Taste as Experience by Nicola Perullo

I had really, really high hopes for this book. It's basically about exploring what food means to us, and how we can approach it. It is subtitled "The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Food" after all. But, it turned out to be hard to read, which was disappointing.

Basically, Taste as Experience looks as taste from these perspectives:

1. Pleasure: Eating is enjoyable.

2. Knowledge: How does knowing more about the food we eat affect our experience of eating?

3. Indifference: Indifference here means eating without being conscious of the food. Basically, just stuffing it in your mouth.

And finally, "The Wisdom of Taste, The Taste of Wisdom", which is a sort of summary. It did have the most accessible part of the book, which were suggestions on how we can approach food. Among them, "do not have absolute preferences and inclinations" and "only talk about the things you know or experiences you have actually had". To be honest, I'm not too sure how all the suggestions relate to the first three chapters, but that's because I found the book difficult to understand.

Taste as Experience is definitely aimed at an academic audience, and for some reason, I could not understand it. I wish I did, but I didn't. Can anyone give me an easy-to-understand summary?

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.