Special Issue on Chinese Culinary Regionalism: Introduction

Abstract

Wherever we go in the world, culinary regionalism appears as a potent (and delicious) form of local pride. Here in North Carolina, where I live, aficionados passionately defend the merits of their particular style of barbecue, complete with guides, maps, festivals, and smoke-offs. Eastern Carolina barbecue centers on smoking a whole hog over a wood fire, finished with a vinegar and pepper sauce, while Western Carolina barbecue (also known as Lexington or Piedmont-style) uses only pork shoulder, with a red sauce featuring ketchup, vinegar, and other spices. Either way, real barbecue for partisans in this state means pulled pork – if you’re looking for beef, head west out of the state toward Kansas City or Texas. Yet culinary regionalism offers more than just opportunities for local boosterism and friendly rivalries: it deserves closer consideration as a general phenomenon within food studies and food history. First, though, we need to make a basic distinction between the explanatory potential of culinary regions vs. culinary regionalism. The perspective of the former is enumerative and descriptive, while the perspective of the latter is systemic and comprehensive. Understanding culinary regionalism as a phenomenon goes far beyond naming the seven culinary regions of Mexico, for example, or listing the specialty dishes of each of India’s twenty-eight states. Instead, investigating culinary regionalism involves posing questions such as: Who gets to define culinary regions? When do specific culinary regions matter and why? How do culinary regions and identities emerge, and how do they change? How is culinary regionalism distinct from or related to other forms of regionalism, such as linguistic, ethnic, or economic? Of particular interest here is the relationship between culinary regions and culinary nation: do regional culinary identities rival national culinary identities, or are they mutually constitutive? How do regional and national identities affect one another, and what about the interactions between regional cuisines? Moreover, how are all of these culinary relationships expressed or shaped on the ground by different groups, at different points time? This special issue of Global Food History is devoted to an examination of the dynamics of culinary regionalism in China, through four separate case studies. Globally, one could argue that culinary regionalism reaches its apogee in China: it is the most populous and fourth-largest country in the world, boasting dozens of distinct and historic regional cuisines scattered over a diverse landscape of rice paddies in the east and south, wheat fields in the north, and mountainous pasturelands in the west. This welter of food identities and regions is often defined by province (Sichuanese, Hunanese, Cantonese, etc.), city (Shanghainese, Beijing, Hong Kong, etc.), ethnic groups concentrated in specific regions (Hakka, Uyghur, etc.), or even specific dishes (knife-shaved noodles of Shanxi, Peking roast duck, West Lake vinegar fish, etc.). GLOBAL FOOD HISTORY 2020, VOL. 6, NO. 2, 85–88 https://doi.org/10.1080/20549547.2020.1770490