Beyond Taste

Teresa Berger is a young product designer based in Vienna, Austria. She aims at improving products and believes they can enhance our everyday lives, if they are well designed. She sees food as one of humankind’s greatest pleasures but also biggest struggles, as eating is heavily influenced by external elements of consumption through the tools and objects we use. “Size, color, and the usability have a tremendous influence on creating consumption patterns that might lead to negative eating habits. This is where I felt I could really make change as a product designer.” We talked to Teresa about her work around food and design and her upcoming exhibition at the Vienna Design Week.

How did you come to food design and what intrigues you about it?

One day I started to dive into the world of Gastrophysics, an interdisciplinary science that applies principles from neuroscience, physics and chemistry to understand the connection between the worlds of gastronomy, cooking and eating. One aim of Gastrophysics was to unravel the sensory response while eating. And what was discovered, is that there is much more interplay between our senses than previously thought. You cannot consider one sense without considering the other senses too. All our senses are interconnected. So we do not only react to the food we taste but also to what we see, hear, smell and touch – the so-called the multi-sensory experience.

This got me thinking about why our culinary culture often neglects these sensorial experiences. I was wondering why food is still served from standardized plates. With my project “Beyond Taste” I wanted to explore the synergy of food and design and explore more unique ways to convey creativity – from the kitchen to the table – focusing on various shapes, colors, textures and other sensory stimulations that influence our eating experience.