Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Food
Episode: Christy Spackman, "The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage" (U California Press, 2023)
Description: Have you ever wondered why your tap water tastes the way it does? The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage (U California Press, 2023) explores the increasing erasure of tastes from drinking water over the twentieth century. It asks how dramatic changes in municipal water treatment have altered consumers’ awareness of the environment their water comes from. Through examining the development of sensory expertise in the United States and France, this unique history uncovers the foundational role of palatability in shaping Western water treatment processes. By focusing on the relationship between taste and the envi...