transport accounting for more.

Munirah and Anwar revealed that some mannerisms and practices from home are also incorporated into the experience of eating out. The ‘planner’ is interchangeable not only as a generic role but also in the context of eating out too; when eating out, the mother can plan and report, like what is normally done at home. Anwar’s mother did the family reporting to him, and he claimed that she even got more face-to-face time with family members when eating outside compared to at home. A recollection of home (and its mealtime rituals) is no surprise because reminiscing about food can take us back to the idealised mealtime routines and the idea that homemade food is ‘always the best’. According to C. Blake et al. (2007), mealtimes at home are already idealised as an important regular event in the lives of many individuals and families—attachment of memories and meanings of food from home strengthen these shared moments further. The Bruneian middle class frequently refers to ‘food memories’. Even when informants such as Hazirah did not like the gendered kitchen role that she had to return to, she looked back and idealised the curry she cooked, the spices she mixed and the ‘much better’ mealtimes with family. Family meals have long been considered as an important setting where friends and families gather over a meal and are an experience widely shared and firmly embedded in individual memories.

Nostalgia always plays an important role as a reminder of what is at home and how to act as a family. Anwar often ate outside of the household setting and he claimed that it was always because of a family event or a special occasion. In fact, in many instances he contradicted himself and revealed instead his enthusiasm for eating at restaurants. He never failed to recommend the places he went to by praising the great service, the friendliness and approachability of the staff, the general ambience and the variety of food on offer. All the while, he harked back to his affection for his mother’s cooking. While the narratives suggest that eating out has become an important social fixture, it mostly involves young adults who are ‘globally minded’ and are influenced to want to eat non-local dishes (Barton et al. 2013; Graceffo 2016: 8). They, in turn, may have influenced their parents as well. While all the informants provided examples of this, none exemplified that term more than Fatimah. Fatimah called herself a ‘foodie’, a self-proclamation that she enthusiastically pointed out several times during our interview. She spoke at great length of her food adventures both in Brunei and abroad. She followed the MasterChef television show and had visited restaurants around the world that have appeared on the show. The Bruneian middle class obviously connects with and compares itself to the outside world through their access to the internet and other media. Fatimah even said she had a privilege card, so she could visit her favourite sushi restaurants every day, with the staff already knowing her usual order. Travelling to get to the food they want is not a rarity for this social class. Even Hazirah, who was a less conspicuous spender, regularly went on road trips with her fiancé to another district to pursue recommended food.

My informants reported eating out at least two to three times a week. They expressed many reasons for eating out, such as to try something new (Izzati), to spend time with friends (Munirah), to treat other family members (Anwar) and the simple ease and convenience of it. In such settings, the Bruneian middle class puts itself ‘on display’ to create a positive image, and the appearance of being well-off. Hazirah provided the perfect symbolic representation of middle-class consumption culture—the steamboat. The steamboat restaurant (and other similar buffet-style dining options) gives the customer the choice to add whatever they want to their plate in an easy manner: from simple vegetable dishes, eggs or chicken to expensive beef and seafood options. These types of eateries allow for an even greater variety of food options and novelty. The middle class enjoys the ability to eat wherever and whatever they want. While Fatimah pursued food as a form of indulgence, there are still limitations, especially when eating out abroad. For her, one of these limitations was halal food, which is permissible or lawful in Islam:

It just clicks them in a sense that when you are out of [the] country, I think they would still look for halal food. That’s the thing, I think my dad would recognise that it is hard to find halal [food]. Halal food where you can see the certificate—restaurants that butcher the meat in a halal way are hard to find.

Just like the rest of the informants, Fatimah was in the same age group and was ‘globally minded’, and whether intentionally or not she ‘showed it off’ the most. The middle class indulges in the food and lifestyle choices that they glean from the media and the internet. Finally, Munirah made several claims about her eating out as well. She and her family went out when the occasion called for it:

If it is a birthday, we would usually eat out. It was a surprise. So we picked it up for him [father]. If it is my youngest sister, she likes sushi, but my mum does not like sushi. But for her birthday, we treat her with something else.

