First, the difference of dietary concept

Diet is the most basic activity of human beings, but if the problem is raised to the level of why and how to eat, it will be embodied as a kind of consciousness or concept. There are obvious differences between China and the West in the concept of diet.

The West is a rational and scientific diet concept. They emphasize the nutritional value of diet, pay attention to the amount of protein, fat, calories and vitamins contained in food, and do not pursue the perfection of color, fragrance, taste and shape of food. Even if the taste is the same, or even the same as chewing wax, they will follow the rational warning and eat it because it is nutritious. Westerners eat nutrition. They rarely or hardly associate diet with spiritual enjoyment. It reflects a strong practical and utilitarian purpose in diet.

Diet is only a means of survival to satisfy hunger, but it adopts a more scientific, standardized and reasonable way. Influenced by the receptive way of thinking, western diet pays more attention to science, especially after the emergence of modern nutritional analysis science, which encourages their inherent rational analysis tendency in diet, causing them to pay more attention to the combination of nutritional components in diet collocation and ration diet according to the specific situation of human body. For example, their primary and secondary schools are equipped with nutritionists to ensure adequate and balanced nutrition for teenagers. This scientific and rational diet concept is worth learning from Chinese food. But at the same time, this makes western food greatly limited in materials. For example, westerners don't eat animal offal and everything they think has no nutritional value. At the same time, it also appears mechanical and inflexible in cooking skills. Steak is steak, chicken is chicken, and all kinds of vegetables will never be mixed, nor will they change many tricks. If you want to talk about grades, you must distinguish them by the collocation of tableware, environment and raw materials of dishes in shape and color. This mechanical nature of western food is something we have to overcome. In a word, western diets use absolute rationality to regulate people's behavior, and use "science" and "nutrition" to exclude delicious food that can bring people pleasure. Although it can meet physiological needs, it can't make people get spiritual pleasure from it, which is a fly in the ointment, while Chinese food is just the opposite.

China people's diet emphasizes sensibility and artistry, and pursues the taste of food, but ignores the nutritional components of food. They evaluate the quality of food from the aspects of "color, fragrance, taste, shape and container", and pursue an indescribable artistic conception. Simply put, people in China eat taste. Taste is the charm of China's diet. The purpose of China people's diet is not only to satisfy their hunger, but also to satisfy their desire for delicious food and bring them physical and mental pleasure.

In China cooking, many kinds of raw materials are often blended together, which makes them almost lose their own true colors, but produce a new and complete delicacy. For example, the famous Fujian dish "Buddha jumps over the wall" contains chicken, duck, pig's trotters, scallops, abalone, sea cucumber, pork belly, shark's fin and other main ingredients, as well as several auxiliary materials. From this dish, you can no longer eat the original flavor of each dish, but taste a delicious food. In this way, the personality of the finished product is completely buried, but the whole product is brilliant, which is in line with the China people's golden mean of belittling personality, stressing average and emphasizing harmony. The sensibility of China's diet makes it full of imagination and creativity and tends to be artistic, which is a free realm beyond necessity, and its biggest feature is randomness. The same dish can be handled differently due to different regions, seasons, objects and grades. In the use of raw materials, it can turn decay into magic, chicken feet into "chicken feet" and fish heads into "casserole stewed fish heads". In terms of production techniques, it is a delicious dish at your fingertips. China's diet is only an empirical fuzzy grasp of nutrition science. Like a banquet, there must be all kinds of meat dishes and vegetables. The reason is very simple, meat is easy to get bored, and there must be light and refreshing dishes to neutralize it. There is no rational analysis and logical judgment here, just an experience and a custom. This is also the deficiency of China's diet. China's diet overemphasizes the sense of taste and the spiritual enjoyment of dining, and ignores the nutritional analysis and reasonable collocation of nutrition, which is one-sided. The western diet pays attention to scientific analysis and nutrition. Although it is mechanical, it is fundamentally positive for maintaining the healthy development of the human body. Therefore, in its development, Chinese food should learn from the "scientific" concept of western food, learn from each other's strong points and make it more perfect.

Compared with China's diet which pays attention to "taste", the west is a rational diet concept. Regardless of the color, fragrance, taste and shape of food, nutrition must be guaranteed, and how many calories, vitamins, protein and so on should be taken in a day. Even if the taste is the same, you must eat it-it is nutritious. This concept of diet is compatible with the whole western philosophy system. Metaphysics is the main feature of western philosophy. The research object of western philosophy is the reason of things, and the reason of things is often metaphysical, which is coherent with each other and forms metaphysical philosophy. This philosophy has brought vitality to western culture and made it develop by leaps and bounds in natural science, psychology and methodology. But in other aspects, this philosophical proposition has greatly hindered, such as food culture. At the banquet, you can pay attention to tableware, materials, service and the collocation of raw materials in shape and color. But no matter how luxurious and upscale, from L.A. to new york, steaks have only one flavor, and there is no art at all. As a dish, chicken is chicken, and steak is steak. Even if there is a match, it is done in the plate. A plate of "French lamb chops" is served with mashed potatoes, lean against the lamb chops, boiled green beans and a few slices of tomatoes on the other side. The colors are in sharp contrast, but the various raw materials are irrelevant and harmonious in taste, each with its own flavor, which is simple and clear.

