World Travelingwithculinaryarts

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Culinary aesthetics: World-traveling with culinary arts
Article in Annals of Tourism Research · November 2022

DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2022.103487
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CULINARY AESTHETICS:
WORLD-TRAVELING WITH CULINARY ARTS
Abstract:
Tourism and gastronomy scholars often mobilize the term “culinary aesthetics” as a mere
metaphorical descriptor, paralleling a culinarian’s work the likes of painters and sculptors without
explaining its theoretical underpinning. In this study, the author turns to John Dewey’s theory on
art and experience to offer a theory that delineates the aesthetic relation among the culinary artist,
culinary artwork, and culinary audience as a world-traveling phenomenon. The author puts
forward the idea that when a taster engages with a culinary artwork, one potentially dialogues with
the culinary artist’s expressive self, hence transforming the culinary encounter into a dialogue of
inner worlds. In other words, one can world-travel into a world of another when engaging with
culinary arts.
Keywords:
Conceptual research; Culinary artist; Food tourism; Food art; Gastronomic tourism; John Dewey
Kai-Sean Lee
Department of Retail, Hospitality & Tourism Management,
College of Education, Health and Human Sciences,
University of Tennessee Knoxville
Declarations of interest:
N/A
Lee, K. S. (2022). Culinary aesthetics: World-traveling with culinary arts. Annals of Tourism Research,
97, 103487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2022.103487
1. INTRODUCTION
Food is one of the most intimate cultural artforms integral to the tourism industry,
capable of not only drawing economic returns but also fostering a community’s sense of identity
(Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Kivela & Crotts, 2006; Lau & Li, 2019; Mak et al., 2012; Scarpato,
2002; Sims, 2009). Chefs and cooks are core to a destination’s gastronomic scene; tourism and
gastronomy researchers have labeled chefs as “living cultural representations” (Lee, 2021, pp. 4-
5), “cultural brokers” (Osorio et al., 2021), “cultural specialists” (Scarpato, 2002, p. 65),
“culinary ambassadors” (Lee, 2020; Lee & Tao, 2022), and “national heroes” (Matta & García,
2019), suggesting that culinary professionals are no regular members of the tourism workforce,
but knowledge bearers capable of initiating gastronomic discourses for destination reform and
development (Lee, 2020; Matta & García, 2019).
One of the largest reasons why society seem to treat chefs as celebratory members of the
tourism workforce is the idea of chef as artists. Tourism and gastronomy researchers seem to
share a general consensus agreeing that culinary professionals and aesthetics share an irrefutable
bond (Hegarty & O’Mahony, 2001; Lee et al., 2020; Lee, 2021; Stierand & Lynch, 2008). Chefs
are oft-likened to artists, in such that their culinary skills are paralleled to artisanal
craftsmanship, their intelligence to artistic creativity, and their food creations to works of art.
However, despite numerous comparisons of “food as art” and “chefs as artists” in contemporary
literature (e.g., Madeira et al, 2021; McBride & Flore, 2019), the philosophical underpinnings
explaining the relation between culinary and aesthetics are rarely discussed. Existing researchers
seem to mobilize the term “aesthetics” merely as a metaphorical descriptor, analogizing a
culinarian’s work to those of painters and sculptors without explaining how and why.
Aesthetics, however, is no mere metaphor, but a discipline spanning over two-
millenniums of history, covering numerous areas concerning the study of art and beauty (e.g.,
Giovannelli, 2021). Nevertheless, existing researchers seem to evade aesthetics’ philosophical
roots, operationalizing the term as a mere adjective rather than a theoretical viewpoint for
advancing tourism and gastronomy scholarship. If tourism and gastronomy researchers are to
continue celebrating chefs as artist-representations of a destination’s gastronomic scene (Lee &
Tao, 2022; Osorio et al., 2021), it is important to understand how (ways, means) and why
(reasons). By not addressing the issue, the disciplines risk falling in conflation with one another
without proper theoretical grounds, leaving the deceivingly simple questions such as “is food
art?” and “are cooks/chefs artists?” brushed aside, unanswered. The idea of “culinary aesthetics”
becomes a field many agrees exist, but cannot seem to articulate why it does.
The closest attempt in bridging gastronomy and the aesthetics lies in Hegarty and
O’Mahony’s (2001) monograph, which the authors posit that gastronomy resembled a form of
cultural expression and means of aesthetic living, asserting that culinary creations reflect a
skillful execution of art that communicates a chef’s inner subjectivity and cultural upbringing.
Hegarty and O’Mahony (2001) noted that all culinary interactions are respectable crafts, but only
some culinary encounters, particularly those entailing a grander threshold of skills and
techniques, can transcend beyond its nourishing properties, implying that only a selected few
culinary efforts can be considered artistic. Although the study offers an explicit rationale for the
plausible link between the two domains, the inquiry favors culinary aesthetics primarily from an
elitist lens, implying that culinary art only transpire selected culinary arenas.
Existing culinary researchers also seem to reinforce the aforementioned elitist bias. For
example, studies on culinary creativity (i.e., the expressive and aesthetic experience of creating
new culinary ideas) tend to focus on chefs with extraordinary statuses (Lee et al., 2020; Stierand
& Dörfler, 2012; Stierand et al., 2014), which leaves the experience of everyday cooks
understudied (Fine, 1992; Fine, 1996a). In overlooking the everyday cook, one inadvertently
insinuates a dichotomy that separates high art from low art, imposing an elitist/non-elitist
dualism in understanding the role of art in the tourism workforce. Such bifurcating stances can
be highly restrictive to our understanding of culinary aesthetics, especially given that art and
aesthetics are not privileged products accessible only to a selected few, but something
foregrounded in all human experiences—to engage with art and aesthetics is a gift all human
beings possess (Dewey, 2005/1934; Leddy, 2012; Stroud, 2011, 2014).
Perhaps a larger concern is how existing studies favor the consumer’s viewpoint on
culinary aesthetics over the creative lens of the culinary producer (e.g., Horng & Hsu, 2020;
Leong et al., 2020). Such viewpoints undermine the culinary producer’s aesthetic processes in
rendering the culinary artwork—processes that bring the artistic product to life (Lee, 2021; Lee
et al., 2020). In doing so, one dangerously splits the intimate link between the creator from
his/her creations while also disconnecting the creator from his/her audience, scattering the
creator/creation/audience relations into isolated segments and domains. Aesthetic scholars
persistently caution against such views (Kuehn, 2005; Leddy, 2021; Stroud, 2011), as the
separation of the creator/creation/audience risks sterilizing the aesthetic phenomenon into rigid
classifications and separations, segregating the organic fluidity each entity (i.e.,
creator/creation/audience) brings to the aesthetic whole.
In this conceptual study, I turn to U.S. philosopher John Dewey’s theory on art and
experience. My goal is to move “culinary aesthetics” away from as its metaphoric usages and
towards a theoretical understanding built along the foundations of Dewey’s aesthetic theory.
Specifically, I aim to illuminate how and why food becomes art, not just from the audience’s
(taster’s) perspective but also of the creator’s (cook’s/chef’s), and how the creator-creation-
audience aesthetic relation manifests in tourism scenarios. As a result of my analytical journey, I
arrive at the idea of “world-traveling with culinary arts.” Defined as a voyage into another
person’s world through food and culinary encounters, to world-travel with culinary arts is to
experience food with an intent learn and identify with another person and his/her world. I argue
that the idea of world-traveling is significant for gastronomy and food tourism research, as it
pinpoints the intimate role food plays in connecting tourists and foodmakers in culinary
exchange.
2. JOHN DEWEY’S THEORY ON ART AND EXPERIENCE
In his masterpiece, Art as Experience (2005/1934), U.S. philosopher John Dewey

