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Social Education 74(1), pp 17–19 ©2010 National Council for the Social Studies Chinese Geography through Chinese Jonathan Lipman

hina has the world’s largest population, now over 1.3 billion, but its land the dishes that local people are proud area (much of it high or ) is about the same as that of the of and consider their very own. In every CUnited States, which has less than one-fourth as many people. So Chinese part of , you will find the balance farmers have learned to use every inch of their fertile land intensively. Pressure on of flavors, the overall taste of the local the land has required extremely efficient farming and resulted in a vast mosaic of cuisine, to be unique and different, suited cultures, intimately related to local climate (even micro-climate) and water-soil to the products of local soil and water. resources. Some products may be found in all of China’s agricultural regions, but Even the same ingredient can differ most places are known for, and take pride in, a local cuisine. widely across the Chinese landscape. For example, in olden times, traveling For food is never just “what the land with particular places. Some techniques, merchants from province, in the can produce,” so local preferences—taste like or stir-frying in oil, and north, would carry their personal jugs and culinary history—play important some ingredients, like cabbage, , of Shanxi with them wherever roles in people’s choices. To take an soy , and green onions, were used they went rather than tolerate the inferior important example, why did chile (cap- everywhere, but most specific prepara- sourness of elsewhere. sicum) peppers, which could be grown tions remained closely associated with Nowadays, of , many young everywhere in China, only become an local . China’s climates range people in China prefer the allure of important source of flavor and nutrition from to the tropics, and you homogenized , Pizza Hut or in central and (such as would never expect such diverse ecolo- McDonalds, rather than the antiquated and ), rather than along gies to produce the same kinds of food. tastes of their parents and grandparents. the , where they first arrived from What we call “Chinese food” outside of Even the well-known Chinese avoidance the Americas? Why are some Chinese China usually means an over-sweetened of dairy products (which began because cuisines more strongly flavored and oth- variant of () cui- there’s so little land available for graz- ers lighter? We can use this variation in sine—the home region of most Chinese ing) is being challenged, for cream , food to help our students see China not immigrants—one tailored to the tastes , and have now become as an “it,” a singular and homogeneous of foreigners and using ingredients very common. But despite the gradual homog- trans-Pacific Other, but (more accurately) different from those used in China. To enization of “Chinese food” and the as a complex geographical and human make a familiar comparison, imagine advent of the Big Mac, local and regional “them,” diverse and plural in every way. what anyone in would think of cuisines still retain their uniqueness. We This essay discusses how the regional a restaurant that sold “European food.” can teach Chinese geography as we take cuisines of China reflect topography, Would that be Greek or Portuguese or apart the idea of “Chinese food.” The climate, and people’s ability to extract Bavarian or Swedish? Only outside of most obvious geographical divisions— both calories and taste from the land Europe could such a restaurant make north-south, east-west—also distinguish and water. any sense or survive. Europeans share important culinary differences. Until the twentieth century, there baked , onions, stewing, roasting, China’s great all flow down from was no such thing as “Chinese food,” at and other ingredients and techniques, but the eastern Tibetan massif to the Pacific: least not in China. Rather, each part of what tremendous variation lies beneath the Huanghe (Yellow ) in the north, China had its own unique ingredients the connections! So, too, with China. the Changjiang (Yangzi River) in the cen- and preparations, so One of the great pleasures of traveling ter, and the West and Pearl River system associated particular tastes and smells in China (as in Europe) lies in tasting in the south. The entire culture area thus

January / February 2010 17 Some 50,000 Muslim live in Xi’an, province. The Muslim Quarter is crowded with merchants and its numerous res- taurants offer local specialties such as skewed lamb. (Tedd Levy, 2008)