China people attach great importance to "eating". The proverb "Food is the sky for the people" shows that we regard eating as important as the sky. Because our nation has been at a low level of productivity for thousands of years, people are always hungry, so there is a unique diet culture that puts food above everything else. I think this is probably due to a need for survival. If a culture regards eating as the first thing, then there will be two phenomena: on the one hand, it will play its function to the extreme, not only to maintain survival, but also to use it to maintain health, which is the cultural basis of "medicine tonic is not as good as food tonic"; On the other hand, paying too much attention to food will make people admire the pursuit of delicious food.

In China's cooking, the pursuit of delicacy is almost to the extreme, so that China people make a living overseas by opening restaurants, which has become the foundation for us to settle down all over the world! Unfortunately, when we take the pursuit of delicacy as the first requirement, we ignore the most fundamental nutritional value of food. Many of our traditional foods have to be fried in hot oil and stewed with slow fire for a long time, so that the nutritional components of dishes are destroyed and many of them are lost in the processing. So when it comes to nutrition, it actually touches the biggest weakness of China's food culture. There is a folk saying: "Food is the most important thing for the people, and taste is the first thing to eat". It is this pursuit of delicious food that makes us ignore the true meaning of eating.

When people in China taste dishes, they often say that this dish is delicious and that dish is not delicious. However, if you want to further ask what is "delicious", why "delicious" and where "delicious" is, I am afraid it is not easy to make it clear. This shows that China people's pursuit of food is an indescribable "artistic conception", that is, it is still difficult to cover this "realm" by using what people usually call "color, fragrance, taste, shape and container".

The key to China's unique charm lies in its taste. The production of delicious food lies in harmony, so that the original taste of food, the cooked taste after heating, the taste of ingredients and auxiliary materials, and the harmonious taste of seasonings are intertwined and coordinated, so that they complement each other, help each other penetrate and blend together. The harmonious beauty of China's cooking is the essence of China's cooking art. The shape and color of dishes are external things, while the taste is internal things. It is the most important manifestation of China's aesthetic diet view that it pays attention to the interior without deliberately modifying the appearance and the taste of dishes without excessively revealing the shape and color of dishes.

In China, the pursuit of beauty in diet obviously overwhelms rationality, which is also consistent with China's traditional philosophy. As a representative of oriental philosophy, China's philosophy is characterized by its macroscopic, intuitive, vague and unpredictable features. The method of making Chinese food is reconciliation, and ultimately it is to reconcile a beautiful taste. This emphasis is on discretion, that is, overall cooperation. It contains the rich dialectics of China's philosophy. Everything is based on the beauty and harmony of food. The variety within the range determines the richness and variety of Chinese food, and determines the characteristics of Chinese cuisine and even the characteristics of every chef.

Second, the differences between Chinese and Western dietary contents

Dietary contents are the question of what to eat, and the differences on this issue are rooted in the differences of cultural backgrounds of various ethnic groups. Westerners eat more meat dishes and pay more attention to the intake of animal protein and fat. In their diet structure, most of them are animal dishes, mainly beef, chicken, pork, mutton and fish. This is related to the nomadic and maritime national culture in the west. Sailing and nomadic people take fishing, hunting and breeding as their main activities, supplemented by planting, which determines that their main source of diet is animals. Not only diet, but also the needs of many other aspects of life are taken from animals. China people are influenced by agricultural civilization. In their traditional diet structure, the staple food is grains, supplemented by vegetables and a small amount of meat, and plant dishes are dominant. We usually call them "vegetarian dishes", and meat dishes are usually added only during the New Year's Festival. This eating habit is deeply influenced by Buddhist culture, which makes it more obvious. Buddhism believes that animals are "creatures", and creatures cannot be killed, let alone eaten. The idea of "forbidding killing and releasing" advocated by Buddhists is consistent with the Confucian view of "benevolence and benevolence". In addition, Taoism also refrains from eating fish and meat, which makes vegetarianism popular in China. At the same time, it also promotes the development of cultivation and cooking technology of fruits and vegetables, especially the development of bean products technology.

