This thesis examines the experiential values of food festivals in Wales and assesses how successful they are in promoting local food. The aim of the research was to identify the multiple dimensions that constitute food festival experience and to develop a model to measure how these factors affected the behavioural intentions of visitors, in terms of their loyalty towards the event and the local food available at the event. In addition, the same model was used to examine how customers remembered their experience over time and whether the actual behaviour they adopted reflected their original intentions.

The main objective of this study was to develop the understanding of the optimum mixing conditions in chocolate. An important aspect of chocolate production is the assessment of the agglomerates in the mixture, formed by the ingredients of chocolate during the grinding stage and broken down to an extent, during conching. In order to assess agglomerate breakdown during mixing, a simplified chocolate was subjected to a variety of procedures. Mixing experiments took place in an apparatus known as the Reciprocating Multihole Extruder (RME). The RME consists of a cylindrical chamber, within which a die plate can oscillate and rotate through the material. Industrial chocolate was subjected to extrusion at different temperatures, in order to establish the effect of the mixing process and the range of temperatures within which the extruder could operate. The behaviour of the material at the lower temperature spectrum was found to relate to the process known as cold extrusion. Laboratory made model chocolate was subjected to reciprocating and capillary extrusion at different temperatures and analysed Theologically. The purpose was to assess the effect of extrusion on the rheological profile of the chocolate. It was established that the average viscosity was lower in chocolate that had been extruded at 25 °C, indicating that agglomerate breakdown took place more effectively where the material was extruded at a solid state. The results were compared to those of model chocolate subjected to mixing in an apparatus known as the Speed Mixer. The Speed Mixer was found to be a more effective method for agglomerate breakdown than extrusion. The size of the particles and agglomerates in chocolate during the various phases of conching was assessed with the help of particle size analysis. It was established that the early stages of the process are the most effective, as far as the breakdown of the agglomerates to their component particles is concerned. The experiments highlighted the difficulty in obtaining valid conclusions about agglomerate breakdown in a complex material such as chocolate. Agglomerate behaviour was usually extrapolated from related results, such as viscosity. In an attempt to draw more definite conclusions, a study of agglomerate behaviour under well defined stress conditions was evaluated, using characterised agglomerates in simple fluids. The system used sugar- based agglomerates in a sugar matrix, suspended in cocoa butter. The project had two main objectives. One was to assess the shape, size and strength of the agglomerates. The other was to study their level of breakdown when subjected to a mixing process similar to chocolate. The strength of the agglomerates was measured in two ways: Diametrical compaction and die pressing. The results of the two methods were not analogous, a possibility that has been established by past studies. The agglomerate and cocoa butter suspension was mixed in the RME, as well as with conventional extrusion of individual agglomerates and speed mixing and the extent of breakdown was investigated. The agglomerates were subjected to image analysis and four parameters of size (area, aspect ratio, roundness and equivalent diameter) were measured and analysed statistically before and after mixing. Area was found to be positively correlated to equivalent diameter, while roundness was positively correlated to aspect ratio. Despite its important role in chocolate mixing, temperature did not have a significant effect on agglomerate breakdown.

The purpose of this contextualising research is to examine the geme of food memoirs and to trace my literary journey as a food memoirist. This study focuses on what has influenced the development of The Baker's Daughter, as well as the impact of my publisher's involvement at a later stage of the writing. It offers a context for my work and its development, a reflection on my own process, and contributes to debates about the nature of food memoir; I explore the practical issues that arose when writing my memoir that I hope other authors will find useful. In Chapter One I examine the cultural significance of food books, including food memoirs and cookbooks. I define memoir and food memoir, including the various sub gemes. This is in order to establish where The Baker's Daughter and my chosen texts fit within the food memoir geme. Chapter Two is an exploration of childhood in my selected family food memoirs. I explore the key themes and narrative techniques and how they influenced my own decisions about my craft. In Chapter Three I focus on the criteria for the inclusion and positioning of recipes in The Baker's Daughter and my chosen texts. I pay special attention to how my selected writers weave recipes within the prose, at the end of their chapters and in separate sections. Chapter Four explores the involvement of a publisher for The Baker's Daughter. I look at the rationale for adapting my PhD material into both a cookbook and standalone ebook memoir and I analyse the differences between the genres. I discuss the inclusion of baker's tips within The Baker's Daughter. I also explore the tensions between the publisher's interest in my work as a nostalgia memoir and their emphasis on authenticity.

This feminist study adopts fractured foundationalism to explore the micro-politics of gendered relationships examining the day-to-day lives of ordinary men and women undertaking grocery shopping. The literature review focuses on the key theories underpinning leisure and shopping, their similarities and interrelationships. Beginning with the leisure literature and its attempts to define the leisure experiences of individuals and the role of leisure in society, it proceeds to discuss the work of key 'malestream' writers who challenge conservative notions of leisure. The importance of the contribution of feminism as an alternative critique of leisure is acknowledged. After exploring supermarket imagery and outlining contemporary trends in UK grocery retailing, the study considers the domestic realm and tensions between the rationality and hedonism of shopping emphasising the gendered frameworks which structure grocery shopping activities. The methodology moves from a functional approach through content analysis and focus groups to the use of diaries, calendars and interviews located within a feminist framework. Content analysis of advertisements of UK grocery retailers and consumer interpretations of promotional messages provide insight into retailers' images of customers and consumer reactions to these. Discussions of grocery shopping through focus groups demonstrated a leisure dimension to grocery shopping. The diaries, calendars and interviews illuminate attitudes and behaviour to grocery shopping, describing who does the shopping, visit frequency, preferred shopping days and the influence of store location. Participants perceive grocery shopping as both work and leisure but located grocery shopping within the wider discourse of leisure. It emerges that the cultural frameworks, which give context to grocery shopping, are significantly shaped in childhood experiences, which reinforce gender issues. The women in this study defined themselves through idealised role images - a perception not echoed by the male participants. The thesis supports the inclusion of grocery shopping in the discourse on gender, power and leisure, illustrating the contribution of feminist methodology to understanding cultural meanings of grocery shopping in the fabric of the everyday lives of ordinary men and women.

