Emotional diners and rational eaters – constructing the urban lunch experience

ABSTRACT

Lunch is an urban phenomenon relatable to people of all age groups. Nationally-legislated-free lunches for children at day-care, schools, universities and at workplace canteens have a long history in the Finnish welfare society. In this article, the meaning-making of having lunch is shown to be mainly – but not solely – rational, and the sensory and emotional information received from the environment is verbally and rationally interpreted by the interviewees. In comparison, local food events are experiential and embodied in terms of the senses. It is asked whether there are common elements between those two contexts of eating and if some of the findings from the experiential side of eating might be applied to everyday eating occasions, thus contributing to urban conviviality.

KEYWORDS:

• Lunch restaurant
• sensory experience
• food event
• pop-up restaurant
• ambiance
• urban development

Acknowledgments

This article is written in the VÄRINÄ project, financed by Tekes (The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, currently Business Finland), and in the SENSOTRA project, which is financed by European Research Council (694893).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The data was collected between 2015–2017 in the research project “Health Supporting Multisensory Food Environment (VÄRINÄ)”, carried out by the authors of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council [694893]; Tekes.

Notes on contributors

Ari Hynynen

Ari Hynynen is Professor of Architectural and Urban Research at Tampere University, School of Architecture, and he holds Alvar Aalto Chair at Seinäjoki Urban Laboratory. Hynynen has studied local potential of urban planning from the standpoint of ecological modernisation, and  spatial integration of immigrants in urban contexts. In his recent work, he has explored topical issues of urban and regional development and led several projects and consortiums as a principal investigator. His publications cover a wide range of topics from Alvar Aalto’s design approach to the development of railway station areas.

Inari Aaltojärvi

Inari Aaltojärvi worked as a postdoc researcher at Tampere University of Technology, School of Architecture. Aaltojärvi has a background in sociology and she has concentrated in her research on place- and environment-based sociology and in the ways how consumers make artefacts meaningful in diverse contexts of their everyday life. In her recent work, she has studied the relationship of people, food and built environment. Earlier, in her doctoral thesis research, the research subject was domestic technologies and their relation to a home environment, domestic social relationships and emotions of the users.

Anu Hopia

Anu Hopia is professor at Functional Foods Forum at University of Turku. Hopia is a team leader of a 9-member research group Taste and Health, located in South Ostrobothnia as part of South Ostrobothnian University network. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at University of California Davis (USA).  Currently she is working on multisensory perception of food, motivations on food choice and food liking as well as formation of taste and flavor compounds in foods.  Anu Hopia has published approximately 100 scientific papers in food science.

Heikki Uimonen

Heikki Uimonen (Doctor of Philosophy) worked as a professor of popular music research at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki in 2012–2017 and is currently principal investigator and project researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. He has published over 100 articles, a monograph and edited anthologies on music consumption, radio music, compact cassettes and changing sonic environments. His research interests include sonic construction of place, mediated music, social use of music, transforming sonic environments and how all these intertwine. He is currently leading Academy of Finland funded project ACMESOCS. Auditory Cultures, Mediated Sounds and Constructed Spaces.