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Background Sources
"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. It unpacks the notion of a social role in terms of social norms, the often unwritten rules that regulate behavior and social interactions, and describes recent empirical work that illuminates the power and psychological underpinning of norm-based cognition, with an emphasis on how disgust animates many food norms. Finally, it discusses the ethical implications of this perspective for assessing food norms and considers how attempts to alter a person’s eating habits can run up against deep and distinctive forms of psychological resistance when they are also attempts to change who she is.
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. 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."
"Tasty." In Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and its Applications
This chapter returns to the motivating example of Chapter 1: the thin evaluative term “tasty.” It is argued that each of the standard views (objectivism, contextualism, and expressivism) is motivated by a genuine insight that it accommodates in a one‐sided way, and that a relativist account is needed to accommodate them all.
"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.
"Brillat-Savarin and Food, in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826) is the author of La Physiologie du goût [The Physiology of Taste]. Appearing in Paris in 1825, this delightful record of a lifetime’s observations has remained continuously in print, unrivalled as the core gastronomic text. While the book is more quoted than read and lacks an authoritative edition or analysis in either French or English, it provides a seemingly inexhaustible supply of insights that includes a hedonic theory of history.
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.
Dictionary of Food Ingredients (in library)
Dictionary of Food Ingredients is a concise, easy-to-use resource, covering over 1,000 food ingredients and additives, including natural ingredients, FDA-approved artificial ingredients, and compounds used in food processing.
Handbook of Olfaction and Gustation
The largest collection of basic, clinical, and applied knowledge on the chemical senses ever compiled in one volume, the third edition of Handbook of Olfaction and Gustation encompass recent developments in all fields of chemosensory science, particularly the most recent advances in neurobiology, neuroscience, molecular biology, and modern functional imaging techniques.
Encyclopedia of Taboos (in library)
The Encyclopedia of Taboos is a mine of unusual information from around the world, including a comprehensive analysis of individual taboos from the ancient world to the present day, covering both well- and lesser-known examples.
We eat what? : a cultural encyclopedia of unusual foods in the United States
This fascinating encyclopedia examines over 100 foods that are unique to the United States as well as dishes found only in specific American regions and individual states.
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; increase the visibility of food as a topic for philosophical research; serve as a resource for researchers, teachers, students, and the public; galvanize a community of philosophers working on food issues; and help raise the level of public discourse about food, agriculture, animals, and eating.
Dictionary of Flavors
The third edition of this highly popular scientific reference continues to provide a unique approach to flavors, flavor chemistry and natural products.
ODFM: Omics Database of Fermented Microbes
Omics Database of Fermentative Microbes (ODFM) is a data management system that integrates comprehensive omics information for microorganisms associated with various fermented foods, additive ingredients, and seasonings (e.g. kimchi, Korean fermented vegetables, fermented seafood, solar salt, soybean paste, vinegar, beer, cheese, sake, and yogurt).
The Oxford Companion to Food
Over 3,000 entries on every possible food, its history, cultural significance, and culinary usage.