Munirah said that there were memorable events that were always worth celebrating. She offered a different perspective when she ate out with her friends. The Bruneian middle class always finds a reason to want to eat out: work, celebrating birthdays and graduations, as a hobby, being too lazy to cook or even simply for the sake of convenience. All the while, they always look back to the homemade food that they claim is better. Ani B. and Munirah were candid in their interviews. Ani B. talked about price, ambience and variety as her reasons to dine out. She was also one of my informants who had an estranged relationship with the family. On the other end of the spectrum, Munirah had a closer relationship with her family, and she claimed to eat out more often because the occasion called for it. Munirah had also reported having groups of friends who were ready to accompany her to try all the new eateries and to satisfy her cravings.

Even a busy work schedule does not stop the middle class from travelling for food. Whether it is to travel to another country or just another district, they can afford the time and have the means to do so. Abdul Rahman calls this an indulgence in lifestyles of material comfort, which is reflected, for example, in overseas holidays and leisure time. As a self-proclaimed foodie, Fatimah spoke at great length of her travels abroad and food adventures. She shared her pleasant experiences in numerous countries and in trying their ‘exotic’ foods. Fatimah was living a life of indulgence. She was also one of the first informants to bring up the discussion of halal food when eating out. Indulgence has its limitations—food is negotiated when it is halal. This is especially true for older relatives or parents of the Bruneian middle class, as mentioned by Fatimah.

‘Halal knowledge and practice [are] generated in families’, whether that means at home or outside the family household (Fischer 2011: 83, 101, 154). Fatimah shared her annoyance about her parents wanting to stick to halal food when dining out in a foreign country. Previously, Ani B. and Ain F. noted the religious practice of ceramah and dakwah over the dining table. While it is not the initial focus of this research, it is worth mentioning that the Bruneian middle class may be conflicted over halal food when eating out. According to Farzana Quoquab Habib et al. (2011: 19), in their study of Malaysian consumers, halal status is of primary concern for Muslims. The Bruneian middle class keeps a very keen eye on halal food due to their religiosity. I suggest that food and faith are constantly in flux, a point discussed in the conclusion.

While the Bruneian middle class works hard and claims that they would eat out because of the convenience of location and cost, the reality is that eating out acts as a reward system. They eat out not only because of the satisfaction of the effort they put into working life, but simply because they can afford it. While eating out does offer some benefits, the middle class always has the option to eat at home. Even when they do not, they can still opt for take-away food. Does this mean that the mealtimes at home will end one day? In neighbouring Malaysia, research shows that ‘[a]lmost 40% of all … meals are consumed outside the home’ with over ‘64 percent of Malaysians [eating] at least one meal per day outside of home’ (Tan 2014; Taylor’s University 2015). Ani B., Amirol, Izzati and Ain F., in one way or another, all suggested the end of mealtimes. Pouline Koh and Zainurul Rahman (2017) claim that eating out is no longer a trend; it has become an important social activity. Ultimately, eating out has unavoidably become important. The narratives of my informants on eating in and eating out paint a fascinating picture that is rich in meanings and emotions.

5 Conclusion

Defining the middle class is a challenge. King (2008: 95–98) admits to this in his comparative study of the middle class in Southeast Asia. I first started with the exploration of family life and mealtimes at home because I initially hypothesised that middle-class families could simply shape and affirm their identity around the dining table (Warde 1994: 877). While seeking certainty in the family unit, I found uncertainty in variations in family dynamics. While some informants described their closeness with their parents and siblings, others were exasperated with family life. Some informants even talked about abandoning mealtimes at home altogether in the future. The last thing I want to do is to exaggerate that the family is indispensable, if not the most important institution of the Bruneian middle class.

