This course offers a critical, historical perspective on food and the senses by investigating the complex multisensory phenomenon of flavor. We will consider flavor in its various historical, social, aesthetic, and technoscientific dimensions, and ruminate on how this complex, intimate sensory phenomenon informs the contemporary US (and global) food system. The course begins by investigating how flavor is made into a scientific, cultural, and phenomenological object, focusing on how 20th-century industrial food and its associated sciences have reshaped the embodied experience of eating and the values and meanings associated with gustatory pleasure. In the second half of the course, we will take a closer look at contemporary food and nutrition controversies through the lens of sensory history and critical science studies. This is an interdisciplinary course, and readings derive from a range of disciplines, including science studies, anthropology, history, cultural studies, and sociology.