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Food in Chinese CultureAdapted from K.C. Chang, Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977. To say that the consumption of food is a vital part of the
chemical process of life is to state the obvious, but sometimes we
fail to realize that food is more than just vital. The only other
activity that we engage in that is of comparable importance to our
lives and to the life of our species is sex. As Kao Tzu, a Warring
States-period philosopher and keen observer of human nature, said,
"Appetite for food and sex is nature."1 But these two activities are
quite different. We are, I believe, much closer to our animal base
in our sexual endeavors than we are in our eating habits. Too, the
range of variations is infinitely wider in food than in sex. In
fact, the importance of food in understanding human culture lies
precisely in its infinite variability -variability that is not
essential for species survival. For survival needs, all men
everywhere could eat the same food, to be measured only in calories,
fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. But no, people of
different backgrounds eat very differently. The basic stuffs from
which food is prepared; the ways in which it is preserved, cut up,
cooked (if at all); the amount and variety at each meal; the tastes
that are liked and disliked; the customs of serving food; the
utensils; the beliefs about the food's properties -these all vary.
The number of such "food variables" is great. An anthropological approach to the study of food would be to
isolate and identify the food variables, arrange these variables
systematically, and explain why some of these variables go together
or do not go together. For convenience, we may use culture as a divider in
relating food variables' hierarchically. I am using the word
culture here in a classificatory sense implying the pattern or
style of behavior of a group of people who share it. Food habits may
be used as an important, or even determining, criterion in this
connection. People who have the same culture share the same food
habits, that is, they share the same assemblage of food variables.
Peoples of different cultures share different assemblages of food
variables. We might say that different cultures have different food
choices. (The word choices is used here not necessarily in an
active sense, granting the possibility that some choices could be
imposed rather than selected.) Why these choices? What determines
them? These are among the first questions in any study of food
habits. Within the same culture, the food habits are not at all
necessarily homogeneous. In fact, as a rule they are not. Within the
same general food style, there are different manifestations of food
variables of a smaller range, for different social situations.
People of different social classes or occupations eat differently.
People on festive occasions, in mourning, or on a daily routine eat
again differently. Different religious sects have different eating
codes. Men and women, in various stages of their lives, eat
differently. Different individuals have different tastes. Some of
these differences are ones of preference, but others may be
downright prescribed. Identifying these differences, explaining
them, and relating them to other facets of social life are again
among the tasks of a serious scholar of food. Finally, systematically articulated food variables can be laid
out in a time perspective, as in historical periods of varying
lengths. We see how food habits change and seek to explore the
reasons and consequences. . . My own generalizations pertain above all to the question: What
characterizes Chinese food? . . . I see the following common themes:
Starch Staples: millet, rice,
kao-liang, wheat, maize, buckwheat, yam, sweet potato. Chinese cooking is, in this sense, the
manipulation of these foodstuffs as basic ingredients. Since
ingredients are not the same everywhere, Chinese food begins to
assume a local character simply by virtue of the ingredients it
uses. Obviously ingredients are not sufficient for characterization,
but they are a good beginning. Compare, for example, the above list
with one in which dairy products occupy a prominent place, and one
immediately comes upon a significant contrast between the two food
traditions.
One important point about the
distinctive assemblage of ingredients is its change through history.
Concerning food, the Chinese are not nationalistic to the point of
resisting imports. In fact, foreign foodstuffs have been readily
adopted since the dawn of history. Wheat and sheep and goats were
possibly introduced from western Asia in prehistoric times, many
fruits and vegetables came in from central Asia during the Han and
the T'ang periods, and peanuts and sweet potatoes from coastal
traders during the Ming period. These all became integral
ingredients of Chinese food. At the same time,. . . milk and dairy
products, to this date, have not taken a prominent place in Chinese
cuisine. . . .
