ABSTRACT
The French word terroir originally related to the subtle ways the quality of a wine results from the characteristics of the place in which its grapes are grown. The word has been extended to food, and is now part of the lexicon of the contemporary local food movement. The gradual disappearance of geographic considerations from factory location over the last 200 years, accompanied by the standardization of products and their widespread marketing over large areas, have made it difficult to see the idea of terroir applied to manufactured objects. But there are ample examples of terroir in the history of relationships between culture and material production.
Many new manufacturing initiatives include people who particularly want to develop strong connections to the place in which they work. In these situations, people want to work locally, start locally-based businesses, and produce things that will characterize the places where they are made.
This chapter develops the concept of the “terroir of things” in the contemporary world, using case studies such as the silk-weaving industry in Kanchipuram, India, machine tools in Germany, and others. They represent the bringing together of the place and the manufactured object (or the processed food).
