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1、Differences in Diet Culture between China and America福建师范大学协和学院 外语系 英语专业124022009030 蔡才艺 指导老师 王月珠Abstract Diet culture plays a crucial position in the countrys culture; it reflects a countrys history development of material culture. America is of the most developed countries and China is the most de
2、veloping countries in the world. As the different tradition culture and geographic variation, Chinese and American diet culture has a different way of formation. So, having a good knowledge of difference in diet culture between China and America is a matter of cardinal significance. Furthermore, die
3、t culture bounds up with English language, we also could benefit from the analysis on English studying. The author describes the character between China and America diet culture. Then analysis the difference from some aspects such as regions, diet concepts, diet features and so on. Finally, it talks
4、 about the influences which brought by different diet culture between China and America. By the analysis, we can learn how to inherit our national and dispose the clash of two diet culture.Key word diet culture；traditional culture；difference1. IntroductionFood is essential to human beings; an old Ch
5、inese saying goes like” Food is the paramount necessity of the people”. Apparently, that is true. Moreover, diet is an important component of country culture, different country has different diet culture, and to an extent it reflects the development history of a country. Though Chinese food fashiona
6、ble world as well as America fast food, the purpose they pursue and reflection of society are completely different. As a typical immigration country, America inherited a substantial part of western traditional diet culture. Unlike American diet culture, China has its unique characteristic, ages of i
7、nterchange among different groups have continuously added to the richness of Chinese food culture. Studying the diet cultural difference could make people promote mutual understanding and the two culture fuses in the collision, in fusion supplementary.2.1 The feature of Chinese diet cultureAs the co
8、mmon saying goes” ten man, ten colors.” Every country has its diet culture. When make a comprehensive survey on the development history of Chinese diet culture, we found few nation have devoted so much attention in their own eating habits like Chinese ancestors. That is, Chinese culture has distinct
9、 characteristics. It contains the comprehensive food material, selection of eating psychological and the flexibility of food production. Till today the three characteristics are still the archetype of Chinese traditional diet culture. 2.1.1 The comprehensive food material Sorting in materials, is th
10、e first skill for Chinese chef, it is the cornerstone of cooking a Chinese dish. In daily diet, Chinese people live on rice, flour and grains. The material of cuisine is mainly poultry, vegetables, aquatic and dry goods. The food material exploit by Chinese people is incomparable. In addition, a lar
11、ge number of them are never known to the other country. As China stretches across vast area covering the cold, temperate and tropical zones, everything that could maintain the survival can be found in this kingdom domestic. In the other part, it has been common for them to exploit those edible mater
12、ials when Chinese are under the pressure of eating and arousing by foods. The monarch of dynasties in China had policies for their people and ecological environment pressures caused by press of population to the soil and other problems which appeared very soon. They had brought great concerns of foo
13、d issues to the governor of dynasties and the people which had troubled them for thousands of years. Facing those severe issues our nationalities had bear the thoughts like the folk saying in the long historical sufferings from poor, the broad masses of people had developed strong desires to survive
14、 and galvanizing and inspiring of spirit to explore. So that our Chinese ancestors had those magic mouth and teeth, Rely on them, Chinese had been ate things from those in the trees to those under the ground. Besides that, we also eat plants and animals to ants and elephants, things that are living
15、in the biological world no matter how tiny or how large they are. Its true that our nationalities almost eat everything they caught and saw. They are food s include something we are not supposed to eat or things that are inedible. (Zhao, Rongguang, 2006:23)2.1.2 Selection of eating psychologicalBeca
16、use of the richness of cuisine, selection of eating psychological always reflects on table. It becomes particularly acute on the nobles. They have a lot of dishes to choose in each dinner, even so, they are still not satisfied. As the upper social has the necessary political power, economic power an
17、d cultural advantages, luxuriant diversifications on food is what they hunting for. On the contrary, selection of eating psychological on the underclass is limited by political, economic and cultural. As a result, many traditional flavor snacks were appearing on Chinese peoples daily life. On the on