I have observed a myriad of behaviours, feelings and attitudes towards both food and the dynamics within the family at mealtimes. All things considered, food practices are not automatically transmitted from one generation to the next; they are adapted, adopted, transformed or generated in the practices of everyday life (Forero and Smith 2010: 79). The narratives have also shown that the middle class values dining out with friends and coworkers. However, the family is more than just a familiar sight to Bruneians. Unmarried children live with their parents until they are married and move to their own homes. Nonetheless, the married still divide time between their new home and staying with the family over the weekends. Even though there is a paucity of research on this topic, especially with young and married middle-class couples, it is clear that the Bruneian middle class is family conscious. They willingly participate in mealtimes at home while upholding certain ideals, such as saying how it is ‘very important for family bonding’ and that ‘it builds a relationship at home with your family’. There is a fixed seating arrangement where the ‘dad [is] in the middle’ and takes up the role of the planner and adviser, and there are rituals and religiosity such as planning and ceramah over the dining table, though the latter is a source of trepidation and stress for some family members. Regardless of the size of the family, dynamics and affluence, the respondents in this study did seem to be conscious of the value of the family in their lives.

Food and social class have a unique relationship—the former can draw out behaviours, attitudes and feelings of an identifiable social group. It is not just about the food served but the experience that comes from it. Food choices help to draw out the middle-class habitus, whether that is over the dining table at home or outside. The typical food that middle-class Bruneians prepare nowadays is inspired by recipes and posts on online platforms such as Instagram and YouTube as well as international cooking personalities. As a result, there are intergenerational differences particularly because of the influence of social media.

I suggest that the Bruneian middle class is aspirational and that eating out brings out this trait, an attribute which on the surface appears unremarkable. They are spoiled for choice and treat others generously, especially their immediate family. They travel great distances to eat exotic and/or favourite foods. They also eat out for celebrations and special events which may act as a kind of reward system. They work hard in their offices and claim that they would eat out because of convenience. The narratives suggest that there are several factors that influence eating out, such as an increase in working hours, the distance of workplace from home, exhaustion from work, time constraints when cooking, a growing number of food eateries operating around the clock which offer places to hang out late at night, and a wide range of convenience food. Eating out has become an important fixture for the Bruneian middle-class lifestyle, and they unconsciously display their aspirational pursuit of success and respect in the community in this manner.

Nostalgia should not be overlooked. The informants perpetuated the idea that there is always good food at home. Homemade food is romanticised; the vision of the mother or other women in the household being responsible for its preparation and serving is upheld. This material objectification provides an imagined sense of unity in family life as well (Moisio et al. 2004: 366, 379). Nostalgia is expressed when eating out because this allows the middle class to look back: ‘something we associate with growing up’, ‘eating at home is better. The food is better’, and ‘it [homemade] is just better’. This brings me to another trait I want to identify, which is sentimentality. I argue that the Bruneian middle class is ‘sentimental’—they convey emotional attachments to homemade food and the memories of a happy past such as quality time spent with their families at home.

I was also able to observe religiosity. Islam plays a big role as informants have mentioned the practice of ceramah and dakwah during mealtimes, and especially the pursuit of halal food when eating out. Johan Fischer (2011: 83, 101, 154) calls this phenomenon ‘ethical food intake’, and states that halal knowledge and religiosity are nurtured in families. However, I find that the religiosity of the Bruneian middle class is both fluid and shifting. Their faith comes into question because of the limitations of halal when eating out. The challenge of maintaining halal in the consumption of food is negotiated. None of my informants were parents themselves and so halal knowledge transfer was not a prime concern. The perception around halal status may be changing and more situational among the younger generation. I suggest that food and faith will be negotiated in the years to come.

My original research was about the preparation and consumption of food in Brunei, but my intellectual journey led me to consider the changing dynamics of the middle class. Eating is a sociable and social act and what one eats has been closely tied with one’s social class throughout history (Higgs 2015). Nearly 200 years ago, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1828: 18, my translation) claimed: ‘Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are’. This observation still holds today. Food is not only the expression of an individual’s personality and character but also a matter of where we ‘belong’ in a stratified society.