This special issue, at the intersection of Humour studies, Literary and Cultural Studies, focuses on the themes of food and taste. Several of the articles gathered here pay particular attention to the meanings of bad taste as a socio-political device, and to those of food-related disgust as an element of humour. These questions were previously explored during an international conference on humour and taste at the University of Basel. The diverse contributions brought together in this issue examine some of the many aspects of taste-related humour, from cannibalism to coprophagy, and from satire to irony.