Finding your own harmonic blend
Why do we like what we like?
That’s the question Benjamin Errett tries to answer in his new book, Elements of Taste.
It’s a big question, even in the age of algorithms and music-streaming genres divided into 32 different genres and sub-genres. It’s not just a big question, it’s also a loaded one, since the vast majority of people consider their tastes to be unique, painstakingly cultivated and an expression of their true identity.
Errett, a former arts editor at the National Post, approaches this daunting task by using Heinz ketchup as the model. Although ketchup is decried by many who, either: (a) prefer Sriracha or, (b) think all people who use the tomato sauce on hotdogs, macaroni or steak after the age of 12 are boorish, Errett defends it. He refers to an old Malcolm Gladwell article in which the condiment is described as a perfect balance of salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami — which hits on a lot of levels, presumably the recipe for its enduring success.
It’s Errett’s contention that really successful and widely appreciated films, music and books are also the result of a harmonic blend of sweet sentiment, bitter wit, sour rebellion, salty humour and the hard-to-pin down umami that helps bring it all together. He calls this “cultural ketchup,” citing Star Wars, The Great Gatsby and Hamilton as examples of complex, well-balanced works that sate our appetite for a range of experiences. Not everyone wants balance, of course, preferring to wallow in, say, the sour rebellion and bitter cruelty of a movie like Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! Others, might watch the Lifetime channel while dressed as a My Little Pony character. Those are extremes. The point, Errett says, is to start to understand if your lean toward bittersweet or itch for salty, raucous humour is overtaking your love of teenage sour rebellion. Or vice versa. This tool, he says, is far more accurate than sticking to genres — comedy, horror or drama, which fail to describe the works of art in the personalized terms that really define our tastes.
Errett also argues that the ketchup metaphor cuts though the highbrow/middlebrow/lowbrow distinctions that, he says, are a lot leakier now, thanks to mass pop culture that sees middlebrow and lowbrow cultural products eaten up by people who would traditionally have been in the opera and fine dining category. Culture has shifted, sure, although, given today’s culture wars that make hay of the divide between those who put ketchup on well-done steaks and folks who prefer tartare doused in raw egg yolk, it’s not totally clear it’s a radical change.
But it might be harder to decode, which the ketchup thesis can help with. And, what’s more, this book is a fun romp through pop culture from a guy with a lot of cultural capital.
So much cultural capital, in fact, that he doesn’t even use ketchup — he dips his fries in mayonnaise.
Kinda highbrow, if you ask me. Christine Sismondo is the author of America Walks Into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops (Oxford University Press).