Food and culture: food in different places with different table manners

Food and culture: food in different places with different table manners

Food and culture are always relative in our society. Food in every country is usually different from any other ones with the different ways of eating food and the tools for eating standing for the history and the culture of the country. People in different countries have different traditional food so they prefer different favors and tastes of food, so is China. China is one of the countries in the world which has the longest history of more than 5,000 years so the food history and culture are plentiful enough to get Chinese special characteristics.

As we know, China is a big country with large land area and huge population. People divided the country into several provinces and all the provinces have their own special taste of dishes. The food in different two provinces taste like two opposite favors even sometimes they are close to each other. However, we can get the food from other provinces without travelling: there are a large number of restaurant which provide the food from other cities in China. Because of the huge population, we can see Chinese and Chinese restaurant almost everywhere. In Denver, there are so many Chinese restaurants there that remind people of the delicious Chinese food with the food culture. But most of the American people just think all of the Chinese restaurants are the same. Actually, food in different restaurants which were set up by different people from different provinces in China is in different styles. For example, Golden Shanghai, my favorite Chinese restaurant in Denver, has the Shanghai favor and style of food. Because of the location of my hometown, Suzhou, a modern city with the newest technology of development which is really close to Shanghai, so the food there can always remind me of the food in my hometown.

Food and taste can always represent the culture of an area just like the location, history and the development of it. As an economy center of China, the culture of Shanghai is getting from the traditional old Shanghai into a new Shanghai with the combination of the characteristics all round the world. This can be expressed perfectly on the food: Shanghai food is changed into the style of a combination of the food across the whole China. I think Shanghai food is like the traditional Jiangnan food which is like the one in my hometown, Suzhou with the food such as the steamed fish without the heavy taste. In the traditional way of cooking, people cook the whole fish after some cleaning and only add some salt and wine to keep the natural favor and taste of the fish. This is kind of the original cooking method which lasts for a long period of time. In my memory, I was told that Suzhou has a long history of over 2,500 years so the people just keep using this method of cooking fish even now. However, after eating it, you can get the taste in your mouth and get the feeling clearly, that could be a reason why people insist using this method of cooking. Fish is always popular in Shanghai because Shanghai lies near the Huangpu River, people can get fresh fish and shrimps easily that eating fish becomes a habit on table that Shanghai people always prepare some fish for big meals. However, people in other parts of China cooking other kinds of fish with the same material, for example, the people in Sichuan province enjoy hot and spicy favor so they put a lot of chili while cooking the fish. They cut the fish into several middle-sized pieces instead of steam the whole fish. And then, they boiled these pieces of fish in a big pot with the spicy soup and the chili in it. Not only fish, but also other dishes like the chicken potatoes and the meat are also spicy and hot there. The reasons of eating spicy food are probably two causes. Firstly, I think this place is always humid and cool, so eating hot and spicy can keep people warm in cold days. The second reason may be about the traditional habit and some story of the ancient people makes the local people enjoy hot and spicy food. In Shanghai, all these spicy Sichuan food is easy to find in the city but there is still some difference between the Sichuan restaurant in Shanghai and the real Sichuan food. I believe the food in local families and restaurants is the best and the food from a long distance, for example, the Chinese food in the US is like the fake one compared the real Chinese food. Since the development of technology and economy of Shanghai, a large number of immigrants from other parts of China become new citizens in Shanghai. These people are mostly looking for jobs or going to work in Shanghai but some of them are like the chance catcher for making money such as running a restaurant. These people just want to make money so they may cook for tasks: they don’t really take care of their food and don’t have enough passion and patient while cooking which makes the quality of food is not good as the traditional food. Also, by staying in another city for a long time, they won’t remember everything about the food in their memory; this becomes a big problem which leads the taste of these restaurants getting worse. That means the quality of the same type of food can also represent the emotion and the effort of the cook.

