WELCOME TO FLAVOUR COUNTRY
Wednesday, November 7, 7pm, Luxe Hall, Western Front
As part of the Big Rock Candy Mountain project and the MOUTHFEEL exhibition, project artists and creators Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling and Other Sights have invited Nadia Berenstein to give a public talk.
We live in flavourful times. Whether we’re noshing on hot-dog-flavoured potato chips or on purple-black heirloom tomatoes, craft beer or seltzer water, szechuan peppercorns or unicorn frappuccinos, the gustatory trajectory of our era is the tireless pursuit of ever more flavour: fresher, intenser, hotter, weirder, more local, more authentic, more. This talk is about how we got here. In the twentieth century, flavour — both “natural” or “artificial” — became measurable, manipulable, and designable in new ways, with consequences for both the configuration of the global industrial food system and the shape of intimate human appetites. Writer and historian of science Nadia Berenstein offer a tour through the last century of flavour science and flavour creation, with a focus on the cultural dimensions and possibilities of added flavours.
Berenstein has written for The Guardian, New Food Economy, and Vice Munchies.
Image Credit: Amy Mills (courtesy of http://nadiaberenstein.com)