FARMING, COOKING, AND EATING PRACTICES IN THE CENTRAL CHINA HIGHLAND: How "Hezha" Foods Function to Establish Ethnic Identity

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Year:
Pages:400
ISBN:0-7734-1373-1
978-0-7734-1373-3
Price:$239.95 + shipping
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Applying anthropological perspectives, this study investigates the pattern of local people's identity-expression in their ordinary lives in Enshi Prefecture, a "multi-ethnic" (duo minzu) area in central China, and find no ethnic boundary based on local agroecosystem construction, selection of basic foods, cooking strategy, flavouring pattern, meal pattern, meal structure, food rules, and local knowledge of food plants.

Reviews

"... this books forms an important contribution to our understanding of local food customs, history and folklore in the region, besides contributing to our appreciation of the changing dynamic of consumer preferences in modern China." -Prof. Nicholas Tapp, The Australia National University

"This book is important to scholars of Chinese ethnicity, modern history, modern regional politics, and cultural dynamics in frontier zones. ... the book is an invaluable record of shifting, blending culture on an internal mountain frontier, and the consequent development of fascinating foodways." -Prof. E.N. Anderson, University of California, Riverside

" ... is critical and detailed, and this book is a pleasure to read. ... We suggest that all who study ethnic populations read his book and understand his premises before they report about the people th[e]y are studying." -Flavor & Fortune

Table of Contents

Foreword by Nicholas Tapp

Acknowledgement

Introduction

1. Hezha Restaurants

2. The Agroecosystem Transition

3. A Set of Basic Foods

4. The "Earth Barn" of Enishi People

5. Food Rules

Festival Foodways

7. Different and Yet Alike

Bibliography

Index

Other Agricultural Studies Books