Building Bridges: A transdisciplinary view on gastronomy

Abstract

Gastronomy is a shared space that naturally embraces different disciplines or areas of knowledge. Cooking, sociology, anthropology, history, architecture, chemistry, and biology are some areas that can be used to explain specific characteristics of food and the act of eating. Nevertheless, disciplines usually work separately, causing most of the time a loss of interesting information. The concept of transdisciplinarity is then used to consider all dimensions of gastronomy to find real solutions that go beyond the disciplines. This dialogue between a food scientist and a sociologist does not expect to be more than a conversation between two colleagues from different disciplines that usually collaborate on some food research projects. Through this collaborative experience, both experts highlight some ideas that can be helped to build bridges between disciplines. In the end, gastronomy can help us to understand the whole food system.