Terroir & Tableware Project

Place-making through Terroir 

Researchers have explored the potential and existing use of terroir as a marketing tool to promote place-making and create a connection between the gastronomy of an area and the land (Anderson et. al 2019; López-Canales 2019; Broadway 2017, Gyimóthy 2017). According to Tressideor (2015), terroir restaurants, such as Noma, Copenhagen can be differentiated from other restaurants by prioritising the “central relationship between food, culture, history and geographies to generate experience” (p.3). Additionally, Tressidor (2015) claims that experiences of cuisine from terroir restaurants cannot be recreated outwith these geographies.

Solomon (2015) recounts the specific taste of cuisine produced in the street food of Mumbai as being ‘the taste no chef can give’, a taste resulting from the unique microbiotic environment of food produced in these street food markets.

Paxson, 2010 investigates how the concept of terroir has been reversed-engineered by a group of American cheese-makers, locating the value of the products in both geographical and economical terms as well as enshrining the social and cultural  values of the product within the terroir of their cheese (Paxson 2010). This philosophy purports to define terroir as what the land actually is, a tool to create a political statement of activism against the homogenisation and standardisation of a globalised foodscape. By creating new products which suited the (environmental) terroir of their existing locations the cheesemakers terroir was “expressed in the mouth of the tasters” (Anne Topham, in Paxson 2010, p.450). This taste however, was not always of primary concern to the cheesemakers, with the circle of terroir connecting consumers to producers in “a network of connections: to this place and to the people who buy and eat our cheese” (2010, p.450). This can be substantiated by Mateo Kehler who describes his community farm Jasper Hill Farm as “a personal response to globalisation” and a “tool to help define terroir, a process that will take generations” ( Paxon 2010, p.452). This could be likened to the “intimate, sensory apprehension of and semi-significance given to being - in location” (Escobar 2001 p.152-153, in Paxson p. 445) 

Restaurants, Design and Place

 Heston Blumenthal’s high profile multisensory signature dish  ‘Sounds of the Sea’,  was served on a digital tablet to enhance experience and sensory nudge for the (nostalgic) experience of eating whilst at the seaside (Spence and  Piqueras-Fiszman 2013). In Bonacho et al. (2018) study of experience design connecting food to place, we see the use of shell shaped dishes as part of a dish to convey the sense of ‘saudade’ - a specific term used in Portuguese to express nostalgic feelings of longing.

The research team at Centraal Restaurant, Peru, specifically mention the multisensory role their tableware lays in constructing narratives for eating experiences: “Our story is told through artistic pieces made by local ceramicists and artists. Colours, shape and textures that allow our ingredients to transmit biodiversity” (Mater.in via Instagram 21 Jan 2020).

Furthermore, recent design projects (Xue 2019;Han 2017 and Zhao 2011) have sought to embed characteristics that resemble narratives of culture, tradition and folklore into their ceramic tableware product design to enhance a diner’s experience. Additionally, designers have created objects for specific purposes based on the entomological eating practices of a country (Payne 2019 p.79 Mold Magazine). It could be argued these tools specifically help connect people to place, through the culture and  ecology of the land. 

Even within urban areas we can see an expression of place. Douglas McMaster’s zero waste restaurant, ‘Silo’ repurposes materials used within the kitchens and distribution chain to create tableware products that are then used within the restaurant. This could be seen as a contemporary example of reverse-engineering an urban terroir (Paxson 2010).  

Material Things

Designers and researchers have increasingly been exploring the use of new materials and new material technology to create sustainable tableware. The rise of the interest in sustainability and the zero waste movement has led to both food businesses and consumers wanting more ecologically sound serve ware for events and functions. As a result, a wide range of compostable serve ware available on the commercial marketplace, as well as an increasing range of speculative or initial prototyped work by product designers that use biodesign. These materials vary in design and production complexity from more traditional processes and simple materials, like those created from banana/palm leaf, coconut fibre, wood or cardboard, to those that require more complex technical engineering to create viable and stable products such as Biotrem’s edible bran plate; and plant-based ranges by Vegware and Wasara. Additionally, the potential for the following natural material to be repurposed to use as tableware have been explored by the following designers; seaweed by Seadish (Amber Josephine van Dillen);  fruit peel food waste (Emma Sicher); cornstarch/PLA, mycelium (Growing Lab); kombucha scoby (Roza Janusch); tempeh (Karenina van den Crommenacker & Nicolas Rotta for Mediamatic); chitin/chitosan (Shellworks) and fish skin/scales (Lucy Hughes has created bioplastic material)  in their creations. Silo London repurposes some of  the materials used within the kitchens to be used as tableware in restaurants, such as glass plates. 

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