Why a course on Chinese food?

Perhaps the first question should be, why teach a course centered on food at all? As Yong Chen points out, ^[1] ever since food became a recognized research topic, studies on it proliferated, including with regard to Chinese culture. Along with smell, taste is the most ancient sense developed; babies are famous for putting anything they encounter in their mouth as a way to learn about the world. Feeding the body is a necessity. Learning how to eat well is learning how to live well.

Eating activities are also a structural component of relationships and societies. Days are scheduled around breaks to eat; for a long time, culinary duties fell almost always on women; identities, both individual and collective ones, are shaped around conventional ideas of what people do and do not eat. Grocery stores offer now a wide variety of foods, species, fruits, imported from all over the world. According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 2021 alone the US has imported food for a total of around $167 billions, exporting almost as much as of 2018.

All of this is known and easily retrievable with a couple of searches. And, thinking about it, did we really need to be reminded that food is important? We feel our hunger. So food is important! We know it. Food is part of our daily lives, and therefore food production and consumption is cultural, political, ritual, it gets attached -and therefore reinforces- gendered norms, it represents economic power, it is associated with individual and collective memories.

What does a course on food offer? Answers to the why-s and how-s behind all these facts. Were women’s activities always confined to domestic affairs? Does it mean they had no influence on affairs that extended beyond the household, or is there a more nuanced picture? When did it change, and why? How did culinary traditions become exported goods, and careers? What does it mean to eat “authentic Chinese” food in San Francisco vs. New York vs. South Africa? How is “authentic” different from “traditional” when it comes to food? What does it mean to identify as “Italian” solely on the basis of one’s food choices?

What follows is based on my teachings. There are many ways to approach these topics, and many, many good resources for it. As I designed it, the course develops against historical backgrounds, but it is not a history course: it does not move chronologically, and it’s connected with a tiny fraction of all the historical developments that overtime led to the formation of today’s China. It is also representative of elite and mainstream culture, with many of the primary sources used being by men. We will use “Chinese” while recognizing that this is a loaded term, and while convenient for its quick association with cultures and traditions developed in the East Asian area, it also flattens their diversity. With this in mind, we will do our best to understand the complexity behind the formation of “Chinese food”, in all its meanings.