ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the connection between food and the senses in the modernizing Finland of the early 20th century. Finland began to seek a place in the concert of European by modernizing the country and its inhabitants. The benchmarks were the countries of Western Europe and their ideal citizens. As technology was driving the world, a scientific view of humanity described the human body as a machine. Food appeared as a fuel. Discussions on the senses bore the mark of these developments. During the first decades of the 20th century, the sense of taste was often seen as very primitive. The proponents of evolutionary theory claimed that the sense of taste would eventually disappear with humanity’s progress. At the same time, modernization and urbanization put pressure on the senses in the form of new kinds of food products and beverages. There was a flipside, though. Industrial foods seemed to ruin the senses. A Finnish newspaper wrote in 1909 that ‘modern cooking’ was likely to provide plenty of work for gravediggers: ‘Nowadays, everything that stimulates taste even to some extent, is considered as a good food.’ In contrast, traditional peasant culture was glorified for its ‘healthy, unspoiled sense’.
