The taste culture reader : experiencing food and drink / edited by Carolyn Korsmeyer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : perspectives on taste -- 1. On taste -- 2. Chemical senses : taste and smell -- 3. Culinary themes and variations -- 3a. Flavor principles : some applications -- 4. Retrieving tastes : two sources of cuisine -- 5. The high and the low : culinary culture in Asia and Europe -- 6. Taste of luxury, taste of necessity -- 7. Colonial Creoles : the formation of tastes in early America -- 7a. Hoppin' John -- 8. Tasty meals and bitter gifts -- 9. Salt : the edible rock -- 10. Sweetness and meaning -- 11. Spices : tastes of paradise -- 12. Thick sauce : remarks on the social relations of the Songhay -- 13. Food as divine medicine -- 14. Food with saints -- 15. Zen and the art of tea -- 16. Living Ramadan : fasting and feasting in Morocco -- 17. Bitter herbs and unleavened bread (from the Passover Haggadah) -- 18. Feasting with dead souls -- 19. Of the standard of taste -- 20. Objective and subjective senses : the sense of taste -- 21. Rasa : delight of the reason -- 22. Pleasures of the proximate senses : eating, taste, and culture -- 23. Of gastronomes and guides -- 24. Champagne and caviar : Soviet kitsch -- 25. Place matters -- 26. Tasting problems and errors of perception -- 27. On the Zeedijk -- 28. The Madeleine -- 29. The breast of Aphrodite -- 30. Synesthesia, memory, and the taste of home -- 31. Food and emotion -- 32. The pale yellow glove -- 32a. Christmas cake -- 32b. Sunshine cake -- 33. Artificial flavours -- 33a. Rainbow delight cake -- 34. Taste in an age of convenience : from frozen food to meals in 'the matrix' -- 35. The play's the thing : dining out in the new Russia -- 36. Identity and the global stew -- 37. But is it authentic? : culinary travel and the search for the "genuine article" -- Succulent selection : a select bibliography of 50 further readings.