Gastronomic experiences: Motives, activities, and teleology
Joachim Sundqvist
Abstract
The notion of gastronomic experiences is often used covertly in the sense that the concept is taken for granted and is, thus, not made explicit. However, as the concept of gastronomy is, in itself, ambiguous and the philosophical ideas conceptualizing experiences are plenty, the compound of gastronomic experiences is facing the possibility of becoming meaningless. Based on empirical data and theoretical argumentation, this paper aims to elucidate how understanding the practice theoretical concepts of motive and teleology, as they relate to activity, could facilitate for positive consumer meals, understood as gastronomic experiences. Ethnographic data on mountain hikers’ meals were collected over a three-week period in the Swedish mountains and analysed by reflective thematic analysis. The results indicate that the meal, as a contextual eating event, were understood vis-à-vis the teleology of the practice carried on and motivated by temporal and material aspects pertaining to the hike.