Not only the food itself can represent the culture but also the ways of eating is a symbol of the culture. For example, table manners. In western countries, people use knives and forks to cut the meat into small pieces and eat. They think eating a big piece of food which is even bigger that the mouth is a kind of impoliteness on the table. In China, people all use chopsticks to eat instead of knives and forks and they can get the food easily even some small round pieces like the peanuts. In my memory, I can use chopsticks easily when I was a young child and I cannot even remember that I have ever got a hard training of using chopsticks. The Chinese name for chopsticks has changed over time. It is believed the first chopsticks were developed over 5000 years ago in China. Early Asian man would retrieve his food from the fire using sticks or branches broken from trees. Later, as the population grew and resources became scarce, people would cut food into smaller pieces to save fuel because the smaller portions cooked faster. This eliminated the need for knives, and chopsticks became the utensil of choice. It is also showed that a pair of chopsticks is a symbol of Chinese history and culture because of its position in China: “Originally known as jia (to hold), the utensil assumed the name zhu around the Qin–Han period (221 BCE–220 CE). Zhu, however, is homophonous (having the same pronunciation) as stop or bore (by insects). The Chinese, especially those who boated in the south, considered the word unlucky and replaced it with a word sounding like kuai, a homophone of quick, sometime during the Qing Dynasty” in the Chinese long history. Moreover, my families told me that while eating but not using the chopstick, for example, while drinking the soup, we cannot insert the chopsticks into the bowl of rice but we have to put the chopsticks beside the bowl or lying on the bowl.

However, only a pair of chopsticks is not enough to get all the food. Sometimes people have to get the liquid soups or the very soft food like Tofu, they still use spoons. However, we never use forks and knives and even plates in the traditional Chinese meal. We can get the food by chopsticks on the table easily instead of forks and it is fine to hold a big piece of food with your hand while eating especially for the big piece of meat with bones. We have bowls full of rice and people put the food on the bowl instead of a plate. While drinks a bowl of soup, we just use a big spoon to get some soup from the big pot into our own bowl and start enjoying the soup. People have two ways of drinks soup: with a spoon or just hold the bowl and drink it. Both of them are fine in China and Chinese always think that males should eat a lot. If males eat too smoothly, they will be thought about being womanish and this really a bad impression of a man in China. Chinese like sharing food, and parents always ask their children to eat with their families. Family meal is a significant part of Chinese people’s life. Usually, the seats are in ordered so people should sit in order with their ages and positions in the family. On the table, People sit around a round desk and they eat the same food. When sometimes, more than ten people eat together on the table, they may use a big table with a piece of moveable glasses on it so people do not have to worry about the distance between his body and the dishes. Furthermore, Chinese food is always in order. Because of not having the mode of fast food, not only the food is complicated but also the eating steps are complex. People have cold dishes at the very beginning and then have some meat and vegetables. At last, they may have a big pot of soup and eating the rice.

To sum up, as can be seen from the article, food is relative to the culture because it can kind of represent the culture. In China, the tastes of the food made from the same materials are usually different because people there use different method of cooking. The different favor they prefer shows the Geographical Conditions of the cities. The location of some city leads the cold climate so they may eat hot and spicy food, on the other hand, like Shanghai, as being the center of the economy with the development of technology, more and more people move to this place and bring their culture there. A lot of culture from different place mix together which shows that you can get almost any styles of food in Shanghai. Eating ways and steps are also an importance part of food culture. People in China eat with chopsticks instead of forks and knives. They always sit around a big round table in their traditional meals and share the food from large pot or plate. People eating with complicated that is really opposite to the American fast food style and they prefer the males eat a lot. All the characteristics about eating just like the chopsticks are symbols of Chinese culture and can remind people of Chinese long history. Also, it makes me miss my hometown so much.

Work Cited:

"Chopsticks." Berkshire Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic Views of the World's Newest and Oldest Global Power. Great Barrington: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2009. Credo Reference. Web. 01 May 2012.