Chinese Literature and Cuisine

Chinese Literature and Cuisine

841 Trends in Cuisine & Culture
Fall 2012

By
XXX

Content

Abstract 3

Chapter One: the food in the ancients’ eyes 5

Chapter Two: Novels 7

Chapter three: Poems 11

Chapter Four: Conclusion 14

Abstract
Dietetic culture which has its character is an important part of the traditional Chinese culture，and is an important part of world dietetic culture . It is not only materially exists in different kinds of diet schools, but also in plenty of diet documents. In addition to these documents, Chinese dietetic culture also exists in the lively and popular form—literature. This is the “Dietetic Literature”.
The main topic of my paper is Chinese cuisine and literature. The importance of Chinese cuisine reflects from literature, such as novels, proverbs, poetries, and so on. We often say “For the people, food is heaven”. So we could find out a lot of food related words, phrases, and stories in literature. I interested in this topic because my bachelor degree is about Chinese Literature. Therefore in this topic I think I can combine cuisine and literature in a familiar way.
The first chapter in my paper is Lun Yu, or Edited Conversations of Confucius. As we all know, Confucius (551–479 BCE) was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. The second chapter is about novels. I want to talk about two of the most famous classic masterpiece in China, A Dream of the Red Chamber and Outlaws of the March. The third chapter is about poems , followed by the conclusion
Keywords: Chinese cuisine, Literature,

How my paper express the triangle:

Identity: different people and different eras focus on the different characteristics of food. It involves considerations of personal preference, creativity, and the sense of who they are and where they come from. For example, when the litterateurs lived in a hard time, suffering the lack of food, they may focus on the importance of food. On the contrary, when they lived in a golden age, they may care more about the beauty of food.

Convenience: the global food chain makes it easy to taste different food from all over the world. More and more works talk about the foreign food. The exotic atmosphere becomes a strategy to attract audiences.

Responsibility: after a poem or a story spreading to the popular, people would like to try the certain food what litterateurs described in the works. So the litterateur has the responsibility to introduce the food with good qualities.

Chapter one: the food in the ancients’ eyes

In real life, people used to greet each other by asking, “Have you had your meal?” or “Eaten?” which reflect that ancient Chinese people put great emphasis on diet. In rural areas, “friends” used to mean those who had once dined together.
In the Lun Yu, or Edited Conversations of Confucius, there is the following passage stipulating what purports to be Confucius’ notion of proper eating:

His rice is not excessively refined, and his sliced meat is not cut excessively fine. Rice that has become putrid and sour, fish that has spoiled, and meat that has gone bad, he does not eat. Food that is discolored he does not eat, and food with a bad odor he does not eat. Undercooked foods he does not eat, and foods served at improperly carved, he does not eat, and if he does not obtain the proper sauce, he will not allow it to overcome the vitalizing power of the rice. Only in the case of wine does he not set a limit. But he never drinks to the point of becoming disorderly. Purchased wine or dried meat from the market he does not eat. He never dispenses with ginger when he eats. He does not eat to excess. (Lun Yu.10.8)

Although this description portrays the sage as something of a combination of a Chou dynasty Escoffier and a food critic for the New York Times, it is an excellent illustration of the punctilious attention the Chinese traditionally have lavished on cooking and eating. The proper preparation of food certainly has been a major preoccupation of the Chinese since remote antiquity. The early Chinese classics provide ample testimony to the strong emphasis that the ancient Chinese placed on food. For example, a chapter of the Classic of Documents in its enumeration of the eight principal concerns of government regards food as a first in importance. The ritual texts in particular devote long sections to food, its proper preparation, and serving. One good illustration of this ancient preoccupation with food is the Rites of Chou(Chou li 周礼), an idealized description of the Chou dynasty administrative system compiled perhaps around the third or fourth century B.C. The first section of the book records that the department of the royal household had the following officers charged with various tasks involving food and drink: 152 masters of viands (膳夫), who supervised the planning and preparation of meals for the king, the consorts,and the crown prince; 70 butchers (p’ao jen 疱人); 128 court cooks (nei yung 内飨), and so on.
We can see from the description that how serious the ancients thought about food. Confucius thought that how we eat and what we eat defined who we are. In his viewpoint, a man with a high integrity is who strictly complies with the eating manner.

