Ordering tasting in a restaurant: experiencing, socializing, and processing food

Postdoc Anna Mann from the Department of Anthropology  has recently contributed to the journal The Senses and Society with the article 'Ordering tasting in a restaurant: experiencing, socializing, and processing food.'

Sometimes there are moments in which German speakers will state that something schmeckt gut [tastes good]. Focusing on a family celebration in a restaurant in Austria, the article considers how in three schmeckt gut moments, participants variously order “tasting” as a process of experiencing, socializing, and processing. It is argued that while it is possible to analyse how a person simultaneously experiences sensual qualities inherent in a particular dish, socializes with others, and processes food, these aspects are not equally relevant for the people involved in the “tasting”. Different modes of ordering “tasting” can exist next to each other such that a “tasting together in difference” takes place. Following from this, the article calls for further investigation into the practical achievement of “tasting together in difference” and the enabling role of care in this process. By shedding light on how tasting is done in practices of dining out in Western Europe, the article contributes to a growing set of ethnomethodologically oriented studies on how tasting and taste are done in practice.

Anna Mann, Ordering tasting in a restaurant: experiencing, socializing, and processing food, The Senses and Society, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2018.