Review of: Experiencing and Envisioning Food: Designing for Change , Ricardo Bonacho, Mariana Eidler, Sonia Massari and Maria José Pires (eds) (2024) Abingdon and Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press and Taylor & Francis Group, 262 pp., ISBN 978-1-03247-989-7, h/bk, GBP 125

Interest in haptic perception is growing within the food design community due to the expanding knowledge of multi-sensory experiences across the design spectrum. Our aim was to investigate how haptic perception can be explored, defined and illustrated by interweaving our professional experiences and methods that reflect creative strategies from our aesthetic disciplines: industrial design, culinary arts and hospitality. We developed and conducted a series of practice-based research methods starting with three playful ‘aesthetic labs’ (A-labs), followed by the ‘five basic features-method’ (FBF). This resulted in unfolding four distinct ‘haptic attribute models’: the first three are designed for the ‘hand’, ‘mouth’ and ‘nose’ with the gestalt intention to ‘make’, and the fourth model is designed to guide an ‘embodied presence’ session to facilitate ‘awareness’. The configuration and definition of attributes in each model relate to each author’s professional experiences and emotions, which strengthen the connection between our respective aesthetic disciplines. The models serve as creative instruments to inspire a hybrid food design community for food and non-food applications and support practitioners, educators and researchers interested in haptics. We are dedicated to prototype new haptic attribute models to support research in haptics that are rooted in professional subjective experiences and facilitate ways of connecting disciplines within and beyond the field of aesthetics. We invite readers to share insights gained from applying these models to further their development and relevance.

Review of: Food and Fashion, Melissa Marra-Alvarez and Elizabeth Way (eds) London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 320 pp., ISBN 978-1-35016-434-5, h/bk, $40.50

Food design: An interdisciplinary quest for progressRecently, I attended the third efood conference in Lisbon, Portugal.For me, as for many of my colleagues, the efood meeting was the first conference I could attend after a long period of COVID-19 pandemic with lockdowns and travel restrictions.It was great to mingle with students, entrepreneurs, designers, colleagues and friends again and to have the opportunity to be inspired by their work.However, it was also overwhelming to see so many interesting projects.Because food is part of our daily lives, from early morning breakfast to late evening dinner or snack, our minds are preoccupied with food for several moments each day.And many people play a role in this food supply: farmers, transporters, store workers, cooks, caretakers, garbage collectors and many others.And all people seem to have an opinion on what tastes good, how to store products, how to prepare them and so on.This makes the field of food design so dynamic and complex, and sometimes overwhelming.The role that you can play in the complex food system depends on your personal talents.Perhaps your talent is creating an exhibition or presentation to raise awareness of pressing topics, creating inspirational dinners, developing new food products or recipes, teaching students about food production or eating habits, helping develop new food laws to secure food safety, studying

Marathon running is a physical and mental activity. Runners consume high-energy food products to fill their glycogen stores for maintaining their marathon performance. This makes consuming carbohydrates, mainly in the form of energy gels, an essential part of marathon running. While previous research demonstrates significant physiological effects of these high-energy food products on performance, their psychological effects, which could benefit from and shed light on food design studies, have been underexplored. This article explores these effects with two participant studies, a narrative study (n = 10) and a survey (n = 39). The inquiries start with understanding the psychology of marathon runners and examining the psychological effects of energy gels on marathon running. The results showed that the marathon runners follow a self-identified energy gel consumption strategy during marathon running. Several qualities of energy gels influence these strategies and the meanings marathon runners attach to energy gel consumption. The findings elucidated a novel area of food design research by unveiling the nature of the non-nutritional interactions between runner and energy gels consumed in marathon running.

We present a model and a narrative on food care to support reflection and dialogue, i.e. the exchange of ideas or opinions between patients, informal caregivers and care professionals, as a way to specifically explore values and perspectives on the use of technologies within care triads. To this end, we used an explorative literature study and an analysis of a care practice. We propose that care professionals have the responsibility to be sensitive to and act on potential dilemmas with the use of technologies in (food) care practice. This requires explicit thinking about one’s own personal perspectives on health and food, care and technologies, and the possible perspectives of others, in achieving a fair balance in care. The ‘Dilemma Model of Technology and Care Relations’ is presented to facilitate dialogue between patients, informal caregivers and professionals, in healthcare as well as in (food) technology. The model can be used both in the workplace and in educational settings. In conclusion, contrasting values and perspectives show that an open dialogue is needed to decide what is good (food) care in each individual care practice.

Abstract We report two experiments designed to extend the well-known Bouba/Kiki effect to the case of an unusual set of commercially produced plateware, and further to assess the influences of these plates on the expected taste of a dessert based on the theory of crossmodal correspondences. The results demonstrate that plates having a smoother circumference are more likely to be matched to ‘Bouba’, while those with a pointier circumference are more likely to be matched to ‘Kiki’ instead, thus demonstrating the typical Bouba/Kiki effect. Importantly, the shape and colour of the plates modulated people’s ratings of the expected taste and liking of the ice cream/sorbet displayed on them. Specifically, the colour of the plate induced a general effect on the expected tastes that were consistent with the white-sweet and black-bitter associations, and the higher expected liking of the ice cream/sorbet was attributed to the higher colour contrast between the food and plate. The shape of the plate modulated ratings of expected liking for the chocolate ice cream and the expected sweetness of the lemon sorbet. Finally, colour and shape conjointly modulated how sour the lemon sorbet was expected to taste. These results provide relevant insights for those chefs, restaurateurs and Instagrammers wishing to optimize the plateware for specific dishes.

Abstract Designers can play a significant role in providing the world population with food that is produced in a sustainable way, is tasty and healthy and can form the centrepiece in culinary experiences. However, design students will need to acquire more knowledge specific for the food domain if they want to qualify as cooperation partners for other food professionals. In addition, because the food domain is vast and diverse, food design education could focus on various application domains, resulting in design students with different profiles. In this article, I make a distinction between designing for a person who consumes food at home or is eating out. The first case emphasizes the food itself in the home situation, including food production, packaging, food buying, shelf life, preparation, serving, handling leftovers and waste disposal. In the second case, the consumer’s meal experience depends on the atmosphere in the restaurant, interactions with serving staff, the offerings on the menu and quality of the dish. In addition, several processes take place outside the consumer’s view, such as food preparation, storage, personnel management and business administration. Based on these topics and comparison with adjoining educational curricula, a list of training topics is derived. For all food designers, this consists of general design capabilities, food science, cooking skills, consumer insights and sustainability issues. In addition, the ‘eating at home’ designer should gather knowledge on agricultural production, food technology and food industry business, whereas the ‘eating out’ designer will need to focus mainly on food product knowledge, culinary technology, equipment engineering, restaurant design, consumer dining behaviour and hospitality business.