The antecedents of sensorial anthropology lie in two domains: phenomenology and the study of human perception. Building upon Maurice Merleau-Ponty's brilliant foundation laid down in The Phenomenology of Perception, anthropologists have followed two tacks toward the end of more sensuous descriptions of social and cultural processes. The first tack has been ethnographic, an attempt to evoke the sensory dimensions of social experience. Works by Michael Jackson, Michael Taussig, and Robert Desjarlais exemplify this orientation. They are filled with sensuously evocative passages that indirectly and powerfully underscore the centrality of sensuousness to the comprehension of socio-cultural life. The second tack, which has been far more prevalent, has been to use heretofore neglected aspects of sensory life to refine social theory. In the latter category we find books and articles (by David Howes, Constance Classen, and Anthony Synnott, among many others) in which authors argue discursively for fuller, more sensuously complete representations of social life.

In a few cases, however, sensorial anthropologists have attempted to bridge the meta-theoretical gap between more evocatively engaged and discursively engaged sensorial description. Here one thinks of Steve Feld's pioneering Sound and Sentiment, or Kathryn Geurts's ethnographically nuanced and theoretically profound Culture and the Senses. Using deep ethnographic insight based upon long-term fieldwork, these authors demonstrate how a sensorial approach to anthropology leads us much closer to the ever-elusive “native's point of view.”

John Holtzman's brilliantly rendered Uncertain Tastes fits into this rare category of works. Based upon long-term fieldwork, his descriptions of Samburu social life are nuanced and sensitive. Rather than taking an external theoretical frame to make sense of Samburu social change, ethos, and memory, Holtzman succeeds in his attempt to understand Samburu conceptions of social change and memory from their perspective, which means the perspective of food preferences, food availability, and food consumption. Along this textual path the reader can feasts upon multifaceted takes, from a decidedly Samburu perspective, on gender, aging, social change, sensuousness, and memory. The result is a major contribution to sensorial anthropology, the anthropology of memory, and to African studies. Given constraints of space, this review cannot adequately explore the profound ethnographic and conceptual richness of this work, which will be read and debated for many years to come.