The interactive assessment of food as embodied performance

The paper analyzes how food items are evaluated through both verbal and nonverbal means in an interactive meal setting. The dataset consists of a series of three Taster Lunches, each with three German participants. Participants were given three meals to taste, one Japanese, one Senegalese, and one German, without providing information about the meals (see Szatrowski 2014: 27ff. for the setup of the study). The conversation during the meal was recorded and selectively transcribed. In the current paper, I analyze embodied interactional evaluations of both known and unknown food items. Results suggest that visual cues in the form of embodied performance (Goodwin & Goodwin 2000, Szatrowski 2014) play a central role in conveying evaluative meaning, e.g. expressing likes and dislikes, alongside verbal descriptions. Various multimodal resources are employed, including gestures (e.g. pointing or head-shaking), body movements, facial expressions (smiles, expressions of disgust), and gustatory noises. Evaluation takes place in several steps: initial reaction, closer inspection, tasting and joint negotiation of taste. Embodied evaluation can be observed as initial reactions to both familiar and unfamiliar food items, as accompanying features of the tasting process, in the negotiation among participants, and as concluding element before moving on to a different item. The embodied evaluation is accompanied and further specified on a verbal level, e.g. through descriptions of smell and taste which are then interactively negotiated. The evaluation is usually environmentally coupled (cf. Goodwin 2007) and the food items to be evaluated provide a common focus for participants, resulting in complex sequences of embodied interaction that contribute to a joint evaluative process. Findings thus suggest that evaluations take place both multimodally and interactively, with participants using all modes at their disposal as conduits for interaction.