ABSTRACT
The relationship between suburban and exurban landscapes in Pajottenland, Brussels’ western fringe, is related through food, cooking, and brewing. This chapter charts how lambic and gueuze, two particularly challenging and sour Belgian beer styles, moved from being peasant refreshments to emblems of middle-class tastes. Through a discussion of terroir and the lifelong engagement Belgians have with their landscapes, the essay elaborates a theory of educated acquired taste and ‘accrued’ acquired taste, encouraging a new framing of practices related to acquired taste in the study of cultural capital and human cognition.
