Less Palatable, Still Valuable: Taste, Crop Agrobiodiversity, and Culinary Heritage

Abstract

People across the world eat many things that they readily admit are not particularly tasty. Taking into consideration that taste and palatability are culturally conditioned, this special issue explores the relationship between taste and value by focusing upon crops that are perceived to be socioculturally important even as they are characterized as bland, less delicious, and even “bad.” The articles in this issue pay particular attention to the importance of contributing factors to consuming and valuing the less delicious including agrobiodiversity maintenance, healthfulness or well-being, symbolism, ritual use, and culinary heritage. They suggest ways of incorporating the “less delicious” into the safeguarding of agrobiodiversity and culinary heritage and the promotion of healthful foodways. This introduction ties the themes of taste and value together across time and space to contextualize the articles that follow.

Keywords:

• taste
• agrobiodiversity
• culinary heritage
• food
• senses
• ecology
• culture