18、e hand, the Upper class pursuit of rich and varied psychology; on the other hand, the common people society makes efforts for various foods. So the whole society showed a consistent pursuit of food life diversification psychological tendency. History of the Chinese people developed this richness psy
19、chological to the extreme. Chinese people think that everything in the nature is the need for human health, so they eat all you can eat. Different with Christian is the Chinese people suggest in harmony with nature, advocate take sometimes, use soberly. This does not restrict the freedom of Chinese
20、demand, and enables the Chinese use of creative talents into full play of the use of natural things. (Zhao, Rongguang, 2006:26)2.1.3 Flexibility of food productionFor the comprehensive food material and selection of eating psychological, Chinese traditional diet culture shows another feature: flexib
21、ility of food production. Cooking techniques, is one of stunts of Chinese chef. it contains: fire, explosion, fry, boil, slip, Fried, stick, stewed, steak, burn, stewing, braised, Tun, boil, sauce, halide, steamed, roast, mix, spicy, smoked. Different method has different character, and each method
22、could cook out many dishes.2.2 The feature of America diet cultureThe United States is a typical immigration country. Since the Columbus discovered America in 1492 after the mainland, a few countries of Europe began to immigrate constantly to North America, pioneering colonies. With the development
23、of local economy, at the same time they take the life habits, the cooking skills to America, resulting in that American cooking can be regarded as the combination of north and south. (Qian, Ruijuan, 2006:108) For the short diet culture history and the American ancient thinkers devoted less attention
24、 to the food problem than the Chinese philosophers did, the feature of American diet culture could be summarized into three points.2.2.1 HodgepodgeBecause of immigration, American diet culture blend in a large amount of other countries diet culture all over the world. As the majority of these immigr
25、ants come from England, and America was under the rule of the British from 17th Century to the end of 18th Century, the England culture was dominant on the Newland. Nowadays, the majority of American is English immigrants; American dish is developing on the basic of English dish. In addition, Americ
26、a dish also combine with the national style, French style, Italian style. As letting a hundred schools of thought contend, American dish formed a unique style.2.2.2 The narrow of food materialThe Unite States is blessed with vast land and ample resources, abundance are taken for granted. Moreover, A
27、merican housewife also benefits from the convenient transport and the good climate. Though American has so many advantages, why they did not develop a wide varieties dish? Unlike Chinese condition, America suffered less war; the Americans need not have a try to eat the food which men havent eaten. F
28、or the high standard of living, they pay more attention to nutrition. Accordingly, meat becomes the main food in American daily life.2.2.3 The rapid development of fast foodAfter World War , the United States developed so quickly that it became the most developed country in the world. While the temp
29、o of American people living was speeding up, fast food emerged. In addition, due to the rise of the feminist movement, American housewife also got the right to work, therefore, less American housewife cook at home, and hence speeding up the pace of development of the fast food industry. There are se
30、veral reasons for fast food popular. On the one hand, it is very convenient and saves a lot of time. On the other hand, people can either eat it there or take it away. Furthermore, the environment of fast food restaurant is both clean and comfortable. However, it lacks nutrition; it is usually not a
31、 balanced diet and low in nutrition value. Today, fast food chains have spread all around the world, and have spread American culture right along with them.3. Differences in Diet Culture between China and America3.1 Differences in concepts The Chinese and western diet have the differences that canno
32、t be ignored in concept, nobody will deny that the western diet is rational concept, regardless of the color of food, incense, flavor and shape, but nutrition must be assured. It cares about the intake of calories, vitamins, protein and so on during a day. Comparing with the Chinese diet, western di
33、et tastes stereotyped, as simple as chewing the candle, but the sense tells them: we must eat them all because of the nutrition. And then they put it bluntly, just like refueling machine.3.1.1 The concept of diet in American Different with Chinese food which pay attention to taste , American has a r
34、ational diet concept. Whatever the food color, aroma, taste and shape may be, but the nutrition must be guaranteed, it stresses that how many quantity of vitamin and protein will be absorbed one day. Even if taste with monotony, they still show instresting on the food just because of nutrition. The
35、concept of American diet is compatible with the whole western philosophy; metaphysics is the main feature of American philosophy. Such kind of philosophy brings vitality to American culture. In some other aspects, such philosophy proposition is a significantly obstacle, such as the dietary culture.
