Tasting as a social practice: a methodological experiment in making taste public

Based on fieldwork in the UK and Portugal, this paper considers the relationships between cultural analyses of taste and the embodied activity of tasting. As part of a wider project on the multiple ontologies of ‘freshness’, the paper conceptualises taste as an emergent effect of tasting practices. Drawing on evidence from a series of ‘tasting events’ (where research participants were recorded shopping, cooking and eating a meal with friends and family), the paper explores the multiple dimensions of taste concluding that even the most personal and sensory aspects of tasting food involve a social dimension which we interpret through the lens of practice theory. The paper identifies three specific dimensions of tasting as a social practice involving food’s material and visceral qualities; the links between embodiment and emotion; and the contextual significance of family and social relations. Our findings contribute to recent debates about ‘making taste public’, even in the apparently private context of household consumption

The Materiality of Method: the case of the Mass Observation Archive

The Mass Observation Archive presents numerous methodological issues for social researchers. The data are idiosyncratic, difficult to analyze, and the sample design is nonsystematic. Such issues seriously challenge conventional social research protocols. This article highlights a further characteristic of the archive: its unwieldy materiality. Focusing on the sensory experiences of the archive and its particular type of data, the article shows how the experience of getting ‘dirty with data’ plays a real and dynamic part of conducting Mass Observation research. Building on these observations, and drawing on two recent projects that have used the Archive, we reflect on the extent to which these issues are genuinely methodologically problematic, and how far the materiality of method and the sensuousness of data play a part in other research sites and methodological approaches too. In doing so, we emphasize the physical and logistical practicalities involved in engaging with all kinds of data, and highlight the opportunities as well as the constraints that these pose. We draw attention to the sensuous ‘cues’ and ‘hints’ offered by the Archive's materiality, and explore different ways of responding to these and their likely implications for the type and status of outputs produced. Finally, we consider the implications of our discussion for possible future attempts to digitize the contents of the Archive