For the preparation of ts'ai, the use
of multiple ingredients and the mixing of flavors are the rules,
which above all means that ingredients are usually cut up and not
done whole, and that they are variously combined into individual
dishes of vastly differing flavors. Pork for example, may be diced,
slice shredded, or ground, and when combined with other meats and
with various vegetable ingredients and spice produces dishes of
utterly diverge, shapes, flavors, colors, tastes, and aromas. The parallelism of fan and ts'ai an
the above-described principles of ts'ai' preparation account for a
number ( other features of the Chinese food culture, especially in
the area of utensil To begin with, there are fan utensils and ts'ai
utensils, both for cooking an for serving. In the modem kitchen,
fan kuo ("rice cooker") and Ts'ai kuo ("wok") are very
different and as a rule not interchangeable utensils. . . . To
prepare the kind of ts'ai that we have characterized, the chopping
knife or cleaver and the chopping anvil are standard equipment in
every Chines kitchen, ancient and modem. To sweep the cooked grains
into the mouth, and to serve the cut-up morsel of the
meat-and-vegetable dishes chopsticks have proved more service able
than hands or other instrument (such as spoons and forks, the former
being used in China alongside the chopsticks). This complex of
interrelated features of Chinese food may be described, for the
purpose of shorthand reference, as the Chinese fan-ts'ai
principle. Send a Chinese cook into an American kitchen, given
Chinese or American ingredients, and he or she will (a) prepare an
adequate amount of fan, (b) cut up the ingredients and mix them up
in various combinations, and (c) cook the ingredients into several
dishes and, perhaps, a soup. Given the right ingredients, the
"Chineseness" of the meal would increase, but even with entirely
native American ingredients and cooked in American utensils, it is
still a Chinese meal.
This adaptability is shown in at least
two other features. The first is the amazing knowledge the Chinese
have acquired about their wild plant resources. . . . The Chinese
peasants apparently know every edible plant in their environment,
and plants there are many. Most do not ordinarily belong on the
dinner table, but they may be easily adapted for consumption in time
of famine. . . . Here again is this flexibility: A smaller number of
familiar foodstuffs are used ordinarily, but, if needed, a greater
variety of wild plants would be made use of. The knowledge of these
"famine plants" was carefully handed down as a living culture
-apparently this knowledge was not placed in dead storage too long
or too often. Another feature of Chinese food habits
that contributed to their notable adaptability is the large number
and great variety of preserved foods. . . . Food is preserved by
smoking, salting, sugaring, steeping, pickling, drying, soaking in
many kinds of soy sauces, and so forth, and the whole range of
foodstuffs is involved-grains, meat, fruit, eggs, vegetables, and
everything else. Again, with preserved food, the Chinese people were
ever ready in the event of hardship or scarcity.
The regulation of diet as a disease
preventive or cure is certainly as Western as it is Chinese. Common
Western examples are the diet for arthritics and the recent organic
food craze. But the Chinese case is distinctive for its underlying
principles. The bodily functions, in the Chinese view, follow the
basic yin-yang principles. Many foods are also classifiable
into those that possess the yin quality and those of the
yang quality. When yin and yang forces in the body
are not balanced, problems result. Proper amounts of food of one
kind or the other may then be administered (i.e., eaten) to
counterbalance the yin and yang disequilibrium. If the body is
normal, overeating of one kind of food would result in an excess of
that force in the body, causing diseases. . . .
At least two other concepts belong to
the native Chinese food tradition. One is that, in consuming a meal,
appropriate amounts of both fan and ts'ai should be taken. In fact,
of the two, fan is the more fundamental and indispensable. . . . The
other concept is frugality. Overindulgence in food and drink is a
sin of such proportions that dynasties could fall on its account. .
. . Although both the fants'ai and the frugality considerations are
health based, at least in part they are related to China's
traditional poverty in food resources.
The importance of the kitchen in the
king's palace is amply shown in the personnel roster recorded in
Chou li. Out of the almost four thousand persons who had the
responsibility of running the king's residential quarters, 2,271, or
almost 60 percent, of them handled food and wine. What these specialists tended to were not just the king's palate pleasures: eating was also very serious business. In I li, the book that describes various ceremonies, food cannot be separated from ritual. . . . [In] Chou texts [12th century B.C.-221 B.C.] references were made of the use of the ting cauldron, a cooking vessel, as the prime symbol of the state. I cannot feel more confident to say that the ancient Chinese were among the peoples of the world who have been particularly preoccupied with food and eating. Furthermore, as Jacques Gernet has stated, "there is no doubt that in this sphere China has shown a greater inventiveness than any other civilization."2
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