Beef in China: A History in Eight Dishes (original) (raw)

STANO, S. (2019) “The Aesthetics of Food: Chinese Cuisine(s) between the East and the West”

The Fountain and the Waterfall (ed. M. Leone, B. Surace, J. Zeng), pp. 277-301, 2019

Chinese cuisine is known and especially praised for the attention it pays to every aspect of food, “from its palatableness to its texture, and from its fragrance to its colourfulness; until, as in other works of art, proportion and balance are instilled in every dish” (Feng, 1966 [1952]). Within its huge variety — including gastronomic traditions originating from various regions of China, as well as from Chinese people living in other countries —, in fact, such a cuisine strongly emphasises the aesthetic dimension of food, in relation to both its preparation and consumption. This acquires further importance if we consider the extensive spread of Chinese food around the world and its consequent hybridisation with other foodspheres, including Western gastronomic traditions. This paper explores the aesthetic values associated with Chinese culinary arts by making reference to existing literature on Chinese food cultures and analysing some relevant case studies, especially in relation to the collective imaginary of Chinese cuisine between the East and the West. In the conclusion, a more general reflection concerning the philosophical and semiotic discussion on taste and its judgement is provided.

Anthropology of Chinese Foodways

Modern China Series，North American Business Press, 2019

Food is an important aspect of social culture and has a close relationship with economic development. The Chinese food culture has the characteristics of inheritability and development, and throughout the history of Chinese food culture, it has maintained its momentum of development since its primitive society. Neither the change of dynasty nor the change of social system has had a profound influence on it, and the philosophy of supplying enough food to people and food being the top priority was very popular. Eating was a top priority for people in China. Long ago, Confucius said that the desire for food and sex is part of human nature. As such, in the Chinese culture food became the priority. Because of the attention to diet, Chinese people would, when they had leisure time or abundant raw materials, work out a variety of food. Chinese cooking is flexible, which is characterized by saying that there is no fixed taste and what is delicious is valued. The beauty of food is one of the important roots of Chinese aesthetics, which inspires people with the stimulation of eating. Triggering art inspiration is the inevitable result of Chinese food culture pursuing complete and beautiful color, fragrance, taste, shape, and utensils. It makes food culture a comprehensive art containing multiple cultural connotations of diet, diet mentality, beautiful utensils and etiquette, food enjoyment and eating. Chinese foods have not only exquisite craftsmanship and rich nutrition, but also elegant and graceful names, which are literary and romantic, poetic and fancy. Food functions to not only satiate people’s hunger; it has also become an integral aspect of life enjoyment, which represents an essential component of food anthropology. Food anthropologists stress that changes in people’s eating habits not only depend on the local food culture, which may be specific to a given region, but also varies with economic development in different regions. Food anthropology, as a sub branch of applied anthropology, adapts anthropological theories and methods to study food industry, food culture, food consumption and food commerce. Seminal work in this regard has been provided by scholars and consultants in the field of food anthropology. This book describes the anthropological studies on Chinese foodways, outlines the Chinese food anthropology basic theories and methods. Anthropology in China is still at its development stage in China, while food anthropology is just at its initial stages of development. Nevertheless, China’s economic and social development, especially in ethnic minority regions in Western China, needs the theoretical guidance of some disciplines, including food anthropology, economic anthropology and business anthropology. At the same time, it has provided opportunities to develop food anthropology with the Chinese characteristics. Therefore, when Chinese scholars are learning and adopting Western food anthropology theories and methodologies, they must innovate and develop the related theories and methodologies with Chinese characteristics, so that they can better serve the well-off of the entire society.

DuBois BEEF IN EIGHT DISHES.docx

This paper is a chapter in a forthcoming history of food in China, and aims to link the coeval transformations of production and cuisine. It traces the history of beef through eight iconic dishes, each of which embodies a unique moment in a six-century transformation of production, taste, and social meaning. Would be very grateful for any comments to help improve the final version!

FOOD CULTURE IN CHINA: FROM SOCIAL POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

Based on anthropological theory on food, this research gives a brief discussion on the development direction of food civilization, analyzes the facts that people's diet activities and eating behaviors, in the ancient Chinese society centering on the state political power, were controlled or influenced by the political ideology. It also probes the relationship between food culture and social-political traditions. Taking 'tables' and 'banquets' as the subjects, the paper introduces haute cuisine, everyday food and national dishes from the social stratification of diet. It proposes that the development of Chinese food has been influenced by the ritualized privilege system, noble traditions and application of ancient science and technology invention of cooking. It responds to Gernet's idea of poverty stress and Kwang-Chih Chang's idea of ethos. Through the power symbols of Chinese banquet culture, a banquet level analysis model is presented to pave a path for further empirical study.