Annabell Merkel
Doctoral student
Consuming Seaweeds: In The Laboratory And Beyond
Author
Summary, in English
Based on fieldwork in a sensory science laboratory in Sweden, this paper brings the social aspects of conducting an analytical sensory panel together with consumers’ understandings of the everyday consumption context and existing practices. As part of an interdisciplinary project investigating seaweed as a new food in a Swedish context, this paper explores how seaweed as a new resource is made edible and how its taste is negotiated. The aim is to understand how expert consumers’ everyday life practices and ideas about seaweed consumption resonate with sensory perceptions and experiences they have produced in a laboratory.
What kind of sensory perceptions and experiences are produced and how are they negotiated? How do the professional tasters understand and relate to eating seaweed in their everyday life? How do the sensory perceptions and experiences resonate
with the experts’ everyday habits?
Theoretically the study draws on diverse perspectives from the sociology of consumption, social science studies on sensory science, as well as literature from social and cultural geography. Through the concepts edibility and taste, I explore how a new resource becomes edible, tasty food. Observations and open expert conversations during two training sessions and one testing day of an analytical sen-
sory panel have been conducted. After the sensory testing of different seaweed species, in-depth interviews with the professional panelists took place. The semi-structured interviews evolved around different parts of the food consumption cycle, such as acquisition of ingredients, cooking and eating. Qualitative aspects of conducting the analytical sensory panel are analyzed, and everyday life practic-
es and ideas of panelists about seaweed consumption are investigated. The study is currently ongoing. Drawing on concepts, such as edibility and taste, conceptualizations of resources “becoming”, as well as an interdisciplinary research approach, it is expected to contribute to sociological studies through exploring new ways of directly connecting laboratory evaluations and everyday life through the research participants and consumed food. Moreover, by understanding the social
processes that are involved in a new food becoming edible, the findings might support establishing seaweed in a new market and aid a transition towards a more sustainable, plant-based diet.
What kind of sensory perceptions and experiences are produced and how are they negotiated? How do the professional tasters understand and relate to eating seaweed in their everyday life? How do the sensory perceptions and experiences resonate
with the experts’ everyday habits?
Theoretically the study draws on diverse perspectives from the sociology of consumption, social science studies on sensory science, as well as literature from social and cultural geography. Through the concepts edibility and taste, I explore how a new resource becomes edible, tasty food. Observations and open expert conversations during two training sessions and one testing day of an analytical sen-
sory panel have been conducted. After the sensory testing of different seaweed species, in-depth interviews with the professional panelists took place. The semi-structured interviews evolved around different parts of the food consumption cycle, such as acquisition of ingredients, cooking and eating. Qualitative aspects of conducting the analytical sensory panel are analyzed, and everyday life practic-
es and ideas of panelists about seaweed consumption are investigated. The study is currently ongoing. Drawing on concepts, such as edibility and taste, conceptualizations of resources “becoming”, as well as an interdisciplinary research approach, it is expected to contribute to sociological studies through exploring new ways of directly connecting laboratory evaluations and everyday life through the research participants and consumed food. Moreover, by understanding the social
processes that are involved in a new food becoming edible, the findings might support establishing seaweed in a new market and aid a transition towards a more sustainable, plant-based diet.
Department/s
- Department of Service Studies
Publishing year
2024
Language
English
Pages
167-167
Full text
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Document type
Conference paper: abstract
Topic
- Other Social Sciences
Conference name
Conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA)
Conference date
2024-08-27 - 2024-08-30
Conference place
Porto, Portugal
Status
Published