Regional Food Culture Research Articles

The Honey Nectar Peach and the Idea of Shanghai in Late Imperial China

* I thank Tobie Meyer-Fong for encouraging me to submit this material as an article to Late Imperial China. Chen Luying and Huang Weijia provided helpful assistance reading several key documents. Ethan Pollock offered valuable suggestions for tightening the focus and argument of the article. I thank Paize Keulemans for inviting me to share an early version of this paper for the panel, “The Sensory Landscape of the Nineteenth-Century Chinese City,” at the 2006 Association for Asian Studies annual convention, and Dorothy Ko for her stimulating comments on the paper. Antonia Finnane and one anonymous reviewer for Late Imperial China provided helpful suggestions for revising the initial manuscript. I am especially grateful to Dore Levy, whose assistance and insights into Chinese literature and garden culture greatly enhanced my understanding of the material and the final product, and to my story-doctor, Maya Allison. Material from this article will be featured in chapter of my book, “Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture in Shanghai,” to be published by Stanford University Press.

On the Taste of the Regions

Regional culinary 'specialities' are usually considered as indicative of the culture of specific areas, of their traditions and ways of life. Only recently has research begun to focus on the processes that constitute regional food cultures. This article traces the use of 'culinary heritage' as a concept in regional practices and European politics, developing an analysis of how everyday food practices are transformed first into cultural heritage, and then into cultural property. It then presents a comparative ethnographic project aiming at a cultural analysis of procedures involved in the EU food quality assurance system. In conclusion, the article proposes perspectives that may help fill the gaps in research identified in this context.

Regional food culture and development.

Food culture is most influenced by the locality of its origin, which will have been one of food acquisition and processing by various means. It is generally agreed, and is the basis of much United Nations, especially Food and Agriculture Organisation strategic development policy, that successful agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture along with fishing, underpin economically viable and healthy communities with their various food cultures. We also know that this must be in tandem with maternal literacy and operational health care systems. These elements are best represented on a regional basis. There is a growing consumer interest in knowing where one's food comes from as a measure of "food integrity". However, food production alone can be a precarious business and relate to a lesser or greater extent to local food culture and to trade, which may be complementary or at-odds with each other. Likewise, the local food culture may have its strengths and weaknesses as far as its ability to meet nutritional and health needs is concerned. Local food production may be restricted because of geographical or socio-economic conditions which preclude food diversity, although this may be compensated for by trade. Where food adequacy and diversity is compromised, and soils poor, various macronutrient, micronutrient (from animals and plants) and phytonutrient (nutritionally-advantageous food component from plants) deficiencies may be in evidence. These food system problems may be intertwined with food culture--for example, "rice-based and water-soluble vitamin poor"; "few animal-derived foods like meat, fish, eggs and milk with associated low calcium, vitamin D, Vitamin B12 and long chain n-3 fatty acid intakes"; "low fruit and vegetable intake with limited carotenoids and other phytonutrients". Geo-satellite surveillance and mapping as identifying such "hot spots": for regional food problems, as well as hot spots where most of the world's biodiversity is found (1.4 % of land on earth). On the other hand, regional food culture can confer considerable advantage for health and economic development, but does not necessarily do so. The challenge is to respect and retain traditional food knowledge and sustainable food systems, with good governance for food security. There has been a recent awakening of interest and concern about the lack of documentation of traditional and indigenous food cultures which are important not only for their own sake, but for the legacy of food knowledge which they can confer on future generations, provided they are not lost. Hence, the value of a special focus on African food cultures (www.healthyeatingclub.org/Africa), including Rift and Nile Valleys and North West African foods, which are the cradles of human food systems and habits. This is the case too with indigenous foods and food cultures (whether hunter-gatherer or subsistence agriculture); with relatively long-living food cultures in North East Asia, with food cultural distinction and fusion (FHILL and SENECA studies) and with migratory Food Habits. By and large, there is a remarkable resilience and ingenuity of people and their food systems, but monoculture and lack of diversity encourage food system failure.

Consuming heritage: The use of local food culture in branding

The objective of this paper was to examine how specialised food marketing consultants interpret local and regional food culture and locality in branding food products to match consumer ideals. Inte ...

Local Food Cultures in the Swedish Rural Economy

A rising interest in the commercial benefits of locally and regionally connoted food culture for rural development is notable in Sweden. Local and regional food culture is used as a tool both to en ...

Food culture as a political tool – meal construction during the Swedish EU‐chairmanship 2001‡

AbstractThe aim of this study was to analyse how the European Union (EU) ministerial meals during Sweden's EU‐chairmanship 2001 were devised, and how the official representatives of Sweden chose to interpret and present a national image based on local and regional food identities. The manufacture of the Swedish culinary profile was compared with the same process during Finland's EU‐chairmanship 1999 and Denmark's EU‐chairmanship 2002. Sixteen professionals involved in the decision‐making process in the three countries were interviewed in 2001 and 2002. The regional food profile chosen in Sweden supported different political goals such as the idea of the production of local food and local economic development. Local and regional food culture had a broad and open definition, but the decisions as to what constituted local and regional food culture as served at the ministerial meals were made at the top political level. The central decision‐making process transformed the concept of a typical local and regional food culture into a political tool serving political goals, with the end product presented at different EU‐ministerial meals.