(2005/1934) asserts that for one to understand aesthetics, one must first understand the milieu in
which aesthetic transpires. For Dewey, aesthetics does not simply happen like a reaction or
response, neither does it exist in a distinct realm separated from human consciousness, but lies in
the commonplace of all human experiences. Dewey’s premise is built against the idea of
separating art from experience, contending that when art is segmented and locked away (such as
in museums), the natural order of human and art relations diminishes. Instead, Dewey argues that
the aesthetic occurs when one interacts in unity with art in experience, not from a distance,
allowing one to immerse in qualitative immediacy and contemporaneous fluidity (Leddy, 2021;
Stroud, 2011). In the coming paragraphs, I elaborate on Dewey’s thinking, which begins with,
among many things, two core principles: interaction and continuity (Dewey, 1997/1916,
2005/1934, 2007/1938).
The principle of interaction denotes that experience does not occur in a vacuum or
exclusively in one’s mind, but through one’s active presence with the material world. By
interacting with the objects and other people in one’s environment, one creates situations as a
product or byproduct of an active interaction (Dewey, 2007/1938). The principle of interaction
enforces the idea that human experiences are a product of the living, requiring object-subject
interaction to unfold. On the other hand, the principle of continuity represents the temporal
feature of experiences, implying that experiences accumulates and merges with one’s past,
present, and future: “every experience lives on in further experiences” (Dewey, 2007/1938, p.
27). Deweyan followers suggest that the continuity principle is what gives people’s lives a
narrative structure, allowing one to interpret one’s life as a storied journey that accumulates
through and across time (e.g., Clandinin, 2013). The principles of interaction and continuity
operate in union in all human experiences insofar that all experiences are products “of
continuous and cumulative interaction of an organic self with the world” (Dewey, 2005/1934, p.
229). Nevertheless, not all experiences are equal, which Dewey (2005/1934) distinguishes two
types: the everyday inchoate and an experience (which Dewey purposefully italicizes throughout
his writings in Art and Experience).
Inchoate experiences are the automatic encounters; they occur in the everyday and are
dispersed in thinking, requiring little effort, and characteristically robotic in nature. In the
simplest sense, such experiences occur in all living moments: as long as an individual interacts
with an environment, one is thus experiencing. However, because of its robotic traits and lack of
reflection, in which one does not internalize the situation or relate it to one’s past to distinguish
or create meaning, one merely experiences. As Dewey (2005/1934) explains: “things happen, but
they are neither definitely included nor decisively excluded; we drift… such experiences are
anesthetic” (p. 41). On the other hand, there is a more qualitatively advanced form of experience
filled with aesthetic potential—an experience—which Dewey purposefully italicizes throughout
his writings in Art as Experience (Dewey, 2005/1934).
An experience entails a sense of qualitative immediacy, possessing an ineffable quality
that prompts one to say things like “wow, that was an experience!” There is a sense of unceasing
merging of parts and elements in an experience, a continuity of energies in which each part of
the experience flows seamlessly from one to another in momentum, having direction and
purpose. When one has an experience, one engages in immersion and immediacy, thinks with
fluidity, and internalizes situations turning the encounter into one with its own unique identity.
There is unity in an experience, both in an interactive sense where the human and object overlaps
and converges in the creation of a meaningful situation, and also in a temporal sense by relating
the situation to one’s past, present, and/or future. An experience is no mere reaction where one
responds to an ambiguous stimulus, but a unifying interaction where one engages with the
tensions of the environment: tensions not in the form of obstacles, but as pauses that punctuates
the experience with depth, rhythm, and richness, transforming a situation into a consummatory,
hedonic, and self-fulfilling experience (Dewey, 2005/1934).
The aesthetic experience rests in the realm of an experience. An aesthetic experience is
heightened and developed from the inchoateness of ordinary experience, carrying traits of self-
sufficiency, unity, and qualitative immediacy (Dewey, 2005/1994). The aesthetic is not a passive
occurrence, but an active engagement taking in qualities from art objects in the material world,
allowing one to appreciate, perceive, and enjoy. More particularly, Dewey posits that the
aesthetic primarily belongs to the consumer’s standpoint, not the producer/creator, which he
offers a fitting culinary analogy: “as with cooking, overt skillful action is on the side of the cook
who prepares, while taste is on the side of the consumer” who appreciates, perceives, enjoys, and
assigns value to the cook’s product (p. 49). To have an aesthetic experience is to have an
experience with objects to which one perceives as art: be it with nature, poetry, painting,
architecture, or food (Kuehn, 2005, 2012; Stroud, 2011, 2014).
To this point, I have spent much attention explaining Dewey’s aesthetics from the
common observer’s standpoint. But what about the creator? Distinct from the consumer’s
experience with art, Dewey (2005/1934) distinguishes the creator’s experience with art as an
artistic experience. For Dewey, art denotes the act of creation, the very physical act of one’s
bodily movement: “the process of doing and making… molding of clay, chipping of marble,
casting of bronze…” (p. 48). There is a difference between artistic experience and the aesthetic,
as the former denotes the “doing” (i.e., the external processes of making) while the latter denotes
the “undergoing” (i.e., the internal processes of perceiving). Nonetheless. Dewey also warns that
the distinction cannot be bifurcated to a separation; instead, he explains that the creator’s artistic
act is aesthetic in its own unique way, best framed and labeled as “artistic-aesthetic” (p. 51).
Not all artistic experiences are innately aesthetic. One can create without feeling any
sense of unity, joy, or pride in the process, in such that the creative process is numbed and
unperceived—anesthetic. For an artistic experience to be aesthetic (i.e., artistic-aesthetic),
Dewey (2005/1934) asserts that one must perform one’s craft with the perceiving audience in
mind and invest love and passion into the process of making. To love, is to “care deeply for the
subject matter upon which skill is exercised” (p. 49), for without love, the craft becomes
colorless and mechanical. One must also invest passion: the emotional energy that fuels the
artistic act, but not too much passion that it damages the act’s integrity and harmony. With love
and passion, the artistic-aesthetic act becomes a creative and perceiving act, in which the “the
artist embodies in himself the attitude of the perceiver while he works” (p. 50). Without love and
passion, one merely executes in mechanical sequence, however masterfully executed, the artistic
experience rest anesthetically inchoate (pp. 50–52).
The output from an artist’s artistic effort is none other than an artwork: an object
rendered from the artistic experience. Dewey warns, however, that the artwork constitutes
merely a product—an execution of a skill—but is in itself non-aesthetic without the active
engagement of an appreciating, perceiving, and enjoying creator. Art in this sense, carries no
aesthetic value in its own, rather it is the individual who brings the aesthetics to art in and
through experience. In other words, there is a distinction between an “art product” (i.e., an object
brought into existence through skillful execution) and a “work of art” (i.e., an expressive object
that induces experiences). Likewise, Dewey also carefully delineates that the audience is never a
passive member in the aesthetic experience but an active perceiver who takes in qualities from
the object and relates them to one’s own wealth of experience. If the consumer fails to engage
actively with the object, where the conditions of felt immediacy, immersion, emotions, and
hedonic properties do not illuminate, the experience rests inchoately. Art is only aesthetic when
one internalizes and assigns meaning and value to the object through experience.
Dewey (2005/1934) explains all artforms possess a common denominator: means and
media. Means and media are the perceivable intermediaries that gives art its expressiveness, the
pervading quality that draws a person’s attention to the art object. Nevertheless, Dewey clearly
specifies that not all means are media, explaining that some means are just “mere means” (see
e.g., Stroud, 2014, pp. 36-39). Mere means are classified by their externality and replaceability,
in such that they are merely functional and substitutable. For example, in painting, one may use
specific tools (e.g., brushes), techniques (e.g., brushstrokes), and colors (e.g., chartreuse) to
render a specific desired outcome; but the paper towels and rags used to wipe off smudges and
clean, the easel used to hold up a canvas, or the solvent applied to dilute one’s paint consistency,
these mere means can vary in materiality. Although these latter tools are highly functional in the
rendering of the artwork, they do not constitute the artwork in consummation; they are “mere
means” used to meet mere external goals.
In contrast, means become media when the means and its aesthetic effect are completely
fused. Such means are classified by their internality and non-replaceability, in such that the
means are “incorporated in the outcome” of the artwork itself (Dewey, 2005/1934, p. 205).
Dewey refers to media (or medium for singular) as the consummatory composition of the
artwork—aesthetic effects that “belong intrinsically to their medium” (p. 205). Such means have
actual consummatory purposes, such as a specific shade of green used in a painting (e.g.,
chartreuse), and thus, if the artist changes the color, one by default alters the artwork’s nature. In
other words, such means are purposeful and pivotal to the desired outcome, non-replaceable
(Stroud, 2014).
Because Dewey (2005/1934) positions the aesthetics’ potentiality “in the raw” (p. 3), that
is, in the commonplace of human experience, Dewey’s theory supplies a fitting non-
discriminatory and naturalist lens to conceptualize culinary aesthetics in tourism. Food will
always play a crucial role for visiting tourists, regardless whether one classifies as a foodie, a
gourmet, or a nonchalant who eats for hunger’s resolve (Kivela & Crotts, 2006; Mitchell & Hall,
2003). Hence, a Deweyan lens redirects the aesthetic question back to the resting potential of
each culinary encounter, particularly in the interaction between the perceiver’ and the artist’s
relations with the culinary artwork (Koczanowicz, 2016; Kuehn, 2005, 2012).
3. CONCEPTUAL METHODS AND REFLEXIVITY
I embarked on a pure conceptual research study (Kirillova & Yang, 2022; Xin et al.,
2013). My conceptual methods began by first augmenting Dewey’s theory as a lens of seeing the
gastronomic encounter. I first envisioned the culinary encounter as an organic relation: one that
entails the culinary creator, culinary creation, and perceiving audience. I then explored the
complexities in and among each entity’s relation with one another by asking questions inspired
by Dewey’s theoretical premises, such as:
● Based on Dewey’s theory, who or what qualifies as a culinary artist, artwork, and
audience?
● What artistic/aesthetic qualities are taken in and released amid a culinary encounter?
● How does each culinary encounter foster future experiences in continuity?
● What hidden qualities occur during each experience, and how could Dewey’s theory
illuminate or explicate such qualities?
● Through Dewey’s theory, how could one learn from one another through culinary
aesthetics?
Each question served as a means of prying, understanding, and critiquing the culinary aesthetic
phenomenon. Instead of merely applying Dewey’s theory, I was “thinking with theory” (Jackson
& Mazzei, 2013), abductively putting several Deweyan conceptions to the test by questioning the
appropriateness of each theoretical component and its interchange with the subject matter. To
support to my conceptualization, I also consulted several post-Deweyan thinkers with similar
food, art, and aesthetic interests (Kuehn, 2005, 2012; Koczanowicz, 2016; Leddy, 2012, 2021;
Lee et al., 2020; Lee, 2021; Stroud, 2010, 2011, 2014).
Reflexivity is core to conceptual research (Xin et al., 2013). As a culinarian familiar with
researching culinary careers and adjacent foodservice roles, I brought a unique value-laden lens
to the present inquiry. Tribe (2018) calls this lens the researcher’s “creative gaze” (pp. 18–19), a
window of reality informed by the researcher’s own unique perspective that could potentially
illuminate new patterns, ideas, and knowledge construction in the tourism world. Because my
reflexive self was pivotal to my interpretations, choice/use of theory, and conceptual methods, I
offer the following reflexivity statement for transparency:
As a Chinese Malaysian (Malaysian by passport; Chinese in ethnicity) who has held

