The Food of China / Ellen G. Landau.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Anderson, Eugene Newton, Jr., 1941-

Contributor:

Landau, Ellen G., Editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food habits--China--History.

Food habits.

Agriculture--China--History.

Agriculture.

Cooking, Chinese.

China--Social life and customs.

China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2007]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

To feed a quarter of the world's population on only seven percent of the world's cultivated land and at the same time to have developed a renowned cuisine is perhaps the most exemplary achievement of the Chinese people. What accounts for their success? And what can be learned from it in this age of widespread hunger?E.N. Anderson's comprehensive, entertaining historical and ethnographic account of Chinese food from the Bronze Age to the twentieth century shows how food has been central to Chinese governmental policies, religious rituals, and health practices from earliest times. The historical survey of agricultural and culinary customs, in the first half of the book, offers a wealth of fact and interpretation on such topics as the effect of government policy on agricultural innovation; the relation of medical beliefs to appetizing cuisine; the recycling of waste products on the farm; the traditional absence of food taboos (including the practicality of eating one's pests, or feeding them to pigs and chickens, instead of poisoning them and the environment); and the key factors in the gourmet quality of Chinese food from the simplest to the most elaborate dishes. Without glossing over the occurrences of famine China's history, Anderson concludes that the full story is one of remarkable success in feeding maximum populations over the millennia. Underpinning this accomplishment, he cites China's traditional stress on food as the basis of the state and as fundamental not only to individual well-being but to the enjoyment of life. Anderson turns to present-day China in the latter half of the book, describing in rich and enticing detail the regional varieties in Chinese diet, food preparation, and rituals of eating and drinking. These lively, readable chapters as well as those in the first half of The Food of China make it a prime source for anyone-general readers and scholars alike-with an interest in Chinese history or food.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chronology

1. The Natural Environment

2. Prehistory and the Dawn of History

3. The Crucial Millennium: Chou through Han

4. Foods from the West: Medieval China

5. Definitive Shaping of the Food System: Sung and the Conquest Dynasties

6. Involution: Late Imperial China

7. The Climax of Traditional Agriculture

8. Chinese Foodstuffs Today

9. Some Basic Cooking Strategies

10. Regions and Locales

11. Traditional Medical Values of Food

12. Food in Society

Appendix: Dinner at the Ngs

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300157833

0300157835

OCLC:

1024040518