This thesis addresses the challenge of computing food preparation context in the kitchen. The automatic recognition of fine-grained human activities and food ingredients is realized through pervasive sensing which we achieve by instrumenting kitchen objects such as knives, spoons, and chopping boards with sensors. Context recognition in the kitchen lies at the heart of a broad range of real-world applications. In particular, activity and food ingredient recognition in the kitchen is an essential component for situated services such as automatic prompting services for cognitively impaired kitchen users and digital situated support for healthier eating interventions. Previous works, however, have addressed the activity recognition problem by exploring high-level-human activities using wearable sensing (i.e. worn sensors on human body) or using technologies that raise privacy concerns (i.e. computer vision). Although such approaches have yielded significant results for a number of activity recognition problems, they are not applicable to our domain of investigation, for which we argue that the technology itself must be genuinely “invisible”, thereby allowing users to perform their activities in a completely natural manner. In this thesis we describe the development of pervasive sensing technologies and algorithms for finegrained human activity and food ingredient recognition in the kitchen. After reviewing previous work on food and activity recognition we present three systems that constitute increasingly sophisticated approaches to the challenge of kitchen context recognition. Two of these systems, Slice&Dice and Classbased Threshold Dynamic Time Warping (CBT-DTW), recognize fine-grained food preparation activities. Slice&Dice is a proof-of-concept application, whereas CBT-DTW is a real-time application that also addresses the problem of recognising unknown activities. The final system, KitchenSense is a real-time context recognition framework that deals with the recognition of a more complex set of activities, and includes the recognition of food ingredients and events in the kitchen. For each system, we describe the prototyping of pervasive sensing technologies, algorithms, as well as real-world experiments and empirical evaluations that validate the proposed solutions.

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A systematic study on extraction of Hibiscus sabdariffa was carried out for the first time using different solvents (water, methanol, ethyl acetate and hexane) in the presence and absence of formic acid, using different extraction times and temperatures. The extracts were analysed for total phenol content, antioxidant capacity using DPPH, FRAP and TEAC assays, and total monomeric anthocyanin content. In addition, specific anthocyanins were determined using HPLC and LC-MS. The results showed the highest antioxidant capacities were obtained by extracting using water, with or without formic acid, for 10 min at 100 °C. These extracts provided the highest concentrations of cyanidin 3-sambubioside and delphinidin 3-sambubioside. Commercially available herbal teas containing H. sabdariffa were analysed. The study found that contents of total phenols, anthocyanins and antioxidant capacity were higher when using the optimal extraction procedure, suggesting that putative health benefits could be increased by altering processing methods. The partition coefficients (log p) of anthocyanins found in H. sabdariffa, were measured showed that aglycone and glucoside forms of hibiscus anthocyanins behave differently when in the presence of cell wall material. Such behaviour could, in vivo, affect the absorption and bioactivity of these anthocyanins, and therefore, their efficacy. A human crossover study investigated the effect of daily consumption for 8 weeks of a H. sabdariffa juice for 8 weeks on the blood pressure of healthy subjects (n= 29). Cranberry juice was used as the control. A significant reduction was found in systolic blood pressure (but not diastolic) compared to the baseline. No significant effect on blood pressure was seen with cranberry juice. The study suggests that regular consumption of extracts of H. sabdariffa may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, on the other hand people with low blood pressure should consumed it very carefully due to hypotensive effect of the extract.

Mounting concerns require a solution to a worsening problem of chewing gum litter. Existing methods of removal are costly and ineffective. One solution requires the modification of chewing gum by the incorporation of amphiphilic graft copolymers. The synthesis of amphiphilic graft copolymers, their incorporation into chewing gum compositions, analysis of such compositions and results from trials testing ch€wing gum removability are described. Modified samples, incorporating an amphiphilic graft copolymer (REV -7) were found to be much easier to remove than -control samples.

Heston Blumenthal's work as a chef has involved the use of scientific and historical knowledges, technologies and discourses. This research establishes Blumenthal's status as a performance artist and the performativity of his food, the former through the performances around and through his food, the latter through the performativity of the food '/ object and the deconstruction of the ideologies and practices of consumption. Through examining his work in his restaurants and television series, I argue that Blumenthal engages in performance practice through his work with food, utilising approaches from performance to create gastronomic events. I examine Blumenthal's cuisine through the frameworks of performativity and phenomenology, by means of writing and practice-as-research. The research starts with introductions to Blumenthal, performativity and phenomenology, before outlining a historical context. This history contextualises Blumenthal in terms of twentieth and twentyfirst century performance practice, as well as introducing some of the philosophical and theoretical approaches to food appropriate to his gastronomy. The research is then split into three conceptual temporalities, which operate as a tool for examining the experience of Blumenthal's food in detail, from a phenomenological perspective. The research addresses the immediate, primal perception of food, its textualisation and the retrospective reflection employed to make sense of the food events. My own performance practice works through and reflects on some of the issues raised by the writing. The practice is documented in the appendices and reflected on within the appropriate chapter. As a complementary mode of knowledge, the practice explores particular ideas raised by the three temporalities: the individualisation of the body in immediate perception; the preparation for a meal as a mode of textualisation, written onto and informing the perception of the food; and the narrativisation of the food event, drawing out how the event is understood and its components ordered into a logic or aesthetic. The research is an exploration of Blumenthal's cuisine in particular, as well as raising issues of the use of food and sensuality in performance.