commercial and academic culinary positions in both Malaysia and the U.S., I bring a
unique “culinarian lens” to all issues food and gastronomy related (Lee, 2021). I qualify
as what many tourism researchers consider as the ideal food/culinary tourist: an
allocentric and neophiliac gastronomic adventurer who loves to indulge in new flavors,
food, ingredients, techniques, and the many symbolism and knowledge behind a
community’s culinary heritage (Baldwin, 2018; Mitchell & Hall, 2003). My travels are
mostly, if not always, centered on the pursuit of new gastronomic experiences—always
on the lookout for the culinary exclusive, unique, and authentic of a destination’s food
scene.
In all my travels and eating experiences, the aesthetic prevails, existing even in the most
everyday homecooked and street-level meals, as well as the lavish extravagance found in
white table clothed settings. As an adamant reader of Dewey and Deweyan followers, I
assert that culinary aesthetics is not something reserved for a specialized few, but
attainable in the everyday. For as long as one engages with a culinary encounter with the
right frame of mind and intent, the humblest meal can turn meaningful, unique, and
fulfilling—aesthetic. Culinary aesthetics, to me, lies in experience.
4. CULINARY AESTHETICS AS EXPERIENCE
Using Dewey, I offer a conceptualization focusing on the experiential ecosystem in

