International Journal of Food Design - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2018

Recent developments in neuroscience and psychology have confirmed what many artists have long intuited; that our senses are connected. Research into crossmodal correspondences – the universal tendency of a sensory feature in one modality to be matched with one from another sensory modality – has highlighted strong connections between flavour and sound that have only just begun to be explored by artists working in these sensory realms. This article investigates Oenosthesia, a practice-led art research project that aimed to harness crossmodal correspondences in an artwork that combines a soundscape created from field recordings of the winemaking process with wines consumed as part of the piece. Its success in achieving this was tested through data gathered from participants at presentations of the work in London in September 2016 and in Sydney in March 2017. This article presents the results of this study, which suggest that sound can significantly change perceptions of flavour in an experimental audio-gustatory artwork and highlights the potential for the design of crossmodally congruent sound works that heighten specific flavour characters of a wine.

Tsukemono is a Japanese word for pickled foods. They are as central to Japanese food culture as are cooked rice, dashi and soy sauce, and an integral part of the traditional Japanese cuisine in the daily fare as well as in formal meals. Tsukemono preparation covers a wide range of preservation and conservation techniques, including fermentation, and it is applied to vegetables and fruits as well as flowers. This article describes what tsukemono are, their history, the different kinds of tsukemono and the associated preparation techniques, as well as traditional and modern uses. A particular focus is on how the sensory design of the flavour and texture of tsukemono is based on the gastrophysics behind the culinary techniques used and the natural appearance of vegetables and fruits. Some nutritional and health aspects are discussed as well as aesthetic appearance.

Research in natural sciences often demonstrates health potential of specific foods. However, for these foods to have a beneficial effect in reality, they also need to be available, chosen, liked and eaten by consumers. To find strategies to enable an increased consumption of foods with potential health benefits, a perspective described as dietetic marketing will be elaborated upon. This is done by using the example of rye bread as a potential health beneficial component in the Swedish diet. Several potential health benefits have been shown for rye, but less research has been focused on bread from a consumer perspective. Dietetic marketing draws upon ideas from social marketing but focuses specifically on a food with potential health benefits. Here, consumers are thought to more easily adopt a behaviour if they receive benefits they consider valuable or if relevant barriers are removed. Food quality is a useful concept in identifying barriers to and opportunities for consumption. Objective quality represents, e.g., what is described as healthy and recommended by authorities as well as what is made available to consumers by food industry. Subjective quality is related to consumer perceptions of these qualities. Taste is a crucial quality criterion for consumers’ evaluation of food products. Sensory analysis is therefore used as a key methodology to bridge the gap between the product and the person. In the case of healthier rye breads, the taste was shown to be a major barrier for consumption among Swedish consumers. With the aim to increase consumption of foods with potential health benefits, a dietetic marketing perspective gives interdisciplinary insights into how industry may design products and communication in line with consumer perceptions and preferences as well as how authorities may design recommendations and guidelines to aid consumers in their food choice and guide industry in product development.

The article examines the use of food aromas in scent installations created by Polish artist Justyna Gruszczyk. In her work, she concentrates on non-visual means of communication. Her main field of interest are scents and their ability to evoke memories and emotions. In many of her scent installations, Gruszczyk uses food-based aromas to create a narrative or trigger emotions. In analysed examples, she uses the aroma of home-made cake, strawberry lollipops and coconut to deliver various meanings.

Commensality – eating together – is an important way that people bond, constitute families and other social groups, and develop taste preferences. This essay uses ethnographic research in Tuscany and Sardinia, Italy to explore how sharing food and tastes through commensality not only connects people but also creates boundaries between insiders and outsiders, marked by taste and distaste.

The memory of how food is procured influences the taste of that food. In ethnographic interviews with food activists, farmers, back-to-the-landers and freegans, the response to a question about a favourite meal often included how the food was procured. The experience of growing and foraging for food moves the act of tasting beyond the internal realm of taste buds and into more public arenas.