Asia's Contributions to World Cuisine
Volume 7 | Issue 18 | Number 2 | Article ID 3135 | May 01, 2009 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Asia's Contributions to World Cuisine Sidney Mintz Asia’s Contributions to Worldsubcontinent; and Myanmar, Mongolia, Tibet, Cuisine and China I intend to deal with food systems that fall within the region as I have arbitrarily Sidney W. Mintz defined it here. In drawing what are meant as provisional boundaries I have in mind not so Abstract much political systems, as limits set by ecological and cultural factors, which have The movement of food ingredients, cooking shaped cuisines over time. Foods and cooking methods and dishes across the earth’s surface methods can become deeply rooted locally, is ancient, and in large measure only poorly even without political or religious pressures. recorded. While the West has documented its They can also diffuse widely, and sometimes contributions to global cuisine, those of the rest quickly, without regard to political boundaries. of the world are less well recognized. This Group food behavior, like group linguistic paper takes note of Asia’s role in enriching the behavior, seems to follow rules of its own. world’s foods, both nutritively and in terms of diversity and taste. By ‘world cuisine’ or ‘global cuisine’, I really have in mind a process, more than a stable If any of us were asked -- in the classroom, or system. That process is now nearly continuous during a radio interview, for instance --and ongoing, but it is also surprisingly ancient. whether Asia had made any significantWorld food history has involved the gradual but contributions to a global cuisine, I am certain uneven spread of plants and animals, foods and that all of us would answer spontaneously, and food ingredients, cooking methods and in approximately the same manner: ‘Absolutely.
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