which culinary aesthetics transpires. Like Dewey, my focus centers “in the raw” (Dewey,
2005/1934, p. 3), acknowledging that all culinary encounters—regardless elite or mundane—
hold aesthetic potential. My goal is to show that culinary aesthetics is not an experience
privileged to the elite or a selected few, neither is it hidden or locked in a culinary product’s
physical nature, but something that occurs in the continuous and cumulative interactions in
experience. Figure 1 illustrates my conceptual attempt which takes the form of an ecosystem
entailing three living entities: culinary artist, culinary artwork, and culinary audience. In the
coming sections, I elaborate on each entity and explain the organic relations one has with and
through another, before arriving to the notion of “world-traveling with culinary arts.”
Figure 1. Culinary aesthetics as experience
4.1. Culinary artist: Foodmaking as artistic experiences

To call a culinarian an artist can trigger serious debates among practitioners of the
culinary trade. Consider James Beard Award-winning authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen
Page’s (1996) explanation:
While the majority of leading chefs we interviewed agree on the potential for artistry
within the culinary experience, a few express hesitations about the use of the term. This is
perhaps not surprising given that chefs have evolved from a profession historically
viewed as domestic labor into one that now boasts celebrity chef-restaurateurs.
Throughout this transformation, they have largely maintained a professional spirit of
modesty and service to the customer, and some chefs still feel uncomfortable with the
elitist connotations of calling their profession an art. (p. 6)
Dornenburg and Page’s (1996) excerpt implies that the controversy of the “artist” label lies in
misrepresentation, potentially romanticizing the profession as an elite line of work.
Take Fine’s (1992, 1996a, 1996b) ethnographic work on restaurant cooks for example.
Fine suggests that the everyday work of a culinarian is nuanced and tensioned in such that while
a culinarian may perceive one’s work as artistic and potentially aesthetic during certain periods
of the day, the trade is also riddled with themes of laboriousness and constraints that hinder the
aesthetic from manifesting. In addition, Lee’s (2021b) personal narrative on his identity as a
culinarian suggests similar views, implying that the culinary trade is not all artistry alone, but
one filled with operational intricacies requiring one to think on one’s feet as both a technician
and tactician to persevere in a career behind kitchen doors. Fine (1992, 1996a, 1996b) and Lee
(2021b) echo similar notions to Dornenburg and Page’s (1996) assertion, suggesting that
although artistry is inherently tied to the profession, the threat of declaring one a culinary artist
can in itself generate a romanticized and elitist misrepresentation of the culinary trade.
The question of whether or not a culinarian is worthy of an artist title, I argue, is
counterproductive. Such a question does not tackle culinary aesthetics at its core, but hovers
merely on the theoretical debate’s surface. In other words, the question of the artist title is merely
a debate of nomenclature, not aesthetics. What scholars should rather focus on, is how the work
of culinarian constitutes an artful, unifying, and meaningful experience—elements that makes up
an aesthetic experience.
A good place to start is to first redirect our attention back to Dewey’s (2005/1934)
definition of artistic experience. To undergo an artistic experience, for Dewey, is to engage in
the very process of making: the act of doing, maneuvering, and manipulating elements in one’s
environment towards an outcome. Foodmaking—the act of turning the inedible edible—is
within purview of Dewey’s an artistic experience. To engage in the culinary artistic, one must
use one’s own hands, tool, appliances, past experiences, learned knowings, and environmental
resources time to transform ingredients that would otherwise remain unsafe or inedible. Such
maneuvers require performance and thinking on the maker’s behalf, an act of creation, an act of
artistry. Hence, to label a foodmaker a culinary artist, through a Deweyan view, is to
acknowledge that the work of a foodmaker entails artistic qualities and aesthetic potential,
recognizing that the craftsmanship in foodmaking is inherently tied to the act of creation: one
naturally takes on an artistic role when transforming inedible raw materials into edible
nourishments.
But are all foodmaking experiences aesthetic? Many may argue that for one to perceive
culinary arts as aesthetic, one should first be an expert in the culinary trade, requiring among
many things, a threshold of culinary skills, knowledge, and experiences (Elbasha & Baruch,
2022; Hegarty & O’Mahony, 2001; Hu, 2010; Traynor et al., 2022; Zopiatis, 2010). While these
elements are important for one to excel in culinary profession, expertise alone does not guarantee
one access to the aesthetic. An overemphasis on a foodmaker’s mastery of skills risks one to fall
back into the false elitist vs non-elitist dichotomy, implying that the pathway to culinary
aesthetics is entitled only to a selected few. But who is to say that one must be trained culinarily
to be worthy of the aesthetic? Who is to say that a domestic cook who cooks for one’s immediate
family is aesthetically inferior to one who cooks in commercial stainless-steel kitchens?
Arguably, even some of the most skilled chefs can discern one’s work with close to zero
aestheticism, but a domestic cook who invests love and passion into a humble meal can perceive
one’s work as absolute joy.
To further delineate, I turn to Scott Stroud’s theorization on orientational meliorism
(2011, 2014). Drawing ideas from Dewey, Stroud emphasizes the importance of a person’s
orientation to life, positing that one could live an artful life if one is versed in orientating the self
to the present, in such a way that the present experience and all its intricacies becomes unifying.
An orientation, as Stroud defines, “tells one what is in the world, what value it has, and,
consequently how one is to act in this world” (2011, p. 142). An orientation is a spirit and
method of attending mindfully to the present and shielding all other affairs that may distract
one’s attention to the present. Hence, to tap into the culinary aesthetic, along Stroud’s logic, is to
orient one’s energy to the bare doings of foodmaking in the immediate richness of the present,
which could turn mere cooking into immersive and perceiving acts of creations (Stroud, 2010,
2011, 2014).
For culinarians who work in high-volume and high-performing establishments, orienting
oneself to the present may be easier said than done. Even with refined skill and extraordinary
talent, a taxing kitchen environment can distract the artistic process of executing one’s culinary
craft. Take for example, a heated “rush” during operational peak hours, such environments
could turn foodmaking into a pressured, and at times, unforgiving experience (Fine, 1990; Gill &
Burrow, 2018; Lee & Ruck, 2022). Not to mention, the repetitive nature of culinary prep-work
and its inherent mundanities may render one’s reach into the aesthetic difficult (Fine, 1992,
1996a, 1996b). The same can be said to the domestic cook tending to a pot on the stove while
listening more attentively to a podcast: one merely executes without perceiving the encounter, as
there are neither rhythm nor paucity to reflect, passion nor immersion, immediacy nor absorption
in tending to the senses. The experience is fragmented, scattered, and dispersed, drifting into
monotony.
Nevertheless, even in the most mundane of situations, one could reorient oneself to push
back against the impeding environment (Stroud, 2011, pp. 160–162). Such a mindful position
can allow one to attain stillness even amid a rush, giving way to foodmaking’s aesthetic
potential. To be still—the ineffable state of composure—allows one to see the plentitude in the
current moment, taking in the invisible rhythmic pace that one so often takes for granted (e.g.,
Holiday, 2019). One could very much attain such stillness under pressure, including the most
heated and tempered of foodservice environments. Lee and Ruck’ s (2022) narrative portrayal
on how baristas navigate the rush provides a vivid example on the matter. Specifically, Lee and
Ruck show how the operational rush behind a coffee bar can be a daunting experience, but with
poise and a mindful attention to the present, one could read chaos as organized chaos, allowing
one to execute one’s craft with grace and panache in utter calmness. In Stroud’s (2011) terms,
one can decelerate and direct one’s full attention to the operational present, turning a simple act
of coffeemaking into a cathartic expression.
The same experience can be said for the cook who faces the depths of monotony. Take
Fine’s (1992, 1996a, 1996b) studies on restaurant culture for example. By feeling and perceiving
one’s inner vibrations with the materials of play, a cook can awaken a dormant aesthetic
potential, turning a job of onerousness into an intuitive self-fulfilling experience. For Fine
(1992), the aesthetic “is a variable, not an absolute” (p. 1284), suggesting that although the
everyday cook is bounded by the routines and laboriousness of the restaurant’s operation, one
can still find spaces for creative play, especially when one is amid executing one’s craft (Fine,
1996a, 1996b).
A domestic cook who directs one’s full attention to the stove can too, feel the aesthetic.
If one empties the mind, one may notice the gentle simmer carrying buried flavors to a stew’s
fore, diced meat gradually giving way tenderizing, and vegetable fibers surrendering to the
stew’s gradual brew. By being present, one may perceive the overlooked details and subtle
beauties of the everyday foodmaking. However, such stillness and presence are not to be
mistaken as easy work, they require self-initiation and conscious effort (Stroud, 2011, pp. 159–
160). Dewey (2005/1934) himself note that for one immerse oneself in the qualitative
immediacy of everyday life requires “surrender” that is “adequate yielding of the self” and
devotion of energy to the artistic experience (p. 55). To live an artful culinary life, one requires
an effortful orientation of the mind, in such that one invests mindfully with intent, love, and
passion to project oneself onto the culinary artwork—creating in unity.
To this point, I have shown that whether or not a foodmaker chooses to accept the artist
label is not a matter of aesthetic discussion, but mere nomenclature. For a culinarian to reject the
artist label is a showcase of humility and modesty, not a question of whether a cook’s work is
artful or not (Dornenburg & Page, 1996; Lee, 2021). To engage in an aesthetic debate, I argue is
to shift one’s questions towards why and how the work of a foodmaker is aesthetic. For as long
as one position the self to perceive the present with the right intensity, focus, and care, one could
turn even the most routine of artistic experiences into one with aesthetic qualities (Stroud, 2011).
The question of whether chefs are artist, therefore, should not be of nomenclature, but of one’s
ability to orient the self to perceive the present.
4.2. Culinary artwork: Culinary art as expressions of one’s gustemic knowing

