Xu Wangsheng

Food for the People--Chinese Food Culture

Chinese food is well known in the world, and the most common industry operated by overseas Chinese and foreigners of Chinese descent to earn a living overseas is the catering industry. Chinese restaurants should be found wherever there are Chinese people, and Chinese food can be said to be the "food" of the world. This phenomenon was keenly observed as early as the beginning of this century by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of the revolution. Dr. Sun Yat-sen said in his book "Strategies for the Establishment of the State": "The evolution of modern civilization in China has lagged behind others in everything, except for the progress of food, which is still inferior to that of other countries." Dr. Sun Yat-sen's statement is very correct, and in fact, as Dr. Sun Yat-sen said, the Chinese civilization in modern times, by the impact of Western civilization in pieces, all people with knowledge of the pulse of the disease. However, Chinese restaurants are very different, actually able to land in Europe and the United States, all over the world, invincible, so far almost every corner of the world have Chinese restaurants. This strong contrast has attracted the attention of academics, but there is not a more convincing explanation. We believe that the spread of Chinese restaurants around the world is not an isolated and accidental phenomenon, and that the reasons for this are inextricably linked to Chinese food culture. Therefore, exploring certain characteristics of Chinese food culture will help us to explain this phenomenon.

When it comes to Chinese food culture, many people will praise Chinese recipes as well as the color, aroma, taste and shape of Chinese food. But if we want to explore food culture from a comparative perspective, an actionable approach is to grasp the essence of Chinese food culture. There is no identification without comparison. The author here believes that a more feasible approach is to start from the perspective of dietary lifestyle when discussing Chinese food culture. In fact, Chinese food culture actually refers to the dietary lifestyle of Chinese people. And in order to talk about Chinese food culture, Chinese culture must be involved, and the two are extremely closely related. Therefore, it is necessary for us to first elaborate on certain characteristics of Chinese culture.

What kind of culture is Chinese culture? It is necessary to understand the geography of early Chinese culture, because the earlier it was, the more the culture was constrained by the environment. China is located in the southeastern part of the Asian continent, with vast deserts, grasslands and the Gobi to the northwest and a vast ocean to the southeast. Although the land in the Yellow River Valley, the main hotbed of Chinese culture, was fertile, the rest of the environment was harsh, windy and rainy, and the conditions for survival were not good. After the emergence of civilization, the culture at that time was characterized by a strong sense of realism, with a strong ethical and moral dimension. This is because a society needs moderation and less desire, and when a society needs something, it is often when it lacks something. Chinese culture has been characterized by precocity from the very beginning. Marx once argued that Chinese civilization is a precocious baby, with a markedly advanced character in its development. Western civilization, on the contrary, is quite different. The Greek civilization, which is the childhood of Western culture, is written in the history of civilization with its unique wave of warmth, and Marx once thought that the Greek civilization was a baby with normal development. The soil for the survival of Chinese culture was gradually arid in the process of its development, and gradually became unfavorable for agricultural production. Since the soil and other factors were very unfavorable for agricultural production, the suffering of reality could not produce the romance of culture, and thus Chinese civilization was characterized by its strong morality and abstinence throughout the whole period. During the pre-Qin period, the various schools of thought questioned each other, exhausting their efforts but going in the same direction, with the aim of establishing an ideal world free from strife. But this is only an ideal. At the time of the Warring States period, the powers were in strife, and compared with each other in terms of strength. In the end, Qin unified the world by encouraging military service and rewarding cultivation and warfare, which was what the people wanted. It is also the choice of history as to how the people should live when the world is in strife. Only by unifying the world will there be no "a few kings and a few emperors." (Cao Cao's words) (Cao Cao's words)

