Have you ever wondered why your tap water tastes the way it does? Christy Spackman will be joining the BU Food Studies Programs as a guest in the spring 2024 Pépin Lecture Series to discuss her book, The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage.

The Taste of Water explores the increasing erasure of tastes from drinking water over the twentieth century. It asks how dramatic changes in municipal water treatment have altered consumers’ awareness of the environment their water comes from. Through examaming the development of sensory expertise in the United States and France, this unique history uncovers the foundational role of palatability in shaping Western water treatment processes. By focusing on the relationship between taste and the environment, Christy Spackman shows how efforts to erase unwanted tasted and smells have transformed water into a highly industrialized food product divorced from its origins. The Taste of Water invites readers to question their own assumptions about what water does and should naturally taste like while exposing them to the invisible – but substantial – sensory labor involved in creating tap water.

Copies of Spackman’s book will be available to purchase on-site at the event. Lecture is free. Register on Eventbrite HERE