rises heading west and (as elsewhere in peoples to the north have also affected at harvest time to store in the cold or to the northern hemisphere) gets hotter this region, so lamb and beef often join pickle with salt, vinegar, and chilies and wetter heading south. Most fun- the more “Chinese” , chicken, and (similar to Korean kimchi). Since their damentally, the north is temperate and duck on northern tables. The Manchus, importation from the New World in sometimes arid, appropriate for dry-field the core of the last imperial dynasty the sixteenth century, white potatoes grains, the south humid and well watered, to rule China (the Qing, 1636-1912), also provide wintertime calories for perfect for wet-field (paddy) . Since brought their northeastern food ways northern Chinese. Like New England for Chinese people, food (fan) means and those of their Mongol allies to their and other temperate zones, north and “cooked grain,” the difference is cru- political center at . The capital’s are justifiably proud of cial—northerners eat , , cuisine, therefore, includes many for- their fruits. , , crabapples, or steamed bread as their “main food” est and grassland ingredients, like wild pears, and peaches grow in profusion, (zhushi), while southerners eat rice. The and horsemeat, as well as as do nuts and more exotic sweets such east can utilize the resource of the sea elaborate dishes from the former impe- as the sour (and medicinally powerful) and the lowlands, the west the products rial , such as the famous oven- or wolfberry (gouji), so northern of mountains and river valleys, and their baked Peking/Beijing duck. Oven will often end with a simple plate local flavors reflect these topographical remained a rare technique in of fruit rather than any prepared des- variations. China, largely because it required so sert. Northwest China, astride China’s North. Northern China, centered on much fuel compared to steaming, boiling, major trade routes to Central , has the great triangular with Beijing or stir-frying, but the imperial household long been home to a large population at its apex, is a region of , corn, could afford it. of , whose religious dietary sorghum, and , without the mon- Because the northern climate is cold restrictions prevent them from eating soon rains that nourish the south. Often and harsh, people from this region pork. They therefore dominate the herd- called “coarse” or “vulgar” by south- must preserve food for the long winters. ing, butchering, and preparation of lamb, erners, dishes from the north tend to be Turnips and cabbages are produced in mutton, and beef. strongly flavored, with onions or vast quantity throughout the north, and East. Eastern Chinese food comes in charge. Influences from the pastoral urban families buy hundreds of pounds from the “land of rice and fish,” one

Social Education 18 of China’s richest agricultural regions, centered on the lower reaches of the Selected websites for Chinese Yangzi river. There the predictable geography and cuisine rains and hot climate create Columbia University, Center for ideal conditions for growing rice and http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/menu_pages/blue/geo_china_a.htm for cultivating a wide variety of fruits Extensive variety of resources, including the student activity: “Ordering a and . Since the growing season Chinese ,” designed to introduce students to . Also, “Food is long, many eastern farmers can raise and Geography,” a student reading that discusses relationship between food and two crops of rice per year, ensuring an geography. adequate supply of grain for the dense population. In this center of urbaniza- Food in History: Regional Chinese Cuisine Project tion and commercial agriculture, most of www.globaled.org/chinaproject/lesson1.htm the transportation is done by water, the By Monika Weidner, Poly Prep High School network of rivers and connecting This project includes a student assignment, a reading, and a bibliography. every village and town to larger market- ing centers, so even bulk grains can be Food in : Anthropological and Historical Perspectives moved by boat to supply large cities. It www.asiasociety.org/style-living/food-recipes/food/meats/food-chinese-culture was here that Marco Polo saw the vast Useful background reading from the Asia Society website: askasia.org metropolis of , with over a mil- lion people in the thirteenth century, and described its enormous food markets to outside influences. There, for example, human settlement. Given its ports and an unbelieving European audience. Chinese cooks routinely use cheese, an population, this region has long been Eastern cooking is bland and more exotic ingredient rarely found in China the source of “Chinese” food outside of lightly spiced than that of the north, with before the late twentieth century. China, for its people have migrated over- just a hint of onion or ginger. Freshwater West. , the upper Yangzi seas in great numbers and established fish and shellfish constitute a crucial region including the provinces of Sichuan communities from Hawai’i to Puerto source of protein, whether farmed or (Szechwan) and Hunan, is justifiably Rico, from to . caught in the waterways, whether eaten famous for powerful tastes, dominated Since southern farmers can produce fresh or preserved (often dried). Along by fresh ginger, garlic, green onions, year-round, freshness lies at the core of the coast, of course, marine products brown peppercorn (fagara), and chil- southern Chinese culinary technique, (fish, shellfish, seaweed) provide pro- ies (lajiao). These provinces share a hot, and light cooking of the freshest ingre- tein, calories, and delicious possibilities. humid climate and long growing season, dients produces a broad range of flavors, Though the basic ingredients for cooking with the Tibetan highlands to the west textures, and colors. Only small amounts are similar throughout the region, differ- providing abundant water in the spring of oil are used in Cantonese stir-frying, ent cities in eastern China have unique snowmelt, so the rice paddies yield two but extremely high heat is applied to cook culinary reputations. The city of crops per year. Western chefs combine the food very rapidly. This technique (pronounced woo-see), for example, is this agricultural richness with the heat produces what the Cantonese call famous for its inhabitants’ tendency to of chilies and the mouth-numbing smoky hay (in Mandarin, guoqi), the “breath add sugar to anything. In Wuxi, sweet- flavor of brown peppercorn to create of the pot,” a short-lived heightening of ness can overwhelm all other flavors, so dishes that can overwhelm a newcomer flavors regarded as a high expression of folks from elsewhere indulge in good- but can also amaze with their subtlety a cook’s skill. natured teasing about Wuxi’s sweet tooth. and variety. When chilies arrived in The rich soils and frost-free, sub-trop- This presumably began because Wuxi Hunan and Sichuan, they fell on fertile ical climate of lowland southern China produces sugar; however, so do other ground—people there already loved the enable amazingly diverse agriculture. A parts of China that do not sweeten their spiciness of their brown peppercorn, so common joke says that a Cantonese will food so copiously. Culinary history is the New World capsicum peppers fit the eat anything with four legs except a table, filled with such mysteries! local cuisine. anything which swims except a subma- The great metropolitan port city of South. Southern Chinese cuisine is rine, and anything which flies except an , on a Yangzi tributary near the usually represented by the venerable, airplane. A tourist who goes to any of the sea, has been in constant interaction with multifaceted cooking of Guangzhou, in markets of the region will discover a huge Europe and America for almost two cen- China’s southernmost province, a low- array of animals, fresh and dried insects, turies, so its cuisine has received many lying region of heat, humidity, and dense anything imaginable that lives in fresh or

