Introduction
Have you ever wondered why you consistently crave a food that your friends find unpalatable? I have, too, and I ultimately attributed my tastes to my distinct genetic makeup and personal experiences, which are, in fact, contributing factors to individual preferences. However, I have learned that numerous phenomena, including taste, rooted in sociocultural anthropology and evolutionary biology are mistakenly ascribed to solely individual variation. We will discuss how taste preferences, with regard to food and other products, are influenced by sociocultural factors, such as social class, as well as by different populations’ adaptations to their environments and cuisines. But first, let’s examine a critical component of how we will later define taste: knowledge.
A Sociocultural Understanding of Knowledge
What does knowledge denote to you? You may respond that if someone is knowledgeable about a certain subject matter, he/she is able to state true sentences about it or is essentially a walking encyclopedia. While common, this perception of the word is more applicable to propositional knowledge, which you can acquire by merely studying facts in a book, and we are going to look at knowledge from a more sociocultural perspective by exploring practical knowledge. Such knowledge involves the ability to make distinctions that matter; more specifically, in Culture and Society, we defined it as the “socially cultivated skill of making distinctions relevant to organizing both practical work and social relations.” As a practical skill, this type of knowledge requires practice, not just the consumption of encyclopedic information, to obtain. For instance, knowing when to stop a chemical reaction hypothetically is insufficient; you have to practice doing so when the time actually arises.
How might we apply this concept to a more sociocultural example? Well, think about the ways in which the car someone drives informs your perception of him/her; you have acquired the ability to make distinctions based upon your sociocultural knowledge about what a car make, model, etc. suggests about its owner. Do you think a member of a different culture would draw the exact same conclusions? The unlikelihood of this outcome demonstrates that such knowledge is shaped by each individual’s unique culture. Likewise, when you enter a lecture hall as an audience member, do you walk to the front and stand beside the speaker while facing the other listeners? I assume not, for most possess sociocultural knowledge about where to position themselves due to their awareness of the ways in which a spatial arrangement communicates hierarchy. This example illustrates the aforementioned influence of sociocultural knowledge on your ability to partake in social relations, such as the one between a lecturer and his/her students.
When asked from where the distinctions you automatically make stem, you may struggle to identify how you came to think of a Rolls-Royce as an indicator of wealth and status or the tiered seating rather than the lectern as your rightful place in a lecture hall. Although often inconspicuously, these distinctions have originated from authorized sources, which may bring to mind the reputable, peer-reviewed journals you were taught to use as your academic knowledge bases. However, for some communities, such authorized sources can also be influencers, for instance, who set the standard for fashionable ways to dress. Although individuals may not actively imitate influencers’ looks, these online personalities normalize aesthetics while disapproval from those, such as parents, not deemed authorized sources within the communities is cast aside.
Imagine showing your parents an outfit reflective of the current trends only for them to not understand these clothing choices. You may consider them out of the know while fashion influencers in the know with regard to the latest fads, a separation that results from the permeation of distinctions made by authorized sources. In this way, qualifying an object simultaneously qualifies a subject; influencers’ qualifying an aesthetic as fashionable also qualifies them as knowledgeable enough to discern trendy clothes.
“Wine Talk”
Let’s apply our understanding of qualification to the culinary world. Have you ever seen someone take a single sip of wine and develop an eloquent description of, say, its notes of black currant and plum? These qualities are not “in” the wine itself; they are brought into being by the practice of making distinctions. Wine production has to be standardized, partially via tasting and evaluation using the wine aroma wheel, so that certain variants consistently evoke the taste of these fruits. While such characteristics are imparted on the object, they become socially real, in that these flavors change products’ prices and consumers’ experiences.
Since certain tastes are not actual attributes of a given wine, you have to be taught to notice them, and as alluded to with the example of fashion trends, the ability to do so–especially using specialized language–establishes both the wine as a sophisticated product and yourself as sophisticated enough to detect its qualities. During production and circulation, this “wine talk” may execute practical work, such as helping professionals performing descriptive sensory analysis communicate how different production processes alter the nature of wines. Moreover, wines with labels that utilize wine talk may increase sales by convincing consumers that they warrant expensive prices. Yet, it also performs the social work of separating wine connoisseurs from amateurs. In other words, it creates a hierarchy of expertise, and individuals’ positions within it affect others’ perceptions of them. For instance, those considered at the top of the hierarchy, or at the level of connoisseurship, may be viewed as cosmopolitan–although some may deem them pretentious.
Can you think of other products that are sometimes described using technical terminology by those considered specialized in qualifying them? Perhaps chocolate or even coffee comes to mind, but connoisseurs of these foods did not traditionally speak in a sophisticated manner; in reality, the evaluative framework of wine criticism has spread to other culinary domains.
