China cuisine in the new century is entering a new period of development. With the rapid economic growth, the continuous improvement of social consumption level and the change of people's lifestyle and consumption concept, the catering market has shown a sustained and prosperous momentum. However, behind the prosperous market, there are also various discordant noises. For example, the phenomenon of selling wild protected animals has not disappeared, some restaurants attract and mislead consumers with vulgar dishes, extravagance and waste in banquets are becoming more and more serious, some places actually kill animals on the spot to attract customers to stage bloody tragedies, nutritious meals advocated for many years have not been reflected on the table, and additives that do not meet the food hygiene requirements are still used in primary processing and cooking, and so on. Some short-term behaviors like this in the culinary world cannot but attract our attention.
Of course, there are many reasons for these phenomena, but from a deeper perspective, this is the evil result brought about by the lack of "humanistic care." China's food culture is something that we are always proud of, but today, there are many impurities in our food culture that are uneducated and lack of civilized consciousness, some of which are pseudo-cultures under the banner of culture. In the catering market, on the one hand, "culture" is flying all over the sky, and I can't wait to add all the categories of China culture to restaurants and dining tables; On the one hand, it is vulgar, barbaric and ignorant, which violates the minimum common sense and deviates from the most basic requirements of human beings, such as the requirements of safety and health, the requirements of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and the requirements of sustainable social development. If these impurities are not removed, it will be difficult for China cooking to develop healthily, the catering market to mature and our catering life to truly enter modern civilization. Therefore, it is a serious and important subject to compare and standardize the development direction of China cuisine from the perspective of humanistic care.
Looking back on the development history of China cuisine, our ancestors did better than us in this respect. We might as well recall that in the traditional China food culture, many basic principles and practices are based on people's actual needs, including humanistic care, such as health and fitness needs; For example, the demand for delicious food; For example, in the selection and processing of raw materials, we attach great importance to adapting to nature and environment. These people-oriented principles form the core of China's food culture and cooking skills.
It can be said that the traditional food culture in China is a culture that pays attention to humanistic spirit. In this respect, despite the lack of a rational summary at the macro level, we can fully reflect it from China's works on diet and cooking in the past dynasties and China people's dietary activities: being pragmatic, starting from people's actual needs, and paying attention to people's attachment and adaptation to nature, and never taking nature as the opposite. Even in some formal dishes and banquet modes, we can still see the rationality of their existence; When using some wild raw materials to cook dishes, they are also very temperate. As for the dietary structure and habits formed by China people from the perspective of health preservation and fitness for a long time, it is a valuable heritage in China's dietary culture. All these show that the traditional food culture in China is people-oriented and based on human nature, and its profound cultural implication is not artificial or detached from food activities, but integrated with food activities themselves.
However, in the development boom of the catering industry, some of our practices today deviate from these principles. China cooking in the new century should focus on humanity and rationality, and be more scientific, rational, civilized, healthy and humanized, instead of being blind, short-sighted, disorderly and uncivilized. Starting from the requirements of humanistic rationality, I think it is urgent to establish the following "consciousness" in concept at present.
The first is open consciousness. China cooking has always been an open system. The various patterns formed in its development process should not be the dogma and framework that restricts us. The excessive pursuit of non-cooking elements in the current development of catering industry is actually a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of China catering culture. For example, the joy of a feast has a lot to do with the environment; But this connection is based on the fact that the banquet itself has reached a certain height. At present, some restaurants are willing to invest in the environment, but they may not have any new skills and characteristics in cooking, and some even use environmental pressure and luxury to cover up the lack of cooking skills. This kind of paranoia is not as good as other ways of thinking, which is not conducive to the healthy development of cooking.
The second is the sense of equality. The traditional culture of China people pays attention to the order of the young and the old, and discusses seniority. Pay attention to this point in your diet. Especially in China people's banquets, this trend is even more serious. This is true both in the order of seats and in the custom of toasting. This lack of equality consciousness should be changed. Look at the popular foreign fast food "KFC" and "McDonald's" in the catering market. First of all, everyone is equal in the form of eating. This equality reflects the respect for people and personality, which is one of the factors of its success. The lack of equality consciousness is unconsciously reflected in the relationship between dishes and people. Those high-consumption dishes that are grandstanding and domineering often give people a feeling of being above others, which is unbearable. For dishes, beautifying colors and improving artistic taste is a good thing, but it is far from enough. If a dish is too technical for people to eat, it violates the most basic attributes of this dish and is equivalent to handicrafts. Can it be said to be a successful dish? In addition, while adding icing on the cake to the elaborate high-end dishes, it ignores the quality requirements of popular varieties. This tendency of favoring one over the other reflects the lack of humanistic spirit. Consumption is graded, but the quality requirements should be the same. At the same time, the choice of dishes often lacks respect for people. Some restaurants have introduced a standard banquet menu, which does not take into account the personal preferences of diners at all. Can this kind of catering activity which replaces individuality with commonness be said to be a manifestation of civilization?
The third is ecological consciousness. Human eating activities must be based on the premise of not destroying the ecological environment. To get rid of the hegemonic consciousness of human beings in nature, we should respect life on the earth where we live. Eating wild protected animals and over-developing some cooking materials will bring serious consequences of destroying the ecology. Human's dietary resources are very rich, so there is absolutely no need to pay a huge price to eat those animals and plants that should not be eaten in order to destroy the ecology. Besides, from the taste point of view, many wild animals and plants have different degrees of odor, which is not necessarily delicious. "Things are rare and expensive", but it is not "things are rare and expensive". Establishing environmental awareness is ultimately for the benefit of mankind and future generations. It embodies the most direct and profound humanistic care here.
The fourth is scientific consciousness. China's traditional culture lacks scientific consciousness, so does its diet and cooking. Establishing modern scientific consciousness is not only the need to develop China cuisine, but also the need to improve the national fitness level. Due to unhealthy and unscientific eating habits, China people who have entered a well-off society from adequate food and clothing are suffering from more and more modern diseases and diseases of wealth, and the culinary world should not contribute to this. It is the call of the times for nutrition science to enter the field of cooking. We should change all unscientific and unreasonable practices in traditional cooking and advocate civilized and scientific food culture. To create a brand-new culinary science with scientific knowledge of nutrition, hygiene, food, medicine, etc., it is necessary to implement scientificity, standardization and standardization in cooking, and gradually make China cooking get rid of the traditional fuzziness and randomness formed by personal manual operation, and move towards an accurate, standard, scientific and more civilized realm.
The fifth is the consciousness of seeking truth. In the process of moving towards civilization, we should further establish the consciousness of seeking truth from facts, reduce formalized things and seek the return of diet. Any content is embodied in a certain form. However, in China people's diet, there are many forms that have nothing to do with the content. They have alienated into the burden of eating and become a heavy burden. Only by getting rid of these burdens can China's cooking move forward lightly. For example, take diet as a tool and means to dilute the original purpose of eating; For example, the development direction of catering industry is the lack of individuality, cultural roots and technical details. Another example is the "pseudo-luxury" piled up in the form of feudalism and even superstition, backwardness and vulgarity, which regards eating as a tool to show off power and wealth. Don't add so many other functions, so many troubles, so many modes and so many freedoms to people's eating activities, so that people can eat more easily, purer and more humanized!