Last year a writer for The Daily Mail, without doing his homework, criticised a popular food blogger for recommending Kale. Using kale would not necessarily be a problem, except for the fact that she was recommending it to poor people. The blogger, who specialized in ultra-budget recipes, also made her own pesto – which drew the ire of The Daily Mail writer. Amid his torrent of abuse about her tattoos and single-parent lifestyle, he took particular offence to her recipe suggestions. Poor people, he claimed, do not want to eat pesto.

I was volunteering in a food bank last week when a similar scenario popped up. A rather well-dressed lady with a pashmina and boots began inspecting my bag of donated food – which I was sorting.

“Beans and soup, beans and soup- it’s a good staple” she said “I once got a donation of Dijon mustard and I thought – good heavens! What are they going to do with that?”

The thought that people on little or no income would want “posh” food was, apparently, not an issue. They only wanted simple food. All the more incredulous was that these opinions were expressed in a food bank – a centre which has gained a reputation for unprejudiced and non-judgmental service. Now this was broadly true- the army of mostly elderly volunteers did a fantastic job of keeping the centre running and giving any walk-in the benefit of the doubt. This particular example unsettled me though.

There seemed to be a current of opinion of what poor people wanted to eat, and this was largely based on assumption rather than fact. The image of a man hunched over a plate of baked beans and toast, watching TV is an easy enough picture of poverty to digest. To imagine somebody unemployed, with no money and whipping up home-made pesto does not fit this narrative and so is more challenging to accept. As I sorted cans of tomatoes, I mentioned that they could be used for all sorts of recipes. But again I was told that poor people “don’t want to cook – they just want something easy”. Once again, I was told that beans were the way to go.

I do not profess to be an expert on poverty – far from it. The way poverty in Britain is perceived is mostly through statistics or stereotype. The genuine psychological, lifestyle and day-to-day issues of poverty will ultimately remain foreign to those who have never experienced it. But I am least open to the idea that just because we have an image of poor people eating poor food does not necessarily mean it is true. I saw relatively poor families in Burma prepare dishes with remarkable economy and ingenuity. Yes, there were many foods they were unaware of – but that does not mean they are not curious about it.

The food blogger, A girl called Jack , mentioned something similar. Having lived in chronic poverty herself for many years she created a successful food blog to cater to those on micro-budgets. As an articulate, single-mum with creative food preparation – she flies in the face of the conventional stereotype of poverty, which perhaps explains why many in the right-wing press are uncomfortable with her. We like to compartmentalize poverty, to rationalize those in it as lazy or, in particular Britain, for “lacking aspiration”.

The volunteers at this food bank were mostly elderly, resourceful and well-meaning. The centre could not have run without them and so credit is due. However there was an undercurrent of residual, unintentional prejudice which was almost unavoidable. You witnessed poor people come in and take food and you assumed that is what they typically eat. Chinese noodles, cranberry sauce – even things like muesli were considered ‘not what they would want’.

Just because a food is mostly inaccessible to you does not mean you do not aspire to have it. I doubt many people in Britain a hundred years ago would have imagined developing a nation-wide taste for Indian food – but here we are. Food has, bizarrely, become quite political and the thought that lower or working class people would eat “posh food” is unsettling to many. However the same prejudice does not go the other way; richer people quite happily eat “cheap and poor” food, munching on a late night kebab or cheese and chips and that is considered fine. Why not the other way around?

As I opened up the final donation basket, I spied a tub of almond slices.

“That goes in miscellaneous” one volunteer said “I don’t think anyone will want that”