Masters of flavour: Food invention in high-industrial Sweden
The aim of the project is examine how science and engineering transformed food flavour in Sweden from the 1930s to the 1970s, the so-called "high-industrial" period in which the food industry developed rapidly. We focus particularly on the field of "flavour science" that applied methods from for instance chemistry, psychology, medicine and mathematics to understand flavour characteristics and how humans perceive them. This research became increasingly important for food invention in the period and was used in a number of laboratories, research institutes and test kitchens connected to the food industry in Sweden. The project studies food invention and our main method is to do "biographies" of a range of food products, i.e. how they were developed and how the flavour of food was formed by different technoscientific practices in the experimental system of flavour science. The method will allow us to answer questions about the technologies involved and what they meant for the flavour of food, the implications of scientific knowledge of the human senses, how knowledge of consumer preferences was obtained, and the ideals around flavour that prevailed in food science in Sweden in the period and how it was materialized in the food. The project has strong international relevance for historians of food, science, technology and modernization and will generate new knowledge of the industrial transformation of the 20th century and changes of food production and consumption therein.
Final report
Purpose, method and developments
Masters of Flavor has studied the emergence of sensory science in the Swedish food industry in the 20th century, particularly during the so-called high-industrial period stretching from early to mid-century. The purpose has been to trace how flavor assessment became a technoscientific act in industry. Theoretically, the project has been focused on the development of an experimental system comprising different academic fields such as chemistry, psychology and engineering has emerged within and around the food industry. The research has been carried out through "product biographies" that empirically follow specific foods and examines how their flavors have been shaped by emerging technologies and scientific methods. The rationale of the theory/method approach has been about examining the establishment of sensory science bottom-up rather than top-down, i.e. to show how it developed in correspondence with practical issues related to product development and manufacturing.
The methodological approach has enabled the project to pose path-breaking question about how food has been produced and consumed in the era of highly industrialized societies. The project has demonstrated how taste was made a scientific object through various instruments and methods; how the industry gained understanding of consumers and sensory preferences; and how smells, tastes and textures became an increasingly important means of capitalist competition and industrial creativity. The project has been strongly empirical and has used material from corporate archives, public archives and various forms of published sources, for example research reports and scientific journals.
Results
The project has focused on two alimentary goods: beer and margarine. These products were particularly fruitful for the project due to their distinct positions in culinary contexts. Brewing is based on old traditions and beer has been developed and produced in close contact with well-established culturally standards of tastiness. Margarine, on the other hand, was invented in the industrial era and therefore detached from historical notions of what it should taste like. Whereas brewing and beer consumption was distinguished by sensory conservatism, margarine was a highly flexible product with ranges of possible flavor characteristics. The studies on beer and margarine are based on extensive material from Stockholm's breweries and Margarinbolaget, the leading Swedish firms for each product in the first half of the 20th century.
With these studies the project has made a series of observations about the growth of sensory sciences in industry. One prevalent observation comes from the study of the brewing industry and concerns how artisanal practices of tasting became a codified and routinized "science" through industrialization. The project shows how sensory science emerged out of contexts close to production and responded to the growth of mass production of foods. A salient example from the research is how the power over taste judgment in the brewery shifted from brewmasters to engineers through the introduction of psychophysically informed blind tests in the 1910s. Craft judgment was transformed into a kind of technoscience allegedly necessary for macro-scale brewing.
A second overarching observation is made in the study of margarine production and pinpoints how sensory properties became an increasingly important factor for food R&D in the 20th century. The study shows in detail how Margarinbolaget enrolled chemists and other scientific experts to develop a margarine that could compete with butter in terms of flavor. Tastier and appealing margarine required in-depth knowledge of consumers and their bodily and emotional preferences. The observation adds new dimensions to classic economic theory by showing how sensory appeal became a decisive factor in the consumer capitalism of the 20th century. In its publications, the projects pinpoints the intensifying interest in sensory attributes with concepts such as “flavorization” and “sensorization”.
