Introduction: Expanding the History of Chinese Food Culture

The consumption of food is simultaneously one of humanity’s most basic necessities and one of its greatest luxuries. It has, appropriately, both inspired and reflected cultural activities, from agricultural rituals and ascetic practices to epicurean banquets and poetry. At the present moment, we seem to be living in an era of peak food obsession, fueled by extremely popular food culture, the rapid rise of “foodie” life on social media, and heated debates over the authenticity and identity of cuisine in a multicultural context. Chinese societies have been equally obsessed, with food being a central theme of ancient bronzes, Confucian classics, religious practices, and literary works. For this reason, the study of Chinese food culture naturally brings one through a wide array of disciplines, including cultural studies, history, religion, medicine, and aesthetics. However, with a few notable exceptions, major research in humanistic food studies has tended to emphasize recent time periods, European and American cultures, or both (the “modern west”). The result has been a strong emphasis on “cultural studies” approaches, usually adopting structuralist, culturalist, or Gramscian critiques of power brokers in the past century. 1 This special issue shows how attention to Chinese food history may bring to light many new questions and methods in the study of food culture.