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猫脸老太Adapted from K.C. Chang, Food in Chine Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977. Reprinted with permission from Yale University Press.
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 x. As Kao Tzu, a Warring States-period philosopher and keen obrver of human nature, said, "Appetite for food and x is nature."1 But the two activities are quite different. We are, I believe, much clor to our animal ba in our xual endeavors than we are in our eating habits. Too, the range of variations is infinitely wider in food than in x. In fact, the importance of food in understanding human culture lies precily in its infinite variability -variability that is not esntial 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 prerved, c
ut up, cooked (if at all); the amount and variety at each meal; the tastes that are liked and disliked; the customs of rving food; the utensils; the beliefs about the food's properties -the 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 the variables systematically, and explain why some of the variables go together or do not go together.
For convenience, we may u culture as a divider in relating food variables' hierarchically. I am using the word culture here in a classificatory n implying the pattern or style of behavior of a group of people who share it. Food habits may be ud 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 asmblage of food variables. Peoples of different cultures share different asmblages of food variables. We might say that different cultures have different food choices. (The word choice is ud here not necessarily in an active n, granting the possibility that some choices could be impos
ed rather than lected.) Why the choices? What determines them? The 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 class or occupations eat differently. People on festive occasions, in mourning, or on a daily routine eat again differently. Different religious cts have different eating codes. Men and women, in various stages of their lives, eat differently. Different individuals have different tastes. Some of the differences are ones of preference, but others may be downright prescribed. Identifying the differences, explaining them, and relating them to other facets of social life are again among the tasks of a rious scholar of food.
Finally, systematically articulated food variables can be laid out in a time perspective, as in historical periods of varying lengths. We e how food habits change and ek to explore the reasons and conquences. . .
My own generalizations pertain above all to the question: What characterizes Chine food? I e the following common themes:
The food style of a culture is certainly first of all determined by the natural resources that are available for its u. It is thus not surprising that Chine food is above all characterized by an asmblage of plants and animals that grew prosperously in the Chine land for a long time. A detailed list would be out of place here, and quantitative data are not available. The following enumeration is highly impressionistic:
小麦种Starch Staples: millet, rice, kao-liang, wheat, maize, buckwheat, yam, sweet potato.
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Legumes: soybean, broad bean, pea- nut, mung bean.
Vegetables: malva, amaranth, Chi- ne cabbage, mustard green, turnip, radish, mushroom.沙漠掘金
Fruits: peach, apricot, plum, apple, jujube date, pear, crab apple, mountain haw, longan, litchi, orange.
Meats: pork, dog, beef, mutton, venison, chicken, duck, goo, pheasant, many fishes.微信转账要收手续费吗
Spices: red pepper, ginger, garlic, spring onion, cinnamon.联通话费查询余额
Chine cooking is, in this n, the manipulation of the foodstuffs as basic ingredients. Since ingredients are not the same everywhere, Chine food begins to assume a local character simply by virtue of the ingredients it us. 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.
