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| Published: Jun.02.2009 @ 12:24 pm
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Beijing duck(Peking Duck) and American roast turkey originated from the roast goose of the Mediterranean regions. Birds were the aid and gift that God gave man. But man likes to eat only those birds that are big and fleshy. The goose is a fleshy fowl and is also the special product of the Mediterranean regions. When it is roasted for food, its meat is delicious and tender. Therefore, roast goose is a traditional dish in Europe and is widely recognized as a delicacy.
When Europeans arrived in America, they found that the bird which God gave them as a gift this time was the turkey. So they ate roast turkey and offered thanks to God. After learning of the origin of roast turkey you would find it easier to accept as true the following story about roast duck. The roast goose of the Western world may be considered in a sense the progenitor of the roast duck of China. The technique of roasting the goose was twice passed on to China---once during the Yuan Dynasty, when China was ruled by Mongols, and later again during the Qin Dynasty, when China was under the rule of the Manchurian conquerors. The Mongolian Empire occupied an enormous territory extending from the east of China westward to the regions of the Mediterranean Sea. This was the reason why people of the Western world, such as Marco Polo, could have come to China. They brought to China quite a lot of the culture of the Western world, including the cannon and the roast goose. How did it come about that roast goose was transformed into roast duck? The cause of the transformation was no different from that of the transformation of roast goose into roast turkey.
Chinese people began to domesticate wild duck two thousand years ago, but European people did not do that. Instead, they domesticated the goose very early. As China had specialized in producing duck for thousands of years, this fowl became a special product of the country and was preferred by Chinese people to the goose, which was generally not in favor. Furthermore, the duck used for producing roast duck was of an excellent species bred painstakingly by Chinese over a long period of time. The scientific name of the species is Beijing duck. It was imported by the United States in the year 1874 under the name of Peking duck, and thereafter it came to be spread all over the world. Nevertheless, the duck of this species being bred in China now is still reputed to be the best.Chinese food cultureRelated articles:
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| Published: Apr.22.2009 @ 5:53 pm
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dishes of Chinese food are, as a rule, cooked in the kitchen by stir-frying, shallow frying, deep frying, stewing, steaming, etc. and then presented to the diners. Only the chafing dish merges the cooking and the eating processes. What is more, the cooking apparatus is placed on the table and fire is made to burn from the beginning to the end of the dinner. Doesn't this remind you of the way of eating our remote ancestors were habituated to? Even now, in our times, those who eat together around a chafing dish must be family members or close companions. They are your good friends, if not brothers. Doesn't this smack of a deep feeling of perfect human relationship? Especially in deep winter, when the north wind is howling and snowflakes are flying, what can surpass dinning around a chafing dish for the enjoyment of life and sincere human relationship?
The core of culture, the ideological nucleus of a nation, is the general program of the existence and development of the nation. Once we seize hold of the general program, everything falls into place. Only when we have taken full command of the ideological core of a nation's culture, can we have a comparatively deep and thoroughgoing understanding of the nation's cultural characteristics, cultural personality, cultural behavior and cultural psychology. That is to say, only when a Westerner has mastered the ideological core of Chinese culture can he/she look at a Chinese with understanding, with penetration, and with precision. It is for this reason that in previous articles I have introduced you to the influence that Chinese classical philosophy has had on her culture. Philosophy is abstruse, while culture in itself is concrete, vivid and lively. Thus, the core of culture can be no other than a highly abstract philosophical generalization. Moreover, this kind of abstract generalization must be shown as true by the vivid, concrete, and lively cultural phenomena. It is difficult to derive the abstract from the concrete. It is even more difficult to return from the abstract to the concrete. Culture is doubtless made up of a great multitude of cultural phenomena. These phenomena, like biological cells that contain the secrets of life, contain the genetic code, so to speak, of a nation's culture. A conclusion that naturally follows is: A nation's culture embodies the nation's cultural personality. For example, a Chinese traditionally bows or bows with clasped hands in greeting because, as some researchers think, Chinese people have "introvert" character. Westerners shake hands or embrace on meeting, because Westerners are "extroverted" in character. Extroversion causes one to extend his hand to grasp the other person's hand. Introversion makes one stretch out his hand to hold the other hand of his own.
The high temperature in the chafing dish is symbolic of the warmth of tender feeling that those people sitting around it have for each other, while the round shape of the apparatus is a hint at the lack or complete absence of irregularities in the man-to-man relationship. Undoubtedly, this way of eating is not only a figurative embodiment but a visual indication of the willingness to eat from the same pot and to share the same lot. This is the most highly prized merit of group consciousness. Related articles:
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