Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

How can we engage with food that does not exist yet? Based on ethnographic research on cultivated meat in Czechia, this paper discusses “public hearing” as a method for shaping public debate about opportunities, risks, and futures of novel food technologies.

Paper long abstract

Food anthropology has long called for mobilizing sensory-grounded engagement and embodied experiences to provoke experiments with food and “make taste public” (Voß & Guggenheim 2019). However, novel food technologies such as cultivated meat pose a challenge for both research and citizen participation: how can food be discussed and studied when it cannot yet be tasted?

This paper draws on ethnographic research on cultivated meat in Czechia, home to two startups developing this technology, where regulatory debates are emerging around the organization of the first sensory testing of cultivated meat products. As a special commission, established by national authorities, prepares testing protocols, we encounter a critical moment in which expectations, risks, and values are negotiated in the food’s “absent presence” (Callon & Law 2004).

As a social science intervention into the sociotechnological development of cultivated meat in Czechia, we are organizing a public hearing to be held in March 2026. It will bring together regulators, scientists, industry actors, and citizens to collectively examine technological nature and ethical, ecological, economic, and social implications of cultivated meat and its potential role in the transformation of the Czech food system and eaters’ plates. Rather than aiming for consensus or resolution, the format foregrounds uncertainties and speculations as productive elements of public engagement crucial for food democracy and sustainable food transitions. The paper reflects on the process and outcomes of the hearing and opportunities and pitfalls of shaping food futures beyond expert-driven governance, even when the food is still in the process of being assembled.