January / February 2010 19 salt water, and an astonishing variety of skewers and (called polo in Uyghur), seasons to year-round agriculture, from plants, all destined for the dining table. with more Turkish than Chinese, fishing villages to enormous cosmopoli- In the words of one chauvinistic cook, have become favorite snack not tan cities, China’s geographical variety is “Only the food of Canton has no limita- only for nostalgic Middle Eastern and reflected in its foods. Teaching China’s tions, no restrictions. It is a cookery open Central Asian tourists but also for local cuisines helps us to teach geography by to experimentation and creativeness.” Chinese. illustrating vividly how much diversity Frontiers. China’s frontier regions, What can we conclude from this brief lurks within the category “Chinese originally inhabited by culturally survey of Chinese cuisine? Climate and food,” and thus within China’s physical non-Chinese peoples, all have their topography profoundly affect what peo- landscape and human population. The own unique cuisines as well. Koreans, ple eat, and China, larger than Europe exercise can humanize the Chinese by Manchus, , Turkic-speaking with even greater geographical diversity, destroying the stereotype of a homoge- Muslims, Tibetans, Thais, and many contains numerous culinary zones. The neous horde. The Internet can provide other peoples maintain their food ways, north-south gradient—including sig- dramatic photographic evidence of based in the ecologies surrounding the nificant differences in temperature and China’s geographical range, and learn- Chinese culture area—high mountains rainfall—determines even the most basic ing about food—in which everyone is cut by deep valleys, vast grasslands, and foodstuffs, from the coarse dry-field interested—can take our students inside . Their cookery has both inter- grains of the north to the three annual those images to a fundamental human acted with China’s and stayed separate, rice crops of the far south. The east-west activity. producing fascinating combinations. In gradient, in contrast, influences the taste the past 20 years, for example, men of of food to a great extent, from the bland Jonathan Lipman is a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massa- Uyghur ethnicity from , China’s or sweet dishes of the lower Yangzi to the chusetts. He is the author of Familiar Strangers: A northwestern-most province, have fiery Sichuanese cuisine. History of Muslims in Northwest China (Univer- opened stands in every major From broad to narrow moun- sity of Press, 2000). He can be reached Chinese city. Their fragrant grilled lamb tain valleys, from three-month growing at [email protected].

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