Overview

An edited collection that explores the multifaceted experiences of Chinese culinary modernity both within and outside of mainland China from the mid-19th century to present. An edited collection that explores the multifaceted experiences of Chinese culinary modernity both within and outside of mainland China from the mid-19th century to present. Modern Chinese Foodways defines some of the major processes by which Chinese food and foodways have become modern, with a focus on the period from the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first century. The editors, Jia-Chen Fu, Michelle T. King, and Jakob A. Klein, highlight four prominent areas of change- commodification of food production; the scientization of expertise and the development of new food technologies; the creation of new culinary identities based on gender, ethnicity, and nation; and the circuits of migration taking place since the nineteenth century. This collection argues that Chinese food and foodways are very much modern-not a given in the face of the chorus of voices that insists on emphasizing its ancient roots-in ways that both recall the experiences of other cultures, as well as in ways unique to China's own historical trajectory. The book combines incisive, original scholarship by thirteen leading voices in the field with editorial essays on the past and future of Chinese food studies to frame the field of inquiry for the next generation of Chinese food studies scholars. Demonstrating the significance of modern Chinese foodways to the phenomenon of culinary modernity writ large, which is still largely shaped by Euro-American perspectives and priorities, Modern Chinese Foodways is the first book of its kind.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jia-Chen Fu ,  Michelle T. King ,  Jakob A. Klein
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:   MIT Press
Weight:   0.369kg
ISBN:  

9780262551311

ISBN 10:   0262551314
Pages:   360
Publication Date:   04 March 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword Foreword E. N. Anderson Acknowledgments Introduction Jia-Chen Fu, Michelle King, and Jakob Klein Part I: Creating Value: Market Structures and Commodities 1 Lord Millet in Alibaba’s Cave: The Resurrection of an Iconic Food Francesca Bray 2 Becoming an Everyday Food: Soy Sauce in Modern China (ca. 1800–1930) Angela Ki Che Leung 3 Beef in China: A History in Eight Dishes Thomas Dubois Part II: Systematizing Expertise: Food, Science, and Technology 4 Absorbing Vitamins: How a Nutritional Paradigm Was Reinvented in Republican China Hilary Smith 5 Taste 100 Herbs: Material Scarcity and Local Plant Knowledge in the Mao-Era Campaign for Native Pesticides Sigrid Schmalzer 6 Food Delivery, the Platform Economy, and Digital Culture in China: The Human-Nonhuman Entanglement of Urban Chinese Foodways Fan Yang Part III: Constructing Culinary Identities: Gender, Nation, and Ethnicity 7 Domestic Cookbooks and Female Culinary Authority in 20th Century China Michelle King 8 Taiwanese Cuisine and Nationhood in the Twentieth Century Yujen Chen 9 Getting Smashed: Drinking and Ethnic-Space Construction in a Hubei Tourist Spot Xu Wu 10 Gastrographism in Contemporary China: From a Literary Past Time to a Professional Activity Françoise Sabban Part IV: “Chineseness” in Motion: Migration and Mobilities 11 Japanese Cuisine in Chinese Foodways James Farrer and Chuanfei Wang 12 Chifas: How Chinese Food Became a Peruvian National Treasure Lok Siu 13 Pigs from the Ancestors: Cantonese Ancestral Rites, Long-Term Change, and the Family Revolution James Watson Afterword: Chinese Food Futures Jia-Chen Fu, Michelle King, and Jakob Klein Recommended Works Contributors Index

Reviews

“A pioneering examination of Chinese food culture’s transformation amid global historical shifts. Meticulously researched and thoughtfully structured, it is an invaluable resource for scholars of food history and the cultural dynamics of ‘Greater China.’” —Choice

Author Information

Jia-Chen Fu is Associate Research Fellow in the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica. She is the author of The Other Milk and is on the editorial board for Re-Past-Studies in the History of Nutrition series at John Hopkins University Press. Michelle T. King is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the editor of the award-winning Culinary Nationalism in Asia and the author of Chop Fry Watch Learn- Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food. Jakob A. Klein is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London. He has coedited five volumes on anthropological approaches to the study of China and/or food, including Consuming China and Ethical Eating in the Socialist and Postsocialist World.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions