Food Cultures

The four pieces in this chapter all revolve around the changing relationship to basic food stuff traditional associated with backwardness and deprivation in the context of a search for the “authentic” by urban middle classes. Jakob Klein deals with the repositioning of the potatoe from a staple of the poor to a new superfood. Samuel Berlin tells the story of laid off factory workers learning to make their local delicacies to sell to an urban clientele while Erin Thomason recounts returning Henanese migrants’ nostalgia for “shaoguo”, a highly polluting biomass oven. In her piece on eating videos, Caroline Yiqian Wang puts the spotlight on the social and culinary benefits from watching other people eat online.

Chapter Contents:

3.1 Repositioning Potatoes in the PRC
Jakob Klein
3.2 Feeding the Future: The Politics of Aspiration in a Chinese Market Street
Samuel Berlin
3.3 China’s Eating Videos and the Rising Number of Single-Person Households in the Age of Urbanisation
Caroline Yiqian Wang
3.4 Tasting Home in Henan: Exploring Identity Through Shaoguo
Erin Thomason