The culinary artwork is the output of the culinary artist, a product actualized through the
execution of one’s artistic abilities and inner intent. Dewey (2005/1934) asserts that an artwork
rendered from an artistic process takes on representational form, which is in itself “expressive,”
capable of “saying something to us” (p. 85). But what makes the everyday product—food—
expressively unique as an artistic medium? In the coming sections, I delineate two key points
pertaining to the culinary artwork’s uniqueness: (1) the unique nature of the culinary artwork and
(2) the culinary artwork’s representational qualities.
To delineate my first point, I direct focus to culinary artwork’s unique characteristics as a
medium. Deweyan follower and philosopher Glenn Kuehn (2005, 2012) contributes considerably
to this matter, explaining that culinary artwork contrasts greatly to those of traditional art
mediums (e.g., architecture, painting) primarily because food needs to be destroyed (eaten) in
order to be experienced. The ephemeral and existential nature of food adds a layer of temporality
and perishability to the consumption experience, which contributes to culinary artwork’s unique
aestheticism. Specifically, Kuehn (2012) notes that food is one of the few art mediums that needs
to be physically internalized to complete the consumption experience, as he writes:
when you eat you are taking an object, some other “thing” in the world and adding it to
your being; food stands in a tensive potentiality towards you – it is the “not yet” you. The
complex act of eating is quite beyond mere nourishment and pleasure, it is life-sustaining
and life-altering. (p. 92)
Kuehn’s excerpt reminds us that food not only transmits through the senses, but it also
alters the human body and the self. Not only is food destroyed in experience, but it is also
transformative within us. Nevertheless, whether one takes the culinary artwork as mere food for
hunger’s resolve or engages with food’s hedonic and evocative properties, depends largely on the
value and perspective that the taster brings to the artwork.
In I Drink Therefore I Am, aesthetic philosopher and wine enthusiast, Roger Scruton
(2009), lays in a perfect assertion on this matter. Like Dewey, Scruton posits that wine does not
carry aesthetic values on its own, but finds meaning through the drinker’s consumption
experience. The human perspective in which one brings into the wine through experience is how
wine transcends from mere object to an artform with aesthetic qualities. Wine in this sense is not
a work of art that contains meaning in itself, but a work of craft: a man-made artwork put
forward to encourage people to create meanings—to be experienced.
In the second point, I bring back the role of the culinary artist. Every cook brings unique
qualities to the cooking process, making each culinary encounter a unique performance on its
own. Each foodmaker brings in one’s own unique touch, sensibilities, and selves to the culinary
creation process—qualities of one’s inner world. I use the term “inner world” to denote a
metaphorical world made up of one’s own collective gustemic knowings (not to be mistaken for
the general term gustatory i.e., sense of taste). The term “gustemic” refers to food anthropologist
David Sutton’s (2010) theory of gustemology, which describes the multiple ways of knowing,
living, and interacting with the world through one’s food experiences and memories. To possess
a gustemic knowing (or to know things gustemologically) is to comprehend the many
connotations of life through one’s food experiences, allowing one to relate and interact with the
world (Korsmeyer & Sutton, 2011).
The difference in gustemic knowings explains why when different foodmakers’ approach
a standard recipe, the outcome renders considerably unalike. One creates by consulting to one’s
inner world, which guides how one alters the minute intricacies in the foodmaking process: the
foodmaker’s gustemic knowing guides how one approaches the means of creating the artwork.
The output of a foodmaking process—the culinary artwork—is an expression of one’s inner
world (Lee et al., 2020; Lee, 2021). When a person cooks attentively, one externalizes
something originating from within. Qualities belonging to the depths of one’s inner world, once
private, becomes externalized—expressed—and made visible in the rendered culinary artwork
(Figure 1: Circle 1 ↔ Circle 2). Thus, one can say that the culinary artwork carries remnants of
the culinary artist’s inner world. The culinary artwork is an expression of one’s gustemic
knowing, a medium carrying “meaning not of what [the culinary artwork] physically is, but of
what it expresses” (Dewey, 2005/1934, p. 209).
4.3. Culinary audience: World-traveling with culinary arts

