A Taste for Dumplings

Abstract

Taste is one of those words that covers a lot of territory—and partitions it, too. We think of taste in its physical sense as flavor—the play of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, and savory unique to every ingredient and every dish. Taste in this sense is about bodily sensations. Taste also entails social knowledge. A connoisseur uses specific knowledge about food, wine, art, literature, and just about everything else to render acts of judgment. Taste in this iteration is about discernment and sensibility, and it is very much about creating and policing the borders of community and distinction. We could think of taste as the acts of knowing that lie at the crossroads of consumption and conversation, a posturing about what we eat and why we like it for high intellectual purpose, for example black duck and dumplings.