Apprenticeship
While knowledge about a lexicon has become a marker of knowledge about a product, before the former can be employed, apprenticeship is essential. The system involves continually choosing products deemed low quality by your mentor’s standards until you adopt his/her ability to make proper distinctions. As a mode of gaining practical rather than propositional knowledge, this process is evidently based upon practice rather than intaking information from books.
Our instructor illustrated the influence of mentors’ standards for quality on apprentices through a video depicting a father and daughter shopping for strawberries. As the daughter repeatedly picks out options, the father, her mentor, encourages her to put them back while explaining his standards for strawberry quality, with which they do not align. First of all, he defines a strawberry worthy of purchase as smelling “strawberry-like.” That knowledge about what characterizes such a scent requires smelling numerous strawberries until a mentor declares one to exhibit it demonstrates the need to practice making distinctions that matter. The father’s second standard is that strawberries are not to be bruised or moldy, and his third rejects ones that are white. These requirements originate largely from his broader society and exhibit cultural values, for many around the world purchase strawberries like the ones the father dismissed and simply cut off the moldy parts, for instance. Overall, the daughter acquires knowledge about what a good strawberry entails to an American middle-class family, specifically, and is socialized into a competent produce buyer by these standards. When she ultimately proposes a box of strawberries that adheres to them, she is not making a personal choice; rather, her selection demonstrates her accountability to her mentor and the rest of her family, whose criteria she is to maintain.
A Sociocultural Understanding of Taste
But how does this sociocultural understanding of knowledge relate to that of taste? Even when taste is defined figuratively–as the capacity to determine what is high quality rather than the physical ability to perceive flavors via specialized receptors on your tongue–it is often considered natural, or embedded in your individual character. As we have established, we are here to challenge this notion. Before we delve more deeply into why taste is sociocultural, let’s outline a sociocultural definition of it. Essentially, taste is “the institutionally anchored capacity to discern and rank qualities that simultaneously evaluates objects and positions subjects within hierarchies of distinction.” What do I mean by “institutionally anchored”? Well, recall the example of the father’s imparting practical knowledge to his daughter about picking quality strawberries; the evaluative standards by which she comes to operate are set by her family, a type of institution.
When comparing this definition of taste with the one we previously established for knowledge, you may notice similarities besides the fact that they are socially cultivated; both enable you to qualify products, and when you do so competently, you place yourself high within the hierarchy of expertise by demonstrating your ability as an evaluator. As you can see, those with good taste possess a type of exclusive, empowering knowledge that is not inherent but rather embodied as they are oriented toward evaluative standards. But while I have alluded to the fact that perceptions of good taste may vary with class through my mention of the father and daughter’s middle-class standing, which social class determines what it is held to be in a broader society?
The Tie between Social Class and Taste
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposed the following answer: the official taste of the elite, or “high culture,” is accepted as superior. Essentially, Bourdieu viewed taste as a social marker because he believed that it stems from your habitus, or the dispositions, habits, and perceptions you exhibit due to your social conditions, as influenced by your social class. For instance, affluent individuals exposed to education that helps them develop a strong embodied knowledge about high culture possess different preferences than less wealthy, uneducated ones. Does the idea that taste can indicate position in a social hierarchy sound familiar? Yes, the notion that qualifying an object simultaneously qualifies a subject is involved in Bourdieu’s theory of taste, hence the quote in his book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste that explicitly states, “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.”
Yet, Bourdieu distinguished between knowing high culture as part of the elite and knowing of it. Personally, I can recall staring at two adjacent rectangles painted on a canvas and questioning whether this piece truly constituted art while overhearing some museumgoers immediately recognize the nuances in the paint application or color scheme. Due to my desire to be perceived as possessing good taste, I have pretended to appreciate works’ severe simplicity. In my attempts to do so, I have bought replica paintings that apparently lack the craftsmanship of the originals but appear indistinguishable to an untrained eye like my own. When we mistake our imitation of good taste–purchasing replicas–with a bonafide ability to discern high-quality modern artwork, I and others who merely know that it is supposed to be perceived as sophisticated display what Bourdieu called allodoxia.
In this way, taste can reinforce the divisions between social classes, as is evident in societies such as India, where it also delineates between those in different sex- and race-based social categories. Taste is institutionally anchored in British colonialism, for as was the case in colonial India, tea brokers considered to possess good taste are upper-middle-class men while laborers are “ethnically marked” women, in the words of Sarah Besky, author of Tasting Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea. Firms have come to recruit brokers based upon indications of their class rather than their knowledge about tea, support of Bourdieu’s claim that individuals assume good taste and high social class are intertwined.
