Nicola Perullo

Taste as Experience puts the pleasure of food at the center of human experience. It shows how the sense of taste informs our preferences for and relationship to nature, pushes us toward ethical practices of consumption, and impresses upon us the importance of aesthetics. Eating is often dismissed as a necessary aspect of survival, and our personal enjoyment of food is considered a quirk. Nicola Perullo sees food as the only portion of the world we take in on a daily basis, constituting our first and most significant encounter with the earth. Perullo has long observed people's food practices and has listened to their food experiences. He draws on years of research to explain the complex meanings behind our food choices and the thinking that accompanies our gustatory actions. He also considers our indifference toward food as a force influencing us as much as engagement. For Perullo, taste is value and wisdom. It cannot be reduced to mere chemical or cultural factors but embodies the quality and quantity of our earthly experience.

With this text I would like to suggest the idea that vegetarianism, understood as a “principle choice” based on rational arguments and ethical norms, is supportive of and in line with the philosophy that it usually intends to contend, that is, the individualistic and anthropocentric subjectivism that is typical of the most striking tradition of Western metaphysics. Since I do not believe in the goodness and effectiveness of this model and tradition, I intend to point out that classic, rigid vegetarianism is an ontological mistake that would be best avoided, precisely in order to promote a different type of thinking that is more inclusive, open, dynamic, and enlightened. I propose to name this strategy gustatory wisdom, based on a diet of caring and attention rather than on principles and rigid norms.

In this paper, I suggest an aesthetic model that is consistent with anti-foundational scientific knowledge. How has an aesthetics without foundation to be configured? In contrast to the conventional subject/object model, with idealistic and subjective aesthetics, but also with object-oriented assumptions, I suggest that aesthetics has to be characterized as relational aesthetics in terms of process-oriented perception and that this leads to an _Aesthetics Without Objects_ (AWO) approach. The relational nature of processes means that they do not happen _inter_-, that is, between ontologically delimited and stable entities, but rather they _correspond_ between relations. I will try to show that AWO matches well with the onto-phenomenological-epistemic and relational models proposed by recent theories in different fields of science, especially in the relational interpretation of quantum physics. The field of aesthetics, then, does not indicate perceptual fixed contents—either subjective or objectual properties—rather it emerges from a correspondence occurring in an engaged and situated perceptual movement, an _agencing_ that is prior to any sharp distinction between a perceiver and a perceived. I propose to call _haptic_ this perceptual agencing. In the first section, I describe the reasons according to which the adoption of AWO seems more correct and advisable, both with respect to contemporary scientific models and to the current ecological changes on the planet. In the second section, I portray some characteristics of AWO. In the third section, I argue that AWO calls for haptic perception. In the fourth section, I briefly draw some meta-aesthetics consequences concerning, on the one side, socio-political issues of AWO and, on the other side, the possibility for a theory in an anti-foundational model. I conclude with a proposal: a process-oriented aesthetics approach has to be understood mainly as an _art of thinking_. This means rethinking and re-evaluating the idea of aesthetics as an _artisan thought_.

In this essay, I will present one part of a theory on haptic that is moving along the path and that will be narrated more broadly in a future book. Here, I will connect the haptic to the topic of hot/cold, making first some general considerations about it, then proposing arguments and examplestaken from the domain of food and cooking. Hence, I will restrict to some reflections with the haptic perspective under the lens of the temperature issue with respect to the case of nutrition. It is true, however, that hot and cold are directly related to food since the very beginning of the humanity. It is well know that, from Vico to Lévi-Strauss, the invention/the discovery of fire for cooking has been considered as one, or the, turning point for the “beginning” of humanity or, more in general, the relation between animals and humans. In my opinion, the haptic perception is a broad field of research that consents to reconsider important issues connected also to this point.

In this paper, we aim to show how flavors – specifically food flavors – and the atmospheres they help create have a strong sociopolitical value. Smells are here dealt with as vector elements inscribed in the collective space; they, on the one hand, affect the way in which refusal or acceptance occur and, on the other, mold perceptual and fruition model. By «aromatic aesthetics», we refer to the dimension in which smells are related to peculiar atmospheric policies. Stemming from this framework, we present the notions of sterilization, deodorization, and flavoring anew in the light of bodily, sensory and cognitive effects on the individual and on the relations with the surrounding world, particularly with food. The concoction of synthetic flavor mixtures and its subsequent perception cause atmospheric manipulations able to affect both collectively and individually the sense of smell. In contrast to this aggressive and standardizing practice, we try to outline an alternative approach based on the idea of engagement aiming to contribute to a complete ecological aesthetics.

We think we know how to appreciate wine—trained connoisseurs take dainty sips in sterile rooms and provide ratings based on objective knowledge and technical expertise. In Epistenology, Nicola Perullo vigorously challenges this approach, arguing that it is the enjoyment of drinking wine as an active and participatory experience that matters. Perullo argues that wine comes to life not in the abstract space of the professional tasting but in the real world of shared experiences; wines can change in these encounters, and drinkers along with them. Just as a winemaker is not simply a producer but a nurturer, a wine is fully known only through an encounter among a group of drinkers in a specific place and time. Wine is not an object to analyze but an experience to make, creatively opening up new perceptual possibilities for settings, cuisines, and companions. The result of more than twenty years of research and practical engagement, Epistenology presents a new paradigm for the enjoyment of wine and through it a philosophy based on participatory and relational knowledge. This model suggests a profound shift—not knowledge about but with wine. Interweaving philosophical arguments with personal reflections and literary examples, this book is a journey with wine that shows how it makes life more creative and free.

In this essay I propose a new theory of taste, starting from the assumption of the multisensorial and ecological approach to the senses, as proposed by Gibson in his psychology of perception and by Dewey in his philosophy and aesthetics. In contrast with an optical approach to tastes and tasting, here I propose the concept of haptic taste to describe a perceptual engagement deeply involved in the processes of experiencing food and beverages, although my examples are mostly related to wine. Finally I spell out the implications of a theory of haptic taste for the way we approach cultivation of taste and expertise. I suggest we should turn from the idea of ‘good taste’ as the result of trained and acquired skills to taste as a task, to mean the practical and continuous attuning with the environment we actively contribute to shape. I believe it is appropriate today to move from a culture of taste, based on an elevation strategy, to a culture with taste, which emphasizes educated nurture.

Recent studies have shown how aesthetics can be positively investigated from an evolutionary point of view. Following this line, the present essay sets to study a new relationship between food and evolutionary aesthetics from a specific angle: I put forward the thesis that the approach with food one has in early childhood is part of the birth of an aesthetic attitude. With this, I mean that the set of taste preferences children develop is a pleasure that can be seen as an aesthetic pleasure. This pleasure –- which I call here naked pleasure – is an inextricable nexus of need, enjoyment, and affection. Beyond scientific investigations showing the importance of early nutrition (especially breast milk) for health, there are many other evidences – supported also by psychological research – in behalf of the idea that taste preferences are set from the very beginning of human life in a close relation with human environment. And this is true also for a phylogenetic perspective, given the proved connection between taste preferences and sexual selection. In the last part – taking the “Marsmellow Test” as example – I sketch a reflection on the ethical, moral and social issues depending from or co-evolving with pleasure and taste preferences.