Sustainable Development Mechanism of Food Culture’s Translocal Production Based on Authenticity

Guojun Zeng,Shuzhi Sun,Yongqiu Zhao

doi:10.3390/su6107030

Abstract

Food culture is a kind of non-material culture with authenticity. To achieve sustainable development of translocal heritage and food culture, we must protect its authenticity. By selecting the cases of the Dongbeiren Flavor Dumpling Restaurant and the Daozanjia Northeast Dumpling Restaurant and using the in-depth interview method, this study discusses how northeastern Cuisine in Guangzhou balances the inheritance and innovation of authenticity, how producers and customers negotiate, and how to realize sustainable development. The main conclusions are: first, there are two different paths of translocal food culture production, which are “authentic food culture production” and “differentiated food culture production”. Second, what translocal enterprises produce is not objective authenticity, but constructive authenticity, or even existential authenticity. Third, compared with differentiated food culture production, authentic food culture production is helpful for the sustainable development of local food culture production. It protects the locality while transmitting and developing the local culture. Fourth, translocal food culture production is a process in which the producers and consumers continue to interact to maintain a state of equilibrium, which informs the sustainable development mechanism with a high degree of authenticity.

Highlights

Geographical ecology, farming traditions and local culture shape the tastes of different places, so eating habits vary from place to place [1,2], and food becomes an important characterization of locality [3]
In China, an important characteristic of food regional differentiation is local flavor dishes based on different regions, such as the most famous big four cuisines, which are Shandong cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, and Cantonese cuisine
Local food culture constantly moves with translocal production from its food region and in the process of constant collision, conflict, communication, understanding and identity with other characteristic food culture, a certain cultural fusion become inevitable

Summary

Introduction

Geographical ecology, farming traditions and local culture shape the tastes of different places, so eating habits vary from place to place [1,2], and food becomes an important characterization of locality [3]. In the age of globalization, which is an unprecedented “time-space compression” era, economic and cultural forces break traditional space limits and reconstruct the space and local construction methods and organizational forms on a larger scale [4]. In this process, local cuisine, the diet of different ethnic groups, and food associated with a particular class are initially produced locally, and gradually spread with immigration [5]. Local food culture constantly moves with translocal production from its food region and in the process of constant collision, conflict, communication, understanding and identity with other characteristic food culture, a certain cultural fusion become inevitable. Cultural fusion has been the overall trend in the development of cross-culture communication, and it may eventually form a kind of “variation” of the original cultural system

Methods

Results

Conclusion