Being Cultured: Requirements

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I usually ask if they know about Epictetus’ stolen lamp

I think there's several things that contribute to being cultured but they can be broken down into 2 separate yet intertwined categories, which are experiences you have and how you carry/present yourself.

As for experiences you have, I think you mentioned a lot of them in your post. Things like being well-travelled, physically fit, a diverse food palette, an appreciation for the arts and unique yet cool hobbies. But I think something often left out about these is the aspects you mentioned are usually not wealth dependent (beyond a minimal amount of savings). For example, when travelling, the person flying first class to Dubai is arguably less cultured than the person who scraped enough pennies to fly to a random town in Italy or Czechia. The person eating at Nobu in Vegas doesn't carry the same "culture" as eating in a random ramen shop in Japan. All this to say, it's important to not conflate money with culture. I think this is explicitly shown with hobbies like chess or lifting where you can build a chess elo for free and a good gym can cost no more than $100 a month and yet developing either of these hobbies will set you apart or put you in a unique group of indidviduals.

And then as for how you carry yourself, I think this comes down to how you actually share the experiences that I mentioned above. If I meet you and within the 1st 10 mins of knowing you, you've already bragged about every place you've travelled or how much you can bench, it's clear you did those things for the external approval rather than yourself. Compare this to someone who, despite knowing them for a year, one day you go to the gym together and they easily rep out 315 on bench, or someone is asking about vacation plans and they can easily break out a list of recommendations to activities and restaurants in what you previously thought was a random town.

To me, that is culture

I don't care much for literature nor art. 

I think being well-travelled, outside the beaten track, as well as interested in others are important traits. A bit of optimism goes a long way. Not necessarily the nonchalant type one gets from not having a single worry in life, but a grounded belief that people are mostly good.

No need to debate the pros and cons of the Three Valleys, name drop restaurants in Switzerland, or reminisce about how F1 was better under Ecclestone. It mostly comes across as cringe. 

Well first of all, I don't think the point of being cultured is so that you can appear cultured to others. That is actually called being pretentious.

Bump

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You don’t need money to be cultured, but you do need to be intelligent. And since intelligence and money are correlated, all three are.

I’ve never met a dumb person who is cultured. Why? Because being cultured is about appreciating and understanding things that are difficult. Anyone can appreciate reality TV, or strip clubs, or football, or pop music, or (must to the chagrin of above commenters) weightlifting. Those are not cultured. Culture is about appreciating the difficult things: opera, art history, stamp collecting, classical music, high fashion (beyond an insta influencer’s sense), sailing, chess, reading literary fiction, studying history, even knowing your wines is difficult. 

I'll bite (with some steps on how)

Eating with a knife and fork properly (Continental style)

Understanding the history of ideas (listening to the BBC podcast "In Our Time" is a great start, attempting to read the Great Books of the Western World is another)

Knowing basic geography (capital cities of most major countries, as well as a proximate sizes of each country, and a handful of facts specific to that country)

Trying a dish from every main culture, and understanding the flavors behind it (travel is the easiest way here). 

Some appreciation of alcohol and how it's mixed (drinking around the world helps here).

"Cultured" means you understand Western culture (which includes continental Europe, the USA, as well as the Antipodean regions), through also understanding "Eastern" (Asia, Russia, Middle East etc) and "other" cultures (Africa, Oceania etc).  

This thread is genuinely hilarious. 

Going to an Eyes Wide Shut party

Just be intellectually curious.  That is it.  No one is an expert at all things, most of us aren't even expert at one thing, but being interested in learning new things and broadening your horizons is all it takes.  You don't need to love classical music, or postmodern art, or have read your way through most of the 100 most influential books of all time.  Anyone telling you that a specific subject or topic is "necessary" to be cultured is just gatekeeping; how are you supposed to become educated on the Dutch Renaissance if you live somewhere that doesn't have access to any Old Masters?  

All you need is to be open to new ideas, experiences, and knowledge, and the "cultured" part will come.  No, you won't be able to discuss Van Eyck with someone who lives in Amsterdam and goes to the Rijksmuseum every day.  But if you can ask intelligent questions and learn from the answers, that's 99% of the way there.  And that person?  Well, if they're cultured and not just pretentious, they'll want to ask you about what you know about, and learn from your answers.

start with 'no brown in town'

In American culture, anyone who traces their family history here to the Revolutionary War era is inherently "cultured." Anyone who cannot, is not. You're either eligible for Sons/Daughters of The Revolution, or you're not. 

Striving to become someone you're not is laudable and necessary in certain domains (career, health, et al), yet foolish and embarrassing in others ("being cultured").

"Oh, nooo. No. We're different. I am. They are. She is. We're all different from you. You see, we were born different. It's in our blood."     -Tom Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby" (2013 film)