The culinary audience is the recipient of the culinary artwork: the taster who lays
judgment on the work of art by perceiving. To “perceive” carries significant meaning to Dewey,
which entails a series of intricate processes that accumulate towards fulfillment. Perception,
according to Dewey (2005/1934), is not passive, but an active intaking of qualities: “for to
perceive, a beholder must create his own experience” (p. 65). To truly appreciate food as art, that
is to experience culinary artworks as aesthetic, the percipient needs to use the knowledge and
experience from one’s own gustemic knowing and relate them to the culinary artwork, turning
the culinary object into art through experience. Without such relational qualities, one would fail
to perceive the culinary artwork as art, but rather one merely recognizes the object’s presence:
the perception is arrested from developing in its full potential.
The culinary audience, just like the culinary artist, is him/herself a carrier of a unique
inner world. One harbors a repository of memories and gustemic knowing of his/her own. The
inner world that an audience brings to the culinary artwork depends largely on the environment
one is brought up in. One’s environment is directive, in ways that it dictates how one grows and
the types of experience one accumulates, which could either “promote or hinder, stimulate or
inhibit, the characteristic activities of a living being” (Dewey, 2007/1938, p. 11). These diverse
and varied weathering conditions give shape, color, and nuance to each person’s unique relations
with culinary arts.
When a taster perceives a culinary artwork through eating, one naturally relates one’s
own inner world to the consumption experience, using one’s wealth of experience as a lens to
make meaning of the culinary encounter (Figure 1: Circle 2 ↔ Circle 3). The culinary artwork,
here, acts as the culinary medium: the material bridge for the artist and audience to connect and
communicate with one another. In the previous section, I have delineated how the culinary
artwork is a carrier of the artist’s inner world. I have also discussed food, as a unique artistic
medium that needs to be destroyed in consumption. Therefore, when a taster eats the culinary
artwork, the taster essentially takes in the remnants of the creator’s inner world into one’s very
own. This transmission among artist-artwork-audience becomes a dialogue of inner worlds, a
reciprocal, organic, and translational culinary experience—one world-travels through culinary
arts. This intricate processes among the three entities is where I argue, culinary arts find its
epitomizing aestheticism (Circle 1 ↔ Circle 2 ↔ Circle 3).
To “world-travel” is to borrow a term from feminist scholar María Lugones (1987), who
notes that by world-traveling, one can “identify” with another person, insofar that “we can
understand what it is to be them and what it is to be ourselves in their eyes. Only when we have
traveled to each other’s “worlds” are we fully subjects to each other” (p. 17). The notion of world-
traveling with culinary arts parallels greatly to Kuehn’s (2012) notion of “tasting the world.”
Kuehn posits that through eating, one basically takes in and internalizes qualities of an
environment into one’s being, in such that properties of the material world become properties of
the self, turning food into “an education in culture” (pp. 94–95). I stand with Kuehn on this matter,
agreeing that when one eats, particularly food that is different from one’s culture, one essentially
takes in the qualities of another person’s world. Hence, depending on the intensity of the aesthetic
experience, one can potentially world-travel into a world of another, permitting the interested
audience to not only “identify” (Lugones, 1987), but also experience a change in oneself in
learning the inner worlds of another person and the nuances inherent within them.
The intensity of one’s world-traveling experience depends largely on the audience’s
baseline gustemic knowing, which is imperative to the discussion on food tourism. For example,
a tourist visiting a destination for the first time, knowing near nothing of the destination’s local
gustemic ways, bears the lens and traits of a novice: one sees the entire gastronomic scene as
foreign and afresh. Because of the culinary environment’s foreignness and because one does not
possess a threshold of gustemic knowing relevant to the new culinary encounter at hand, the
tourist is forced to put in the work and invest more energy in both the inflow (i.e., to take in the
of qualities of the culinary artwork) and the outflow during consumption (i.e., to relate and
interpret), creating a culinary experience from the ground up. As such, one may say that a tourist
trying new food when visiting a new foreign gastronomic space may be gifted with great
aesthetic potential, as one sees all culinary objects as new and afresh.
A tourist’s inner world can also be an obstacle to a new and foreign culinary encounter,
particularly when one’s gustemic knowings are vastly dissimilar. Manifestations of food
neophilia and neophobia reactions become pertinent here (e.g., Chang et al., 2010; Lai et al.,
2020; Mitchell & Hall, 2003; Okumus et al., 2021). On one end, one may be adventurous and
driven to engage in new food experiences, eager to add them into one’s wealth of culinary
experiences. While on the other end, one may practice more reservedly in consumption. One
may interpret the meal as overly distant from one’s own gustemic knowing, causing one’s inner
world to feel threatened and hence disrupting the experience from consummating as a whole: one
resists and orients away from the present culinary encounter.
Tourists on repeat visits are rather different. A repeating tourist carries a baseline of
relevant and directly relatable experiences to the culinary encounter. Foreignness diminishes and
progresses in familiarity. To such individuals, the aesthetic encounter remains rich and
potentially driven by one’s quest for reliving a gustemic memory in the present: one chases a
specific culinary instance again in hopes for re-experiencing an experienced past (Marschall,
2012, 2015). The past experience a repeating food tourist brings adds layers of complexities to
the present, albeit, similar culinary encounter, in such that one will not perceive the same “wow-
experience” from the past, but a different “wow” enriched by one’s accumulated gustemic
learnings. In each new encounter of the same culinary artwork, the taster does not return to a
prior state of equilibrium, but rather, an enriched state: one does not re-experience a previous
experience, but perceives it anew with a new gustemic baseline and understanding (see also
Mertena et al., 2022).
On the far end of the foreignness-familiarity spectrum lies an audience who is fully
accustomed with the gastronomic environment of a culinary destination. This group of audience
can take form as a local resident or a frequent tourist overexposed to the same gustemic situation.
Because of one’s high familiarity, one may tap less into the energies of the culinary experience,
causing one to be prone to recognize the local gastronomic scene as inchoate and routine. The
audience becomes a local in another’s world, perceiving the once foreign world as one’s own
with great familiarity. Nevertheless, this is not to say that the aesthetic is non-existent, but rather
the aesthetic rests dormant. The question of whether a local resident could appreciate one’s own
cultural food as an aesthetic artwork is not a problem of the artwork’s expressivity, but the local
resident’s anesthesia to the experience, as one is overly familiar with the world that one
repeatedly travels to. Dewey (2005/1934) for example, warns of the “anesthetic,” which are
experiences that were once enjoyable and filled with perceiving qualities that unfortunately ran
their course towards numbness and aimlessness when routinized—the experience “perishes of
inanition” (p. 58). Nonetheless, if one could reorient oneself and direct one’s full attention to the
present, one may re-envision the routine eating experience as an aesthetic encounter (Stroud,
2011).
To consume food created by another, regardless whether the consumer is familiar with
the culinary artwork, is to taste and take in qualities of the other person’s inner world. If the
taster does this attentively, in such that one consumes with the intent to learn and identify with
the culinary artwork, the food item not only becomes an artful medium, but the transmissive
energy among the artist, artwork, and audience becomes a dialogue inner worlds. As Dewey