36、In celebration, it stresses tableware, the staple, the servings, and the color and shape mix of raw materials. But no matter how luxurious the grade is; from Los Angeles to New York, only one taste of steak, it is no art to speak of. And as dishes, it tastes flavorless. In a dish of “French Muttonch
37、ops”, one side is potato mud, and muttonchops sits next to it, another side is allocation of cooking beans, and plus a few tablets of tomato, it looks very delicious, but the tastes of the carious materials are separated, not to reconcile, and the entire flavor is also simple and clear.3.1.2 The con
38、cept of diet in ChinaChinese people attach great importance to eating. We can know it from the old saying min yi shi wei tian. For thousands of years, due to the low productivity people always dont have enough food; hence there comes the unique eating culture of putting eating above everything. As f
39、ar as Im concerned, may be it is the result of physiological needs. If there is a culture which regards eating as the most important thing, then there will produce two phenomena:On the one hand it will display the function of eating to its limit. Not only eat to live but live well, which is the cult
40、ure basis of Food cures better than medicines. On the other hand, the over-emphasis of eating will push the pursuit of delicious food. The pursuit of delicacy has almost come to the extreme in China cookery.Chinas dishes highly stress on its color, aroma, taste, shape and meaning. As a result, many
41、Chinese come to overseas and make a living by opening restaurants, which has become the fundamental settlement in the world. Unfortunately, when we take priority of its taste, we often ignore the nutrition value of food. Our traditional food is often through hot oil frying and boiling with moderate
42、fire for a long time; during cooking the nutritious ingredients have been destroyed. So when it comes to nutrition issue, actually it touches the biggest weak point of China eating culture. There a folk saying that:” food is the paramount necessity of people, taste is the priority of eating.3.2 Diff
43、erences in targetsAmericans believe that food is to satiety humans hunger; therefore, they designed to have one-piece meat and the piece of chicken. On the contrary, Chinese people pay more attention to “taste”, so the Chinese cooking materials shows arbitrary. Materials which was discarded by the A
44、mericans would become excellent material while they are in China; Chinese chef can change decayed things for magical which the foreign chef cannot handle. It serves to show Chinese food in materials of the randomness of extensive. According to the investigation, the Chinese people eat a variety of v
45、egetables which are more than six times as much as the western. In fact, in Chinese dairy life, vegetable is a common food, the meat only on holidays or the high standards of living, so there is a saying the vegetable food since ancient times. Fresh vegetables in the daily diet structure are of the
46、dominant position. Chinese people plant vegetables as their main vegetable, this is associated with Buddhists advocacy, those people regard animal as the life, but the plant as inanimate, and therefore, vegetables are very popular in Chinese dish.When the American introduce their countrys food, they
47、 feel themselves pay more attention to nutrition and collocation, there are more developed food industry, such as canned foods, snack. Although there is a monotonousness about taste, it saves time and nutritious, so their countrys person body is stronger than the Chinese.3.3 Differences in patternsC
48、hinese and American diet has a very different way, and the difference of national character may also be affected. In China, there are only one kind of form in banquet, no matter what purpose, The type of table in banquet must be round, that is to get together with anybody and share the feast., it ma
49、kes one kind of unite and polite atmosphere.The center of the table is delicacy, it is not only the object of appreciate and taste, but also the media of peoples emotion contacted. People is toasting, offering food, they show the respect and comity manners in front of the beautiful things. Although this kind of diet style has its shortage from the another perspective of health, it suits our folks common mentality, it reflects the scope of peace in our C
