Papers on Chinese and Western food cultures

Chinese and Western food cultures have their own characteristics. Then, please see the papers on Chinese and Western food cultures that I collected for you. I hope you like them.

Paper 1 on Chinese and Western food culture

People in China have high demands on food, but not on nutrition. Most of them are in taste and form. The pursuit of taste shows the harmonious thinking of China people, and cooking also pursues this harmonious beauty. In addition, in terms of cultural etiquette, China people put food in a very high position. For example, in daily life, friends have not seen each other for a long time. In order to show their respect, they have to eat together, and in order to promote cooperation with customers, they have to have dinner together, get together on holidays, and have dinner together. In a word, diet has become a courtesy need, and it is no longer just a function of satisfying the hunger. Compared with China's diet concept of paying attention to taste, westerners pay more attention to the collocation of nutrition, emphasizing the nutrition of diet, and pay more attention to vitamins, fat, protein and other aspects contained in food. When westerners are cooking, they will put the pursuit of nutrition in the first place, carefully study whether there are side effects and nutritional imbalance in food, and will not pursue taste excessively. In a word, in the western dietary thinking, eating is not simply to fill the stomach, nor to enjoy delicious food, but to ensure one's survival and health. From this, we can see that in the concept of diet, China emphasizes the pursuit of form of taste, but ignores the nutritional collocation of food, while westerners pay more attention to the healthy distribution of food and the nutritional balance.

1. Differences in dining methods

There are great differences between China and western societies in dining methods. China people love to be lively, so on holidays, people like to have a meal together around a big table. At the annual meeting of the company, leaders and junior employees will also have dinner together, and everyone will talk and laugh while talking; When eating, people will be very active, toasting each other, persuading dishes and so on, creating a lively and warm atmosphere as a whole. This kind of diet will be used in many occasions in China, especially in Mid-Autumn Festival, Spring Festival and other festivals, when the whole family comes back from all directions to celebrate the holidays together, and the old people or people who are good at cooking at home will cook a large table of dishes, eat happily together, wish and celebrate the New Year, etc., and pay attention to a harmonious and reunion atmosphere. Usually, when people in China have a party, they don't order food for everyone, but prepare a lot of meals. As for eating more and eating less, there is no requirement for quantity. But in western countries, their way of eating is very different from our country. Westerners don't have the reunion and lively eating habits of China people. They like to eat in a quiet and elegant environment. Everyone has his own plate, and everyone's food is distributed and matched in advance. There is no Chinese-style big table where people eat together around a pile of dishes. In the process of eating, everyone has no fixed position and can walk around with his own plate. This way of eating in the west reflects their way of thinking that they pay attention to individuals. They emphasize personal space and pay attention to individual respect. However, there are also some shortcomings in the way westerners eat. People can't communicate their feelings when eating, so they lack the emotional appeal of some people in China.

Second, the difference of eating etiquette

Many people say that China's dining table can talk about cooperation, propose marriage and connect feelings. In short, most things in China can be solved at the dining table. Therefore, the dining table is no longer a simple place to eat, but also a way of communication. In this special way of communication, etiquette culture is the most important. Generally speaking, China people attach great importance to seating arrangement when dining, except for some family meals, and people attach great importance to seniority and seniority when dining in other occasions. When having a group meal, people usually wait for the guests to come to the table, but the seats are arranged in a fixed way, for example, the position facing the door is the highest, followed by the east, and the guests or hosts usually sit at the door. When announcing the beginning of the sitting, some powerful and important people will be asked to start first, and then the host will start. However, in the west, there are many differences between food etiquette and China. The most important thing in western dining etiquette is gentlemanly manners. Men should show respect to women and follow the principle of giving priority to women. When attending a banquet with women, the most important position facing the door is the hostess, while the man sits opposite the hostess, that is, the position at the door, showing respect for women. In the specific meal, the man should get up and open the chair for the lady first, so that the lady can sit down first; When eating, men can't eat first, and they have to wait until the hostess and other ladies start eating. At the end of the meal, the man can only leave after the hostess leaves, and the man still has to pull the chair for the lady and let her go first to show the gentleman's demeanor.

