Why do some brands of food taste better than others? Part of the answer is geopolitics and national history, says assistant professor Neringa Klumbytė in her new article “The geopolitics of taste: the ‘Euro’ and ‘Soviet’ sausage industries in Lithuania”. The article appears in a new book, Food and Everyday Life in the Post-Socialist World, edited by Melissa L. Caldwell (Indiana University Press).

Comparing Lithuanian consumers' preferences for "Euro" and "Soviet" brands of sausages, Prof. Klumbytė shows that taste for food is a social phenomenon. People buy "Euro" brands because they associate them with post-Soviet European modernity and tend to purchase "Soviet" ones if they are critical of it—even though all these sausages are made in Lithuania. Thus, the taste for sausage is a reflection of Lithuania's geopolitical and national history. And the reverse also holds, she says: Lithuanian history forms consumers' identity and their taste for sausage.