Food for Thought

1. Food forThought Lecture #4 Joe Lau

2. Mobile phone policy • $10 fine when your phone / pager rings.

3. Last time … • Food can be art. • Food can be a distinctive form of art. • Not all food is art.

4. But can food be GREAT art?

5. Food is a MINOR art • Transience • Limited emotional engagement • Lack of representational content.See Telfer (1996), chapter 3.

6. Art involves evaluation • Good art vs. bad art • Food, paintings, sculptures, … • Evaluation presupposes standards • Are there objective standards for taste?

7. Two positions with regard to aesthetic evaluation • Subjectivism – Taste preferences are entirely subjective. It is up to the person whether something is good or not. There is no right or wrong in judgments of taste. • Typically some kind of relativism. • Objectivism – There are objective standards for evaluating taste.Some people can have bad taste.

8. Problem with objectivism • Claims about artistic value cannot be discovered scientifically. • Mars is larger than Venus. • Yung Kee’s roast goose is better than Maxim’s. • Taste seems to change withtime and culture. • But same for empirical beliefs. • What about progress?

9. Evaluative judgments as expressing preferences • A : X is better than Y. • Translation : I like X better than Y. • B : No. Y is better than X. • Translation : I like Y better than X. • Problem • There is no real disagreement. • So why do we argue?

10. Value judgments in food • Jamie Oliver is a better cook than Yan. • White wine goes with shellfish. • X does not know how to appreciate good food.

11. Is taste really completely arbitrary?

12. Sources of differences • Same food, different taste • Genetic differences • Physical condition, context • Training • Same taste, different preferences • Is one preference better than others?

13. Genetic differences • Phenylthiocarbamide, also known as PTC, or phenylthiourea, is a synthetic organic molecule. • See http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/bitter.html • “Researchers found a single gene for a bitter taste receptor that completely explains different PTC tasting abilities. There are actually three versions of this gene … This small difference in the gene, and in the protein that it makes, eventually forms a tongue taste receptor that has a different shape from a "normal" bitter taste receptor. This altered shape means that the person's receptors will not respond to PTC and the person will not think the PTC tastes bitter. Since all people have two copies of every gene, different combinations of the bitter taste gene (two copies of form 1; one copy of form 1 and one of form 2; two copies of form 3; etc.) determine whether someone finds PTC intensely bitter, somewhat bitter, or without taste at all.”

14. Supertasters, tasters, & non-tasters • A good summary (PROP sensitivity) • http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=41441 • Empirical studies • Taste sensitivity to 6-n-propylthiouracil predicts acceptance of bitter-tasting spinach in 3–6-y-old children(http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/5/1101) • Sensory acceptance of Japanese green tea and soy products is linked to genetic sensitivity to 6-n-propylthiouracil. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=9427978&dopt=Abstract) • Genetic variation gives a taste for alcohol (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6668)

15. Training • New phenomenal concepts through training. • THAT kind of taste. • Allows recall, imagination, recognition

16. ASTRINGENT The "puckerish" quality of high tannin content. BODY Used to describe the "weight" of a wine.Wines can be categorized as light-, medium-, or full-bodied. CRISP Wine with a lively acidity level. EARTHY Wines described as "earthy" will have aromas and flavors of soil, minerals, leather, and/or wet leaves FLABBY A wine that has a lot of ripe fruit but little acidity is considered "fat" or "flabby" FRUITY A wine in which fruit flavors dominate the aroma and taste. JAMMY This is a term used to describe intensely ripe, concentrated fruit in the nose and/or palate of a wine. MELLOW Smooth and soft, with no harshness. NUTTY Port, Sherry, huge Chardonnays, and a few other wines may have a nutty characteristic. SPICY It can refer to pepper spicy, or a flavor you'd associate with something from your spice rack, but can't quite place, such as coriander, rosemary, clove, cinnamon, etc. STRUCTURE The framework of a wine, encompassing the levels of tannin, acidity, and alcohol. Often called backbone. TANNIC Term used to describe wine in which the tannins overpower. THIN A wine that is light-bodied and lacks flavor. VELVETY An adjective describing a wine with REALLY smooth texture Wine vocabulary

17. (Rough) Proposal • X is better than Y = • I like X more than Y; and • The opinion is shared by experts on X and Y. • Comments • Accounts for disagreement. • Experts: Similar biology, wide experience, sensitive perception, free from cultural biases and prejudices. • Evaluation relative to a group of people. • What if experts disagree?

18. Morality • Relativism in morality is less plausible than relativism in taste. • Isn’t this true? • “We should not torture innocent babies merely for fun.” • Even if other people disagree we tend to think that the moral standard applies to them as well.

19. Further readings • Ch.17 “Taste” The Routledge companion to aesthetics • http://eproxy.lib.hku.hk/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/hkulibrary/Doc?id=2002431 • Hume’s 1757 essay “Of the Standard of Taste” • http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r15.html • Discussion : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-aesthetics/ • On moral relativism • http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism