Re:The “Disgusting Food Museum” in Malmo, Sweden
by justtopost on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @08:42AM
(#18184277)
It tends to be Texture, rather than Taste that makes most peope hate some foods.
I disagree however with seeking to divorce the food with the culture. The amount of understanding between cultures by sharing food is huge. Food implies 100s of things about the person and the community that produced it. I agree that we shouln't over-emphasize the strageness of it, but many have borderline fetish for the new, unusual, exotic. That human nature will always bring styles and tastes together, while preserving a positive group identity. We are, for better or worse, wired for tribalism. I think embracing that nature and optimising for it seems better than pretending its not there.
Re:The “Disgusting Food Museum” in Malmo, Sweden
by da_murvel on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @07:51AM
(#18183945)
... "why even call it the "disgusting food"? Obviously anyone who connotates the exhibit with the items inside will be going in with a specific bias." Well, isn't that what they are trying to challenge? The 'whys' of disgusting food. I think it's an appropriate name considering that these items are usually presented as disgusting in the general public. So by giving it the name Disgusting Food Museum they create a mindset for the visitor that is saying 'you're now entering a museum of food you'll find disgusting', and then making the visitor quesiton that mindset; Why do they find Surstromming or Balut disgusting? You can't ask yourself such questions unless you think those dishes are disgusting in the first place. Why do you think chocolate is disgusting? Well, uh, I don't.
Also from another angle, if the point of the museum is to remove the "otherization" aspect from food, why even call it the "disgusting food"? Obviously anyone who connotates the exhibit with the items inside will be going in with a specific bias.
My personal thoughts are that a majority of "disgusting" items are generally grouped into categories broadly being: fermented, processed (sausages/spam), organ meat, or "creatively made" (ortolan, casu marzu). Just call it a food museum and subdivide it by the above categories, and remove the dumb culture differentiation.
The very article that they reference with Anthony Bourdain has a part that criticizes the notion of overly closely tying a food to a specific nation/culture. If you want to get rid of these sorts of biases, don't even bother tying the item to an identity, just show it and make it "normal" seeming.