Several publications go beyond the method of product biography and studied the wider experimental system of tasting methodology. The studies show how the prospect of making flavor a technoscientifically legible, “objective, matter has generated a large, and fascinating, array of methods – blind tests, sensory profiling, texturometry, odor chemistry, to name a few. One of the project's overall conclusions is that the range of methods can be interpreted as a large-scale attempt to create a translation system between consumers' sensory preferences and industry’s R&D units. Furthermore, the studies highlight the complexity of scientifically defining commercial sensory delight. Here, the project especially shows how industry's interest in understanding "tasty" as a holistic and synesthetic property stimulated methodological innovation.
The results can be divided into three main categories:
1) The first form of result consists of the empirical conclusions. These have been described in general terms above. The conclusions are about how sensory analysis emerged in contexts close to food production. Expanding markets and industrial modes of manufacturing required sensory concepts and scientific procedures that could be understood and used by a wide network of scientists and engineers. “Crisp” or “lemony” should mean the same thing for industries in Stockholm and Oslo, and they should correspond with the popular notions of the consumers. The project has described in detail how the food industry was organized to meet these demands and how it established sensory scientific practices before the sensory science existed as a discipline.
2) The project has also made substantial contributions to a wider historical discussion about senses and sensory knowledge. One example, particularly important for historians of science, is the idea of flavor as an elusive "epistemic thing" that has spurred the development of a diverse system of methods and instruments. Furthermore, the project has established an interpretive frameworks based on ideas about sensory science as a translation system and how sensory knowledge was "disembedded" from local and artisanal practices of tasting within food production. Tacit knowledge became codified and standardized. The project has also engaged in a critical discussion about the history of the senses, where we call for an integration with neighboring fields such as history of emotions and history of knowledge.
3) Not least, the project has had practical effects in its disciplinary context. Masters of Flavor were developed with an ambition to introduce new questions and dimensions into historical research. Taste, or other sensory properties of consumer goods, had not been studied extensively before. The project has thus made important contributions for the growth of a new field of studies at the intersection of the history of science and economic history. A clear example of the development is the research project Economic History of the Senses led by Pettersson through funding by the Swedish Research Council. Masters of Flavor has also resulted in innovative interdisciplinary collaborations, for example with sensory scientists working in nutrition science. It has also gained international contacts, for instance with the Center for Sensory Studies in Montreal as well as with distinguished business historians.
Publications and communication
The project has so far generated 10 scientific texts in the form of articles in scientific journals, chapters in edited volumes and one edited volume. The publication channels cover areas such as history of science and technology, economic history, business history and sensory studies. Most of the studies have, or will, be published with open access. The exception is a chapter in an edited volume published through University of Pennsylvania Press, which does not allow for open distribution. The research of the project has also been presented continuously at Swedish and international conferences, symposia and workshops for history, economic history, history of ideas, history of technology and science, sensory studies and gastronomy. Furthermore, the research have been presented to wider audiences, for example through interviews in the media and at symposia on gastronomy and food.
Masters of Flavor has studied the emergence of sensory science in the Swedish food industry in the 20th century, particularly during the so-called high-industrial period stretching from early to mid-century. The purpose has been to trace how flavor assessment became a technoscientific act in industry. Theoretically, the project has been focused on the development of an experimental system comprising different academic fields such as chemistry, psychology and engineering has emerged within and around the food industry. The research has been carried out through "product biographies" that empirically follow specific foods and examines how their flavors have been shaped by emerging technologies and scientific methods. The rationale of the theory/method approach has been about examining the establishment of sensory science bottom-up rather than top-down, i.e. to show how it developed in correspondence with practical issues related to product development and manufacturing.
The methodological approach has enabled the project to pose path-breaking question about how food has been produced and consumed in the era of highly industrialized societies. The project has demonstrated how taste was made a scientific object through various instruments and methods; how the industry gained understanding of consumers and sensory preferences; and how smells, tastes and textures became an increasingly important means of capitalist competition and industrial creativity. The project has been strongly empirical and has used material from corporate archives, public archives and various forms of published sources, for example research reports and scientific journals.
Results
The project has focused on two alimentary goods: beer and margarine. These products were particularly fruitful for the project due to their distinct positions in culinary contexts. Brewing is based on old traditions and beer has been developed and produced in close contact with well-established culturally standards of tastiness. Margarine, on the other hand, was invented in the industrial era and therefore detached from historical notions of what it should taste like. Whereas brewing and beer consumption was distinguished by sensory conservatism, margarine was a highly flexible product with ranges of possible flavor characteristics. The studies on beer and margarine are based on extensive material from Stockholm's breweries and Margarinbolaget, the leading Swedish firms for each product in the first half of the 20th century.
