Decoding digital gastronomy: a hybrid analysis of theories and trends for future research

Digital gastronomy (DG) has attracted significant scholarly interest for its potential to revolutionize culinary arts by integrating computational tools into traditional kitchens, enhancing the cooking and dining experience. However, existing literature reviews often have limited by either scope or methodology, focusing on specific domains or relying solely on qualitative research. This creates an opportunity for a comprehensive synthesis of existing literature and proposing future research directions. This study systematically investigates DG literature from the past two decades using a hybrid approach, including bibliometric analysis, Structural Topic Modeling (STM), and the TCCM (Theories, Content, Characteristics, and Methodology) framework. Bibliometric analysis examines trends, while STM identifies dominant research themes in DG literature and analyzes their evolution. The TCCM framework identifies pertinent theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodologies in the DG domain. This research highlights significance of DG by elucidating evolutionary trends, emerging themes, and theories, offering potential suggestions for future research directions.