Third, the differences in diet contents

China is a large agricultural country with a large population, and its diet contains a lot of contents, among which the staple food is mainly grain, followed by many kinds of vegetables in China, and plant dishes are dominant. According to relevant surveys, China people's food contains the most plants, which is seven times that of western countries, and there are more than 6 kinds of edible plants in China people's daily life. The reason why China people take plants as their main course has a lot to do with the influence of Buddhism on the country. After the Tang Dynasty, Indian Buddhism began to be introduced into China. Buddhism believed that animals are a kind of creatures second only to people, and people can't kill them or use their meat for cooking. Plants, by contrast, are not. They have no soul, so China has formed a vegetable-based diet. Therefore, some people call China people's character plant character. People in China like to cook their dishes when they eat, so most of them are hot. In people's minds, if the dishes are cold, they lose their original flavor, and only when they are hot can the flavor of the dishes really come into play. Westerners, on the other hand, are different from China people. Animals are the majority in their food, which is related to the cultural background of their nomadic and maritime peoples. In primitive western society, many people make a living by fishing, hunting and breeding, while farming is not developed in western society, so people are used to meeting the needs of eating, wearing and using animals. Therefore, in western countries, there are many animals in food, such as beef, mutton and pork. In cooking methods, we also pay great attention to the balance of nutrition, such as protein, fat and vitamins, which are often considered in people's daily life. Because there are many animals in westerners' food, they are also called people with animal character. In addition, westerners don't like hot food, but they like cold food, such as salad and vegetable platter, which has always been the favorite of the west. When they eat vegetables, they also like raw food, such as lettuce and cucumber. They don't cook them, but eat them directly.

Fourth, differences in cooking methods

In China, cooking is a very particular art. China's cooking methods are varied, such as frying, frying, frying, slipping, stewing, steaming, boiling, stewing, roasting, stewing, etc., all of which are ways for chefs to transform ingredients. When cooking, China people pay attention to the unity of taste and form, and the food they make pays more attention to color, fragrance and taste, and all three are indispensable, otherwise it will be considered as a failed cooking. The process of Chinese food is very complicated. A dish often goes through dozens of processes, which may take several hours or longer. After these processes, the original ingredients have disappeared and become a variety of exquisite dishes. Due to the complexity of the cooking process, the same dish, cooked by different people, will taste different due to different cooking conditions, condiments and methods. In the process of cooking, the simple purpose of eating can no longer meet people's needs. On the contrary, the pursuit of fun and form is even deeper. But in the west, people don't do this when cooking. Westerners believe that a good cook can match the nutrition of food to the best, and should do it in full accordance with scientific requirements in the cooking process, so western dishes have the characteristics of standardization. In other words, the accuracy of the amount and time of seasoning in each dish is an important assessment item. In terms of cooking methods, westerners generally have only four ways: frying, roasting, stewing and frying. This is because westerners pay attention to the protection of nutrition, and they think that too many cooking processes will destroy the nutrition of food. To sum up, the differences between Chinese and western diets are mainly manifested in several aspects, such as diet style, dining etiquette, diet content and cooking methods. These differences are caused by different historical development, different cultural origins, different customs and habits between China and the West. Under the trend of world integration, it is very important to fully realize the differences between Chinese and western food cultures. We should absorb some excellent western food cultures to make up for the deficiency of Chinese food culture, so as to achieve the goal of combining scientific diet, healthy diet and delicious diet. Paper 2

on Chinese and western food culture Abstract: Food culture is one of the important components of non-verbal culture in cross-cultural communication. Understanding the differences between Chinese and western food cultures can not only deepen the understanding of the language and culture they have learned, but also improve the success rate of cross-cultural communication. This paper makes a comparison between Chinese and western food cultures from the aspects of the differences in dining forms and etiquette, food concepts, food structure and cooking, with the aim of clarifying the differences between Chinese and western food cultures, eliminating boundaries, enhancing understanding and promoting exchanges.

Keywords: cultural differences between Chinese and Western food cultures and the structure of etiquette concepts

I. Introduction

Food culture is one of the important components of non-verbal culture in cross-cultural communication. Diet is closely related to culture, and different nationalities create different diet cultures due to the influence of their living areas, climatic environment, customs and habits. Traditional western culture is animal husbandry culture and marine culture, while China is farming culture and land culture. The two different cultures reflect the differences in people's lifestyles, while the differences in diet reveal their own cultural background.

