Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

In the Western philosophical tradition, Aristotle created a hierarchy of aesthetic beauty, prioritizing and privileging sight and sound, relegating taste, smell and touch to lower senses. Realizing the full pleasure potential of the process, even the performance, of consumption, however, necessarily relies on these lower senses. Boundaries of appropriate and proper eating behavior vary considerably outside of the Western tradition and in fact, can be set aside in a given context, on a picnic, for example. Traditionally South Asian food is consumed with one’s hands, an “uncivilized” “primal” or “childlike” process, lacking the “classical (read Western)” aesthetic principles of order, symmetry and balance (read neatness) In the narrative of his forgoing mangoes in later life because of its sensuality, for example, Mahatma Gandhi was acknowledging the power of those lower senses. Eaters of the best mangoes, fresh from the trees where they ripen naturally, most vividly recount the messy part of the process as the most pleasurable. What does a consumer miss when eating a mango with a fork?