(2005/1934) beautifully states that art’s true intent is to unite, not divide, it is through culinary
arts where one is able to express and communicate one’s inner reality to another. Culinary arts,
in this sense, represents a facilitating space for inter-world dialogues, which could potentially
unite individuals of different backgrounds together through food. By understanding gastronomic
experiences as a world-traveling phenomenon, food encounters transcend from mere sustenance
to an artful cultural exchange–a spiritual voyage into another person’s reality. It is through
culinary art’s communicative and world-traveling potential where, I argue, culinary arts find its
epitomizing aesthetic form in tourism.
5. CONCLUSION
In this study, I picked up where many tourism and gastronomy scholars have left off and
moved “culinary aesthetics” away from as its metaphoric usages and towards a theoretical
understanding built along the foundations of Dewey’s theory on aesthetics and experiences. As a
result, I answered the call for a wider academic discourse concerning art and tourism research
(Graburn, 1984; Kirillova et al., 2014; Mura et al., 2020; Tribe, 2008) by zooming into the
culinary aesthetic experience, explaining how and why the aesthetic occurs in culinary
encounters. In the coming passages, I delineate three key contributions, followed by suggestions
for future research.
First, for the largest part of this study, I have answered two deceivingly simple questions
“is food art?” and “are cooks/chefs artists?” To call food art is to recognize food’s capacity to
transcend beyond its nourishing properties to take on aesthetic form. Food is art when the taster
or creator assumes the role as a percipient and assigns meaning to the food experience. And if
the intensity of the experience is unifying, in such that it provokes thinking, qualitative
immediacy, and momentous feeling, the food itself becomes an expressive object riddled with
aestheticism. Food is thus art when one successfully orients oneself to the culinary experience
with mindful intent. Moreover, because culinary products are intricate outputs of a process of
creation, in such that one must actively transform the inedible edible, the work of a culinary
professional is intrinsically artistic. Whether or not a foodmaker draws meaning, joy, and
qualitative immediacy with the execution, depends on his/her attentiveness in the process of
making. Thus, if one could direct one’s attention to the present, surrender to the experience’s
immediate qualities, and relate one’s gustemic knowing to the culinary object at hand with love
and passion, the act of artistry rises with aestheticism. Chefs/cooks are artists because the work
of foodmaking involves the process of creation.
Second, I provided the theoretical grounds on culinary aesthetics, arguing that aesthetics
transpires from the experiential relationship among a culinary artist, artwork, and audience.
When a culinary artist or audience engages with an artwork, in such that one approaches the
artwork with the right frame of mind and artful orientation to the present, one allows the
experience a chance to rise in aestheticism. All culinary artworks carry aesthetic potential for
both the creator and taster; the keyword here is potential, which again, depends on the person’s
ability to orient the self towards the culinary encounter with attentiveness. Culinary aesthetics, in
this sense, is non-discriminatory, meaning that it is not an elitist construction reserved for
individuals working or dining in white tableclothed settings or the privileged few, but a wakeable
quality resting in all culinary encounters and experiences.
Third, I put forward the idea of world-traveling as a means of identifying with another
person via culinary arts. To world-travel with culinary arts is to engage with food with the
intent, allowing for a transmission of understandings between a foodmaker and taster to occur.
This transmission process begins with first culinary artist’s conception of the artwork.
Specifically, when a culinary artist creates, one expresses, meaning one externalizes portions of
one’s inner world onto the culinary artwork (Figure 1: Circle 1 ↔ Circle 2). The culinary
artwork hence, becomes a medium that harbors remnants of the artist’s self (Circle 2). Also,
crucial to the culinary artwork’s uniqueness is food’s distinct characteristics as a medium, in
such that the one has to destroy and internalize (eat) the culinary artwork to fully perceive and
appreciate the artwork’s full hedonic properties. Therefore, when a taster eats the culinary
artwork (Circle 2 ↔ Circle 3), the taster essentially takes in the remnants of the creator’s inner
world into one’s very own. This transmission among artist-artwork-audience becomes a
dialogue of inner worlds (Circle 1 ↔ Circle 2 ↔ Circle 3): a reciprocal, organic, and
translational culinary experience that allows one to world-travel through culinary arts.
The idea of world-traveling is particularly meaningful for food tourism research, as it
pinpoints the intimate role that food plays in connecting tourist and locals in culinary exchange.
For example, the idea of world-traveling parallels existing food tourism studies that focuses on
the culinary tourists’ unyielding quest in seeking the culinary authentic (Sims, 2009; Mak et al.,
2012), going as far as to partaking in regional cooking programs organized by culinary schools
and local residents (Bell, 2015; Jolliffe, 2019; Walter, 2017). Such cultural exchange, both in the
institutionalized settings of culinary schools and the casual homes of local residents are exemplar
co-constructing moments in its material form, which are arguably underpinned by culinary arts’
world-traveling and aesthetic potential. Nevertheless, no individual’s world-traveling experience
or aesthetic experience with culinary arts are similar, but are varied based on one’s baseline
gustemic knowing and sensibilities.
Like most conceptual papers, my conceptual attempt was meant to serve as a provocation
for future scholarship (Kirillova & Yang, 2022). Future researchers can build on the present
study’s conceptions to question and analyze where and how different culinary encounters
transcend with aestheticism along the culinary aesthetic ecosystem. One possible avenue for
future research is to consider how the role of globalization and its politics influences the
construction of each individual’s gustemic knowing. Globalization can both diversify and
homogenize one’s food knowing. With the increase of foreign ingredients accessibility, mass
media influences, continuous dominance and growth of large food conglomerates (Hall &
Mitchell, 2002), and the proliferation of open-access culinary information made available online
(Lee & Tao, 2021), one can argue that the modern-day consumer/tourist is living in the midst of
blurred gustemic genres. Such external influences can render tourists to have varying ideas on
what constitutes as authentic despite never traveling to the space before (e.g., Walter, 2017).
Just as Dewey posits experiences as ever-evolving and susceptible to one’s
environment’s governing forces, one’s inner worlds too becomes subject to continuity constant
change. For example, who is to say that a meal from McDonald’s is not authentic to today’s
globalized, capitalism-driven, fast-paced India? A McDonald’s meal in India today may reveal
something authentic and deep-rooted to many of today’s Indian residents’ inner worlds. Future
researchers are encouraged to tackle these complications and the ways it pertains to the aesthetic
and the politics that surrounds it.
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Culinary aesthetics: World-traveling with culinary arts

Article in Annals of Tourism Research · November 2022

The creative lives of extraordinary Malaysian pastry chefs View project

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2. JOHN DEWEY’S THEORY ON ART AND EXPERIENCE

In his masterpiece, Art as Experience (2005/1934), U.S. philosopher John Dewey

3. CONCEPTUAL METHODS AND REFLEXIVITY

As a Chinese Malaysian (Malaysian by passport; Chinese in ethnicity) who has held

4. CULINARY AESTHETICS AS EXPERIENCE

Using Dewey, I offer a conceptualization focusing on the experiential ecosystem in

Figure 1. Culinary aesthetics as experience

4.1. Culinary artist: Foodmaking as artistic experiences

4.2. Culinary artwork: Culinary art as expressions of one’s gustemic knowing

4.3. Culinary audience: World-traveling with culinary arts

Baldwin, W. (2018). Chef’s sabbatical: An analysis of chef's gastronomic research through

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