ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of instruments for qualification and valuation of goods, analyzes the aestheticization of the rural world and demonstrates how gastronomy has been associated with the rhetoric of terroir. The main driver of the aesthetic order in the food system has been the social obsession with the body. There are other devices for recognition and protection of territorialized goods besides Geographical Indications. This is the case, for example, with the catalog of cultural heritage, a public instrument aimed at safeguarding traditional knowledge and practices. The main components of the aesthetic order can be summarized as follows: practices such as gastronomization, immaterializing of food and various forms of immaterial work supported by artifacts such as certification and recognition instruments, virtual devices that support the discourse of healthism, as well as a paraphernalia of guides, indexes, rankings and social networks. Like the world of art, there are food markets whose operation can hardly be explained by mainstream economic science.