Second, the differences in dining forms and manners between China and the West

Since ancient times, China's etiquette has had the idea that harmony is the most important thing. The idea of harmony is reflected in the idea that people in China have a family to eat together when they open their seats, which reflects the traditional eating etiquette in China. China people's food gathering system lasted for thousands of years. In China, at any banquet, everyone sits around and enjoys a seat. The banquet should use a round table to create an atmosphere of unity, courtesy and interest in form. This is the food gathering system. The origin of the food gathering system is very early. From the excavation of many underground cultural relics, it can be seen that the ancient cooking room and the food gathering place are unified. The cooking room is in the center of the house, with smoke from the skylight on the top and a bonfire on the bottom. Pots and pots are placed on the fire. When cooking on the fire, the eaters gather around the fire. This ancient custom of gathering food continued to later generations. 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. This is in line with the universal mentality of the Chinese nation's happy reunion and reflects China's thought of neutralization in classical philosophy. In addition, the long-term spread of the food-gathering system is also a reflection of China's emphasis on consanguinity and family concept in his diet. In the west, due to the far-reaching influence of Christianity, people extend the piety and respect for the Virgin Mary in Christian culture to social life, thus forming a social fashion of respecting women. The Frenchman Searle mentioned in his book "Western Etiquette and Customs" that "the continuous influence of the Middle Ages and Renaissance put women at the center of social life and made them respected objects, which is not available in other civilizations". Therefore, in western banquets, people regard women first and respect women as the standard of banquet arrangement. When arranging seats, the gender of the guests is listed first, and then the specific seats are arranged. When men and women go to dinner at the same time, men need to open the door for women and let them go first. When the host leads the female guests into the hall, the male host first invites the first female guest to sit in the table, and the male host pulls the chair and takes a seat for her, while the female host enters last with the male VIP.

Third, the differences between Chinese and Western food concepts

In China's food culture, the pursuit of taste is often greater than the pursuit of nutrition. When people 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 it is delicious, and where it is delicious, I am afraid it is not easy to make it clear. This shows that China people's pursuit of diet is an indescribable artistic conception, that is, using what people usually call color, fragrance, taste, shape and utensils to concretize this realm, which is still difficult to cover all its meanings. In China, the pursuit of beauty in diet obviously outweighs rationality. This difference in values constitutes the characteristic that Chinese food pays too much attention to the color, aroma and taste of food. This view of diet is 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 to reconcile, and ultimately to reconcile a beautiful taste. All this is about discretion, that is, overall cooperation. It contains rich dialectics thought of China's philosophy. Westerners' attitude towards diet mainly adheres to its practical characteristics, attaches importance to food's health from the perspective of nutrition, and does not pursue patterns and other functions of food. They think that "eating" only adds fuel to a biological machine to ensure its normal work and life. As long as it can keep healthy and resist the attack of germs after eating, other aspects are not particular. It can be seen that diet is only a life-sustaining activity in their hearts. In particular, France, a big country enjoying the reputation of delicious food in western countries, is pursuing high-quality nutrition. Although French cooking pursues delicacy, it never forgets the premise of "nutrition". In modern western society, in addition to the nutritional needs, it also attaches great importance to health preservation and truly achieves people-oriented.

IV. Differences in diet structure

According to western statistics, China people eat more than 6 kinds of vegetables, which is more than six times that of the west. In the daily diet structure of China, vegetarian dishes occupy a dominant position, while meat dishes only enter the normal diet structure on holidays or when the living standard is high, so there has been a saying of "vegetable food" in China since ancient times. This dietary tradition is closely related to the advocacy of Buddhists, who regard animals as "living things" and plants as "inanimate". Therefore, China's traditional culture advocates vegetarianism. Western countries inherit the cultural lineage of nomadic and nautical peoples, and make a living by fishing, hunting and breeding. Traditional food customs are mainly animal-based foods. Because most western countries are located at high latitudes, some countries even have snow all year round, which causes most people in western countries to like meat food, and westerners pay attention to nutrition and adopt a combination of raw and cooked food. Vegetables often appear in the form of salad, and the difference in diet structure sometimes reflects the different attitudes of various ethnic groups in lifestyle and food culture.

v. differences in cooking between Chinese and western food cultures

western cooking follows norms and science, while westerners emphasize science and nutrition, and norms and science are everywhere in cooking. In western recipes, measurement is calculated in grams. this