With these studies the project has made a series of observations about the growth of sensory sciences in industry. One prevalent observation comes from the study of the brewing industry and concerns how artisanal practices of tasting became a codified and routinized "science" through industrialization. The project shows how sensory science emerged out of contexts close to production and responded to the growth of mass production of foods. A salient example from the research is how the power over taste judgment in the brewery shifted from brewmasters to engineers through the introduction of psychophysically informed blind tests in the 1910s. Craft judgment was transformed into a kind of technoscience allegedly necessary for macro-scale brewing.
A second overarching observation is made in the study of margarine production and pinpoints how sensory properties became an increasingly important factor for food R&D in the 20th century. The study shows in detail how Margarinbolaget enrolled chemists and other scientific experts to develop a margarine that could compete with butter in terms of flavor. Tastier and appealing margarine required in-depth knowledge of consumers and their bodily and emotional preferences. The observation adds new dimensions to classic economic theory by showing how sensory appeal became a decisive factor in the consumer capitalism of the 20th century. In its publications, the projects pinpoints the intensifying interest in sensory attributes with concepts such as “flavorization” and “sensorization”.
Several publications go beyond the method of product biography and studied the wider experimental system of tasting methodology. The studies show how the prospect of making flavor a technoscientifically legible, “objective, matter has generated a large, and fascinating, array of methods – blind tests, sensory profiling, texturometry, odor chemistry, to name a few. One of the project's overall conclusions is that the range of methods can be interpreted as a large-scale attempt to create a translation system between consumers' sensory preferences and industry’s R&D units. Furthermore, the studies highlight the complexity of scientifically defining commercial sensory delight. Here, the project especially shows how industry's interest in understanding "tasty" as a holistic and synesthetic property stimulated methodological innovation.
The results can be divided into three main categories:
1) The first form of result consists of the empirical conclusions. These have been described in general terms above. The conclusions are about how sensory analysis emerged in contexts close to food production. Expanding markets and industrial modes of manufacturing required sensory concepts and scientific procedures that could be understood and used by a wide network of scientists and engineers. “Crisp” or “lemony” should mean the same thing for industries in Stockholm and Oslo, and they should correspond with the popular notions of the consumers. The project has described in detail how the food industry was organized to meet these demands and how it established sensory scientific practices before the sensory science existed as a discipline.
2) The project has also made substantial contributions to a wider historical discussion about senses and sensory knowledge. One example, particularly important for historians of science, is the idea of flavor as an elusive "epistemic thing" that has spurred the development of a diverse system of methods and instruments. Furthermore, the project has established an interpretive frameworks based on ideas about sensory science as a translation system and how sensory knowledge was "disembedded" from local and artisanal practices of tasting within food production. Tacit knowledge became codified and standardized. The project has also engaged in a critical discussion about the history of the senses, where we call for an integration with neighboring fields such as history of emotions and history of knowledge.
3) Not least, the project has had practical effects in its disciplinary context. Masters of Flavor were developed with an ambition to introduce new questions and dimensions into historical research. Taste, or other sensory properties of consumer goods, had not been studied extensively before. The project has thus made important contributions for the growth of a new field of studies at the intersection of the history of science and economic history. A clear example of the development is the research project Economic History of the Senses led by Pettersson through funding by the Swedish Research Council. Masters of Flavor has also resulted in innovative interdisciplinary collaborations, for example with sensory scientists working in nutrition science. It has also gained international contacts, for instance with the Center for Sensory Studies in Montreal as well as with distinguished business historians.
Publications and communication
The project has so far generated 10 scientific texts in the form of articles in scientific journals, chapters in edited volumes and one edited volume. The publication channels cover areas such as history of science and technology, economic history, business history and sensory studies. Most of the studies have, or will, be published with open access. The exception is a chapter in an edited volume published through University of Pennsylvania Press, which does not allow for open distribution. The research of the project has also been presented continuously at Swedish and international conferences, symposia and workshops for history, economic history, history of ideas, history of technology and science, sensory studies and gastronomy. Furthermore, the research have been presented to wider audiences, for example through interviews in the media and at symposia on gastronomy and food.