In the pre-Qin period, China's southern state of Chu was also once exuding romanticism, but was soon overwhelmed by the realism of the north, after the Qin Shi Huang united China, the book with the same text, the history of the future is the history of the son of heaven unification. In order to maintain this unity, China's feudal society allowed the king to have supreme authority, but at the same time gave him a lot of feudal etiquette for constraints; China had the world's first fair civil service system for the selection of government officials - the imperial examination system; China's history called for the Qing officials, and once they appeared, they would be sung and worshipped. So although China does not have a religion in the strict sense, some of its features are similar to those of religion and it has its own gods; if this phenomenon is also regarded as a religion, then the Chinese style of religion is extreme idealism in the sense of reality. The extreme idealism of Chinese history is also due to this, and it has its own gods, only that the gods it creates are incarnated in real people, and it is impossible for real people to act as ideal gods, so the movement of creating gods has been endless in Chinese history up to the present day. Or the Chinese religion is a kind of multi-god worship rather than one-god worship, what the god of wealth, the god of medicine, the god of the stove, the god of Mazu, etc., are regarded as gods and worshipped. Chinese culture also has two other characteristics: one is the absolute pursuit of applicability and the elimination of all impractical things. From the history of Chinese science and technology, we can see that, historically, all practical technology is very developed, such as agricultural science and technology and medicine are very developed, while some non-practical things cannot be developed. The knowledge of optics and geometry of the Mohists in the pre-Qin period did not continue to be developed after the Han Dynasty, when Confucianism was the only religion practiced in China. China did not produce basic disciplines such as physics, chemistry and biology. Of course, alchemy was developed in the emperor's quest for immortality, which did include knowledge of chemistry. China's handicrafts were very well developed, while modern machine-based industrial production, such as the steam engine, was not invented in China. Before the fifteenth century, the vast majority of the world's inventions were produced in Chinese hands, but modern science, which required a series of experimental means to produce after the modern era, failed to be produced in China: Chinese culture exhibits the characteristic trait of benevolence. At the core of Confucius' thought is the idea that "the benevolent loves others," and because of this benevolence, the Chinese practiced a system of multiple inheritance, which on the one hand allowed for the dispersal of property, and on the other hand limited long-distance migration, which was a major factor in the Chinese settling in their homeland. This system of inheritance limited the development of commerce, which led to the creation of the idea of multiple births, which led to an increase in the population of the society, giving rise to more multiple births and more multiple births, and the pressure of the population of the society was always there, as long as the productivity of the society was able to support as many people as it could, and as many people as it could.

The many characteristics of Chinese food culture, embodied in the food culture, directly affects the development of Chinese food culture. First of all, because of population pressure and the existence of a variety of other reasons, so the Chinese diet from the pre-Qin Dynasty onwards, is based on grains, meat less grain, supplemented by vegetables and vegetables, which is the typical structure of the meal. This is the typical structure of rice and vegetables. Rice is the staple food, while vegetables are for the purpose of rice, i.e., to help rice go down the throat. Why do we need to help the rice go down the throat? That is because the main food is not palatable and there must be a substance to assist it so that people can eat it. Of course, the function of vegetables and the function of salt have **** the same point, but not the same as salt. This prompted the primary purpose of Chinese cooking is to decorate the diet, so that the unpalatable food becomes exquisite; secondly, because of the Chinese culture to pursue the shirt, the development of Chinese handicrafts, so cooking in the diet processing technology in the world is second to none, reflecting the shirt characteristics of Chinese culture. All these make Chinese food culture have the following characteristics. First, China's cooking technology is developed, many Westerners seem inedible items, after the Chinese chef's labor, so that people see and appetite; Second, the Chinese people's recipes are wide-ranging, where all the food can be eaten, no taboos; Third, China's rescue of the writings of the famine is particularly large, in order to prepare for the year of famine in order to fill up with wild food for the use of famine; Fourth, the Chinese people will be the pursuit of food as the pursuit of the most joyful in life, to eat has become the first Eating has become the first requirement. Since the Chinese people can not eat as they wish, there is a poem to prove it:

The red sun patrols the sky late in the afternoon, the belly of the virtual reality of their own know.

