Food and gastronomy are popular cultural topics, but they have yet to be analyzed in a systematic fashion by philosophers. However, there are two evident interconnections between aesthetics, as the science of perceptible knowledge, and food: the senses (taste and smell particularly, but not exclusively) and practice.
The present volume by Nicola Perullo (n.perullo@unisg.it) is intended as a sort of "manifesto" for a food aesthetic and it aims to map the various areas where it is possible to articulate an aesthetic approach to food objects, starting from the way they are experienced.
It begins with a concise historical-critical overview of the relationship between the birth of modern aesthetic and gastronomy, and it examines the reasons for the marginality from which the analytical reflection on eating and drinking has suffered. The volume then focuses on the themes and problems of a food aesthetic as an aesthetic of raw material, of cooking, and of taste, without neglecting the nexus between all of these topics and ethics. The last part of the book is devoted to wine, and it approaches the subject in a way that foregrounds aesthetic as the science of quality.