Food Studies

FlavorGraph predicts the pairing fit of two ingredients by combining information on the molecules in a given ingredient with the way people have used that ingredient in the past: as such, FlavorGraph sits on the data of 1,561 flavor molecules and of a million recipes. Learn more from Sony AI and Korea University.

For searching BU Libraries Search, some keywords and subject headings which might be relevant to you include:

• taste perception physiology
• food sensory evaluation
• aversion
• intersensory effects
• senses and sensation history
• cheesemaking OR cheese
• pickled foods
• fermented foods
• terroir
• food habits psychological aspects
• eating -- psychology
• food preferences United States
• hyperphagia
• food testing
• taste physiology
• nutrition psychological aspects
• food philosophy
• taste AND gastronomy
• junk food

• "Food and the Senses," In Annual Review of Anthropology, 2010 This review makes the case for anthropological reflection on the intersection of food and the senses.

• The Five Senses and Beyond: the Encyclopedia of Perception The Five Senses and Beyond: The Encyclopedia of Perception supplies students and general readers with accurate, up-to-date information about the human senses. It explains the "big five" senses in detail as well as lesser-known but important senses--perceptions such as balance, kinesthesia, temperature, and pain.

• "I Eat, Therefore I Am: Disgust and the Intersection of Food and Identity," in The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics This chapter examines the set of relations that hold between food and cuisine, eating and dining, and norms, social roles, and identities, in a way that continues to be informed by current work in empirical moral psychology. 

• The Five Senses and Beyond: the Encyclopedia of Perception Supplies students and general readers with accurate, up-to-date information about the human senses. It explains the "big five" senses in detail as well as lesser-known but important senses--perceptions such as balance, kinesthesia, temperature, and pain. After a helpful introduction, this reference work provides A-to-Z, cross-referenced entries on hundreds of topics in the realm of human perception that allow students to find and digest information quickly and draw connections between related topics.

• "Mixing Methods, Tasting Fingers: Notes on an Ethnographic Experiment," in HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2011. This article reports on an ethnographic experiment. Four finger eating experts and three novices sat down for a hot meal and ate with their hands. Drawing on the technique of playing with the familiar and the strange, our aim was not to explain our responses, but to articulate them. As we seek words to do so, we are compelled to stretch the verb "to taste."

• "Taste, Distaste, and Food," in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics Taste and distaste are influential constituents of our relations with food. This essay describes their nature and interconnections and highlights their links with disgust.

• "Gustatory Pleasure and Food," in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics Eating food is necessary for our survival, but unlike various other things we need to do to survive – sleeping and breathing – eating can provide great pleasure. Maybe alone among the activities we need to do to survive, eating can bring us great joy. Which ethical concerns does gustatory pleasure raise?

• "Ethics and Food Taste," in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics When people choose what to eat, one of the main reasons is the taste of the food. Many people in the world do not have much choice in their diets given their poverty, but in the Western world, the average consumer enjoys an overwhelming variety of affordable foods. The focus of this entry is the role of taste in the food choices of those who do have a choice.

• Springer Handbook of Odor The Springer Handbook of Odor is the definitive guide to all aspects related to the study of smell and their impact on human life. For the first time, this handbook aligns the senso-chemo-analytical characterization of everyday smells encountered by mankind, with the elucidation of perceptual, hedonic, behavioral and physiological responses of humans to such odors.

• Handbook of Olfaction and Gustation The largest collection of basic, clinical, and applied knowledge on the chemical senses ever compiled in one volume.

• The Philosophy of Food Project, University of North Texas The Philosophy of Food Project is housed in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas. It aims to disseminate information about the philosophical investigation of food.

• The Truth About Taste (streaming, Academic Video Online) Taste is our most indulgent sense but it is only in recent years that we have started to understand why we really love the foods we do--and it is a lot more surprising than you might think.

• Disgust (streaming, Academic Video Online) This interview features a discussion between Mario Batali and Paul Rozin about what food humans find tasty or disgusting, and what triggers these feelings.

• Synesthesia (streaming, Academic Video Online) Can one taste a color or see a sound? This fascinating short documentary explores the brain and the neuro-cognitive phenomenon known as synesthesia, where multiples senses are blended together.

• A World of Food: Tastes & Taboos in Different Cultures (streaming, Academic Video Online) What's delicious? What's disgusting? What's even edible in the first place? These questions may seem simple, but they tap into powerful cultural, religious, and individual differences.

• The Flavorists (streaming, Academic Video Online) Meet the scientists who create flavors that make foods and beverages so tasty that critics say they're addictive. Morley Safer reports.

• The Madeleine Syndrome - Ruth Reichl and Paul Rozin (streaming, Academic Video Online) Proust's evocation of childhood conjured by the tasting of the scalloped madeleine has become the template for remembrance of things past. But why does taste bring forth memories of such emotional power?