Chapter Two: Novels

The Classic novel Hong Lou Meng or A Dream of the Red Chamber is viewed as “the encyclopedia of Chinese culture”, in which the dietetic culture is especially described delicately and elegantly. A Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦), or The Story of the Stone (石头记), is the greatest masterpiece of Chinese classical novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties with the most profound influence on later generations. The work is comprised of 120 chapters, the first 80 of which were written by Tsao Hsueh-chin and the remaining 40 by Kao Hgo.
Tsao Hsueh-chin, the author of A Dream of the Red Chamber, lived between 1715 and 1763. His ancestral family once held great power. As such, he led a wealthy noble life in Nanjing as a child. When he was 13 or 14, the family was declining and moved to Beijing, where life took a turn for the worse. In his later years, he even led a poor life. Drawing on his own experience, Tsao Hsueh-chin put all his life experiences, poeticized feelings, exploratory spirit and creativity into the greatest work of all time ——A Dream of the Red Chamber. Drawing its materials from real life, the novel is full of the author’s personal feelings filled with blood and tears. It is associated with every aspect of Chinese culture, in which various dietetic cultural activities and phenomena get wonderfully and comprehensively depicted and reflected.
Dietetic culture, a culture centered on food, drink and dietetic manners in daily life, is also called dietetic custom. The novel described many fantastic scenes of dietetic culture, which is regarded as a genuine reflection of characteristics of dietetic culture of ancient China, especially Qing Dynasty. Special attention should be focused on the features of characteristics of food names in A Dream of the Red Chamber. Firstly, it has vivid description of banquet scenes. For example, according to uncompleted statistics, except the three meals a day, celebrations under names are over 68 times. And among them, some big scenes are in the chapter titles. Secondly, it contains a great variety of dishes names. According to uncompleted statistics, there are about 186 types of food in overall 120 chapters. All of them could be divided into staple, dessert, dishes, seasonings, drinks, fruits, nutritious food, foreign food etc. And all of the foods are very delicate and graceful by being shown the way of cooking them. There are 45 places from Chapter 1-56 in A Dream of the Red Chamber in which culinary arts are profiled delicately and elegantly, with the feature of literary tone. Above is a chart shows three visions of translations about food naming in A Dream of the Red Chamber. It is hard for foreign people to understand the exactly meaning of a literary name. But we can still tell from this chart that how fewer the words used but contain of an ample meaning. The second novel I want to talk about is Outlaws of the Marsh, another famous classic novel in China. The story, set in the Song Dynasty, tells of how a group of 108 outlaws gathered at Mount Liang (or Liangshan Marsh) to form a sizable army before they are eventually granted amnesty by the government and sent on campaigns to resist foreign invaders and suppress rebel forces. Chinese classical literary masterpiece Outlaws of the Marsh has drawn material from a real peasant uprising in the 12th century, at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty. Although academics have conducted some studies on it, but there still exists a large space to research and exploration. Outlaws of the Marsh adopted the story of Song dynasty, and based on the culture of Yuan dynasty, this thesis mainly took the method of history combined with text. First, the novel emphasized on the description of “liangshan” group’ food life; Second, the dietetic culture in the novel had four features which contained pop feature, “xiashi” feature, minorities’ feature; Three, the food description showed multiple dietetic mentalities; Four, the description about “Eats the human” which was very controversial was not fabricate, it deeply explained the ideology of “food is what most important for people”; Five, the novel reflected many real dietetic phenomenon in Song and Yuan Dynasties ; Six, I conclude the rule between “diet” and “literature” in the novel. Therefore, Outlaws of the Marsh is important materials for the Song and Yuan Dynasties dietetic culture study. From the Song and Yuan Dynasties this specific social and historical background, it is really valuable to conclude a panoramic view of the concern to Outlaws of the Marsh, and to analyze the structure, tactics, causes and mentalities systematically and deeply. This is an innovative research idea of the Outlaws of the Marsh, but also a try to open up the new road of "Dietetic Literature". The study can help us to understand our ancient and modern society, and to understand the culture of our society.

Chapter three: Poems Food has been a topic of poetry for many centuries and in many cultures; the notion that food writing and poetry writing are totally separate ventures is a recent development. Much of our knowledge of eating habits, culinary practices, and food taboos throughout history and around the world comes from poetry. Food in poetry also functions as a powerful symbol of spiritual and moral states, and at other times it is used as a sexual symbol.
The Chinese have a long tradition of including food in poetry, going as far back as the Chou Dynasty (from the 12th century B.C. to 221 B.C.). There are Chou poems celebrating festive foods of the time, including stewed turtle, fried honey cakes, duck, quail, and good wine, and discussing the preparation of rice. The Shih Ching (Book of Songs) includes food scenes such as lamb sacrifice, in which the aroma of the roasting meat is described and fruit and wine are offered; verses on a feast of rabbit and plenty of wine; a song rejoicing in family togetherness at a feast including such meats as lamb, ox, and tripe, and an abundance of wine; agricultural songs celebrating wheat, millet, barley, plums, cherries, dates, melons, gourds, beans, garlic, and rice (from which wine is made). The culinary abundance of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) is strongly evident in its poetry, which contains paeans to plums, pears, persimmons, jujubes, many kinds of melons, spring wine, and peaches, which were a traditional symbol of immortality in Chinese poetry and painting. Poems were also forums for discussing differences between foods. For instance, the eighth-century poet Chang Chiu-ling used poetry to address the many ways in which lynches and lingams are not similar fruits at all, despite their superficial similarities. Poems written during another prosperous period, the Qing Dynasty (1644–1922), link food and sex, with female beauty and sexuality compared to melons, cherries, and grapes.
Here are some examples of Chinese poem.

"Many a heavy sigh I heaved in my despair, grieving that I was born in such an unlucky time...I yoked a team of jade dragons to a phoenix-figured car, and waited for the wind to come, to soar up on my journey." (Qu Yuan, ancient Chinese poet)
"Beneath these green mountains where spring rules the year, the irbarbutus and loquat in season appear, and feasting on lychee - 300 a day, I shouldn't mind staying eternally here." (Su Shih, Chinese poet)
"To the ruler, the people are heaven; to the people, food is heaven." (ancient Chinese proverb)

新嫁娘 王 建
三 日 入 厨 下, 洗 手 作 湯 羹 。
未 諳 姑 食 性 , 先 遣 小 姑 嘗 。
A new Bride Wang Jian
In the kitchen, hardly a bride for three days,
Making a meal I wash my hands in haste.
A new family's usual cuisine, I have no hint,
My sister-in-law can tell me with a first taste. This poem

Chapter Four: Conclusion

The Chinese cuisine has become increasingly popular among more and more overseas gourmets, functioning as en envoy of friendship in China’s cultural exchanges with foreign countries. Modern China enjoys a worldwide reputation as the “kingdom of cuisine”. A Chinese saying goes that “people regard food as their prime wants”.
For a long period of time, even today, the Chinese people are accustomed to greet others by saying, “Have you eaten yet?” Food is even uplifted at the height of politics. Lao Tzu, the great philosopher over two thousand years ago, writes in The Classic of the Virtue of the Tao that “Govern a big country is like cook a small dish”.