It is not difficult to be full in life, only when the weather is favorable.

So it has long been difficult to eat and dress without worrying, so eating occupies a special place in the life of the Chinese, and the evidence is endless.

In addition, we can analyze certain features of Western food culture that may deepen our understanding of Chinese food culture. The Western diet, because initially it was mainly based on animal husbandry, meat has always been a high proportion of the diet hear, in modern times, the proportion of planting increased, but the proportion of meat in the diet is still higher than that of the Chinese. Because of the natural delicious meat, so the westerners do not need to decorate the diet, the natural delicious food limit the development of cooking, Europeans in the show of affluence, more than the diet of the tools to show, such as a variety of utensils of how much and luxury to become the content of the content of the lecture. In addition, they do not eat this kind of life easy to satisfy things as the pursuit of life's most joyful. The pursuit of life in the West, exactly the same Chinese proverb can be highly summarized, that is, "full of ambiguous thinking about lust". They are more in pursuit of love, Western culture reflects a "love culture", while Chinese culture reflects a "culture of eating".

But we should also point out that there are many features of Chinese food that cannot be seen in the daily life of the common people. The palace food and the marketplace food can show these characteristics better and more comprehensively. The festive diets of the common people, such as the Chinese New Year, may be able to show some of these characteristics, but the Chinese New Year is, after all, a fleeting moment in a 365-day year, like a flash in the pan.

Culture is not superior or inferior, and neither is food culture. The difference is simply the way of life or the way of eating under different environmental conditions. But how to understand and analyze this difference is very important. The purpose of this book is an attempt to do so, and it is not clear whether it will be recognized by the majority of readers. In most cases, I belong to the kind of "far from the kitchen", do not know how to cook, and is not a gourmet, but I am aware of "a meal and a porridge when thinking about hard-earned", in this sense, the Chinese food culture of some of my views on the end of the pen, I hope to get the guidance of the Fangjia. I hope to get the guidance of the party.

Reference books:

Food for the People--Chinese Food Culture

A General Introduction to Chinese Food Culture

Miscellaneous Discussions on Chinese Food Culture

The development and prosperity of China's food culture is harmonized with the development of the whole of China's history, and in the case of China's ancient food culture, the development of Chinese food culture is harmonized. Ancient food culture, for example, specifically embodied in from the court to the people from the interior to the frontier, from the princes and nobles to the common people, the food style of the Sheng, elegant arts, fine, strange and so on:

"Eat" prosperity --- cuisine, thousands of kinds of flavors of food and drink snacks, food styles and tastes around the unique and diversified.

"Eat" art --- food, delicious supplemented by the beauty of the tool, the pursuit of harmony and unity of the three, all in one. Seasoning of the lean cuisine of the noble, the meal of the prosperous, culinary skills of the clever, can be said to be unparalleled, unique.

"Eat" of elegance --- the luxury of the Imperial Banquet, the Palace Banquet and sacrificial food rituals of the solemnity of the rituals and etiquette of the strict hierarchy of the various styles of banquets of the atmosphere of elegance.

"Eat" benefits --- the officialdom of the communication of interpersonal relations, the fine way of therapeutic food, the effectiveness of prolonging life, the benefits of the spirit of health, but the function of the disease of hunger.

"Eat" of the strange --- border outside, many ethnic groups, strange customs. Ethnic food art, food style, food flavor, distinctive mood Department of minority cultures of the oddball.

Chinese food culture through the ages, on the one hand, as the famous Qing Dynasty writer, poet, gourmet Yuan Mei, it is a door must be "first and foremost" to master a variety of culinary arts, "the way of learning"; on the other hand, he is also contains food, It is also a "comprehensive art" that contains multiple cultural connotations such as food, beauty and etiquette, food enjoyment and consumption.

I don't know if it's okay, please bear with me!