Talking Pleasures, Writing Dialects. Outlining Research on Schmecka

Bibliographic Data

ID8925136
AuthorsA Mann (0000-0001-6347-9520, University of Copenhagen, corresponding author), A Mol (0000-0001-8675-2219, Netherlands Institute for Social Research)
Year2018
Volume84
Issue5
Pages772-788
Publication date2018-09-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1844 • E-ISSN: 1469-588X
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00141844.2018.1486334
OpenAlexW2894192059
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited33

This text is written in English so that it may reach an international academic audience. However, if all academic research comes to be outlined in English we are to lose a lot. Here, we argue this by presenting the case of schmecka. Drawing on fieldwork done in the Austrian region of Vorarlberg, we suggest that the word schmecka differs from the factual ‘flavour perception’ investigated in physiology; from the culturally informed ‘sensory experiences’ explored by anthropologists and even from the sociological ‘tasting in practice’. For one, schmecka is shared between modest good food and assembled eaters; two, it draws together the English ‘tasting’ and ‘smelling’; and three, it has positive overtones. This means that using schmecka is not just judicious when writing about ‘others’, here the people of Vorarlberg. It also, more interestingly, allows ‘us’ to write in another way: one that foregrounds valuing rather than facting

Art · Linguistics · Literature · Sociology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multisensory perception and integration · Philosophy

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