The Tie between Culture and Taste: A Study of Thai and Japanese Populations
Remember when we discussed that the father’s standards for quality strawberries stem from his exposure to an American, not just a middle-class, lifestyle, in which consuming partially moldy strawberries deviates from the norm? Now that we have explored how taste can differ across social classes, I want to return to a notion at which I hinted: taste can differ cross-culturally as well. Could some cultures’ taste preferences be linked to biological adaptations engendered by their physical environments in addition to cultural norms and values engendered by their social ones? Since such adaptations can explain why populations with different food cultures develop not only dissimilar preferences but also dissimilar abilities to discern flavor profiles, I would say “yes.” Therefore, that the elite possess a more acute ability to detect subtleties in the products they assess in addition to distinct taste preferences appears to extend beyond social class.
Methods
A 2017 study compared Thai and Japanese populations’ taste thresholds, or the minimum concentration of a substance required for participants to experience a detectable taste sensation. Specifically, it evaluated the difference in recognition thresholds (RTs) of the tastes sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami by placing filter paper discs soaked in taste solutions on different regions of the tongue, and it assessed the difference in detection thresholds via electrogustometry. The latter measures taste sensitivity by applying weak electrical currents to specific areas of the tongue, a process that results in the perception of a metallic or sour taste and, in contrast to the filter paper disc method, is not designed to distinguish between different flavors. Due to the distinction between these techniques, you may have guessed that RTs differ from detection thresholds because they are the minimum concentration of a substance required for participants not only to detect but also to identify it.
Key Results
Older Thai participants exhibited higher RTs and detection thresholds of all five of the basic tastes as compared to older Japanese ones. In other words, they required higher concentrations of taste stimuli to detect and identify these flavor profiles, a fact that suggests that the Thai individuals had less sensitive senses of taste. The researchers hypothesize that this difference arose from their higher preferences for and consumption of spicy food, which is common in Thai while rare in Japanese cuisine. Moreover, Thai people’s predilections for such food may relate to the hotter climates in Thailand than Japan. Some scientists reason that spicy food can cause perspiration, and the evaporation of sweat can help bodies cool down. Additionally, Thailand’s use of spices may be linked to their ability to kill bacteria and protect from food poisoning.
The Connection between Spicy Food Preference and the Discernment of Tastes
Setting aside the potential reasons behind stronger spicy food preference, I still wondered, “Why does there appear to be a connection between it and higher thresholds of all tastes?” The study provides two hypotheses: “1) direct effect of spice on sensitivity of taste receptors” and “2) indirect effect from high amount of seasoning use in spicy food.” Regarding the first, enjoying spicy food may result in consuming spices more often. If this increased consumption has occurred since the juvenile phase, it, in turn, may directly affect the sensitivity of other tastes and increase older adults’ taste thresholds. In terms of the second, spicy Thai food often contains a significant quantity of seasonings, such as fish sauce and lime juice, that can each feature sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami taste substances. In contrast, in Japanese cuisine, a dish often features only one flavor, and since natural umami ingredients, which stimulate appetite, are common, meals require little additional seasoning. As evidence of the Japanese population’s lower consumption of seasonings that exhibit the five basic tastes, in the 1990s, it was estimated to intake 1.2 to 1.7 grams of MSG, a provider of the umami taste, per day while a study demonstrated that the rural Thai population consumed a median of 3.6 grams of MSG. This difference in MSG intake may result in Thai individuals’ higher umami thresholds. As this finding indicates, Thai, who become accustomed to spicy food starting as children, may develop higher taste thresholds for the basic tastes as they continue to consume the taste substances regularly in high amounts. Overall, as they adapt to food resources, their sensitivity to familiar tastes may decrease, hence a study’s discovery that individuals who loved spicy food and had eaten it consistently since childhood found it more palatable.
The Role of Genes in Taste Preferences
Yet, beyond differing degrees of spicy food preference exist genetic variations that may also affect the taste thresholds of individuals with different ethnic backgrounds. For instance, polymorphisms–the occurrences of variant forms of DNA in at least 1% of a population–of bitter taste receptors such as TAS2R38 influence how we perceive bitterness. A study found that Japanese and Thai populations actually possess similar proportions of the PAV haplotype, which indicates an ability to perceive bitterness, and the AVI haplotype, which signifies an inability to do so, but would you agree that potential genetic differences between the populations seem worthy of additional investigation? What other questions does the study or any content of this post provoke? Be sure to leave a comment with your inquiries!
Sources
- Thank you to our Culture and Society instructor for sharing the information upon which this post is based.
- https://taylorandfrancis.com/knowledge/Medicine_and_healthcare/Physiology/Electrogustometry/#:~:text=Electrogustometry%20is%20a%20method%20of,modalities%20like%20sweetness%20and%20bitterness.
- https://www.academia.edu/74173082/Differences_in_Taste_Perception_and_Spicy_Preference_A_Thai_Japanese_Cross_cultural_Study
- Tasting Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea by Sarah Besky