Chef’s Whites and Lab Coats: Embodied and Formalized Expertise in the Culinary Arts

• In Event: 092 - Regular Session. Political, Legal, and Scientific Contexts of Occupations

Abstract

In an age of “big data” and rapid technological advance, previously esoteric areas of scientific knowledge have fast gained influence over a range of non-technical social contexts. But while this shift comes with many advantages to productivity and reliability, the proliferation of data-driven methods across essentially cultural fields raises important new questions about the relationship between science and creativity, evidence and intuition, formalized and embodied expertise. This article investigates these issues through an examination of the growing role of science in the culinary arts. Drawing on interviews, observation, and other qualitative data, I describe how the formalized knowledge of the physical sciences has been adopted in fine dining, and explore the consequences of this change on culinary expertise. I find that while the introduction of precision laboratory equipment into professional kitchens has reduced the value of certain kinds of culinary expertise, the adoption of scientific knowledge more generally has expanded the chef’s creative capacities. The result is a creative field that has maintained (and perhaps enhanced) its autonomy, despite borrowing practices, language, and concepts from a highly formalized and abstracted set of outsider knowledge.

Author

• Chad R. Borkenhagen, University of Chicago