Savoring Local Knowledge: Exploring Place-Specific Foods in Song China

The practice of documenting characteristics of various regions and their products began to flourish in the late ninth century and reached new heights during the Song dynasty. A wide array of primary sources—poetry, gazetteers, urban guidebooks, and notebooks—contain lists of place-specific foods from diverse locations. Regardless of genre, these writings collectively narrate geographical and gastronomic knowledge, each serving a unique purpose. This increased enumeration and discussion of local foods suggests that Song China witnessed the rise of a rhetoric of terroir —as a result of accumulated geographic knowledge and the increasing mobility of people and goods. The role of terroir, or fengtu 風土, represented the stable connections between humans and the natural world, encapsulating sensory experiences of the physical environment. Writings on place-specific foods transitioned from political tools highlighting local offerings to self-fashioning endeavors showcasing individual taste, local pride, and geographical knowledge.