The Taste of Water

Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-0-520-39355-4
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 306 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 224 mm, Gewicht: 516 g

Reihe: Critical Environments: Nature, Science, and Politics

Have you ever wondered why your tap water tastes the way it does? The Taste of Water explores the increasing erasure of tastes from drinking water over the twentieth century. It asks how dramatic changes in municipal water treatment have altered consumers’ awareness of the environment their water comes from. Through examining the development of sensory expertise in the United States and France, this unique history uncovers the foundational role of palatability in shaping Western water treatment processes. By focusing on the relationship between taste and the environment, Christy Spackman shows how efforts to erase unwanted tastes and smells have transformed water into a highly industrialized food product divorced from its origins. The Taste of Water invites readers to question their own assumptions about what water does and should naturally taste like while exposing them to the invisible—but substantial—sensory labor involved in creating tap water.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Spackman, Christy

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Sachkultur, Materielle Kultur
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Geographie: Allgemeines, Karten & Atlanten
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften: Ernährung & Gesellschaft
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Ökotrophologie (Ernährungs- und Haushaltswissenschaften)
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltschutz, Umwelterhaltung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Industrial Terroir

2. Making Flavor Molecular

3. Future Sensing Bodies

4. Theaters of Taste from the Boardroom to the Street

5. Erasing Place: Industrial Terroir in the Twenty-First Century

Conclusion: Flavor Stories

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Christy Spackman is Assistant Professor of Art/Science at Arizona State University and Director of the Sensory Labor(atory), an experimental research collective dedicated to creatively disrupting longstanding sensory hierarchies.