To Taste

A philosopher-chef’s moving meditation on the pleasures of our shared humanity and how it can be most fully experienced in making and sharing food.

Our daily rhythms and most meaningful relationships center on the dining table, and so nothing is more essential to a good life than satisfying meals with friends and family. In To Taste, philosopher and sous-chef Scott Samuelson invites us into his kitchen, where he blends moving personal stories with insights from some of the world’s greatest thinkers into a rich but simple argument: our daily labor, in making food or otherwise, should connect us with other people. 

For Samuelson, the pleasures of excellent cooking illuminate this value in particularly compelling ways. When we embrace the work required to prepare and share a good meal, we learn to honor tradition, practice hospitality, respect nature, cherish festivity, and nurture skill—all ethics that resist our increasingly dehumanized world. Ultimately, Samuelson argues that cooking, especially the elusive decision to season a dish “to taste,” contains the full mystery of human life. 

Whether you’re a professional chef or your best culinary feat involves a can opener, To Taste can help you cook up a life that elicits a glorious mmm.

Scott Samuelson holds a joint position at Iowa State University in Philosophy and Religious Studies and Extension and Outreach. His books include Rome as a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour, also published by the University of Chicago Press. For many years, he worked as a sous-chef at a farm-to-table French restaurant.