Seven dimensions of taste—taste in a sociological and educational perspective

The chapter presents a sociological theory of taste ending with a short proposal for a didactics of taste. The first section is inspired and informed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. It deals with taste in a sociological perspective. The basic idea is that taste is more than what our taste buds and our senses tell us. Taste has a number of social and cultural dimensions such as deliciousness, health, morality, love, faith, and trendiness, and in fact, we can only communicate about taste, when these dimensions are taken into consideration. We sense with the taste buds, but we taste with the “cultural senses”. This section presents a systematic division of taste into its seven main dimensions: The dimension of sensed taste, delicious taste, healthy taste, moral taste, loving taste, religious taste, and trendy taste. The final, shorter section comprises taste as an instrument of and an objective for teaching. Here, the intention is to use ‘taste’ as a means to teach home economics and food education. This section answers the question of how to teach in a way that enables the students to develop knowledge and skills in relation to the seven dimensions of taste. In this section, seven knowledge types and forms of argument are presented, each related to one of the seven taste dimensions, providing a basis for structuring an appropriate curriculum of taste. The final aim is to enable students to make well-reasoned food decisions with ‘taste’ as the compass of judgment and, with these faculties, to take part in a sensus communis, i.e. a taste community.