However, with the improvement of living standard and the popularization of nutrition concept, the proportion of meat and milk food is increasing in China. Similarly, in the diet structure of westerners, vegetables are also increasing obviously, and the diet structure of China and the West has gradually tended to merge. The difference between Chinese and western food content is also manifested in the fact that westerners like to eat cold food and cold dishes. From cold dishes to salads to cold drinks, cold dishes are indispensable on the table. People in China like hot food, and the main course is hot except a few small dishes in front of the main course are cold dishes. In the eyes of China people, hot dishes lose a lot of flavor when they are cold, and only when they are hot can they taste the food. As the saying goes, "Three fresh dishes are hot" means this.

Westerners believe that food is to satisfy hunger, so they specialize in "hard dishes" such as large pieces of meat and whole chicken. China's dishes are "tasty", so China's cooking also shows great randomness in the materials used: what many westerners regard as discarded things are excellent raw materials in China, and what foreign chefs can't handle can be turned into magic as soon as it reaches the hands of China chefs. It serves to show that China's diet has a wide range of randomness in the use of materials.

According to a survey by western botanists, people in China eat more than 611 kinds of vegetables, six times more than those in the west. In fact, in China cuisine, vegetarian dishes are ordinary foods, and meat dishes only enter the ordinary diet structure when the living standard is high, so there has been a saying of "vegetable food" since ancient times, and vegetable food is dominant in the ordinary diet structure. China people's plant-based cuisine is inextricably linked with the advocacy of Buddhists. They regard animals as "living things" and plants as "inanimate", so they advocate vegetarianism.

Westerners, when introducing their own country's dietary characteristics, feel that they pay more attention to the reasonable collocation of nutrition than China. There are relatively developed food industries, such as canned food and fast food, which save time and have good nutrition, so people in their country are generally stronger than those in China: tall, long legs, broad shoulders and developed muscles; China people, on the other hand, are thin and thin, with narrow shoulders and short legs, and weak yellow color. According to the obvious difference between Chinese and western food objects, some people call China people plant characters, while westerners call them animal characters.

Third, the differences in dietary patterns

Dietary patterns, that is, how to eat, are obviously different between China and the West. In China, whether it's a family meal or a formal banquet, it's all about gathering and sitting around, enjoying a seat. People propose toasts and advise each other to show the mutual respect, the virtue of comity and the atmosphere of harmony and reunion. Especially in various festivals, it is to ask for advice by diet. This way of eating is an important tradition of China's food culture, which is based on the patriarchal clan concept. Eating patterns first existed in families and families, and then extended to outside families. China people often use this way to educate and express all kinds of "rituals", to reflect the relationship between the young and the old, respect and inferiority, intimacy and inferiority, and to exchange feelings. Because this way of sitting around drinking caters to the traditional family concept and objectively plays a role in maintaining family stability and promoting family members' unity and harmony, it has been handed down for a long time. It is indeed a family pleasure to have a feast with the whole family. But at the same time, this way of eating also has its disadvantages, mainly unscientific, unhygienic and wasteful. Now, people have gradually realized this drawback and started to reform. For example, the state banquet in our country has implemented a separate meal system, but it has yet to be popularized in the whole society.

Westerners are used to eating separately. At western-style banquets, although people sit around, their food is served separately. One of the most typical forms of the western dining system is buffet. Diners each take a set of tableware, take what they need from the prepared food, and walk freely without having to fix their seats. This way of eating can not only fully satisfy personal preferences for food, but also facilitate social interaction and the exchange of emotions and information between individuals, without having to make all activities public at the dinner table. Therefore, in western-style catering, food is only a means and foil, not the whole purpose, and the core of the banquet lies in friendship. This way of eating fully embodies the respect of westerners for individuality and self, and emphasizes individual independence and autonomy. At this point, it is completely different from China's unified cultural model. Especially since the Renaissance, western society has vigorously advocated the spirit of equality, freedom, human rights and personality liberation, which has greatly publicized people's personality and freedom consciousness and created a cultural environment that emphasizes the free development of personality. More importantly, this way of eating is civilized, hygienic and in line with the scientific spirit. Western food styles are very different, and this difference also has an impact on national character. In China, any banquet, no matter what the purpose, will only have one form, that is, everyone will sit around and enjoy a seat. The banquet should use a round table, which creates an atmosphere of unity, courtesy and interest in form. Delicious food is placed in the center of a table of people, which is not only the object of appreciation and taste of a table of people, but also the medium of emotional communication of a table of people. People toast each other, offer each other food, and advise each other, which embodies the virtue of mutual respect and comity among people in the face of beautiful things. Although this diet has obvious shortcomings from the health point of view, it conforms to the universal mentality of "happy reunion" of our nation and reflects the opposition of the category of "harmony" in China's classical philosophy.