Soils And Plant Life As Related To Agriculture (1915)

The instincts are tribal: in the food hall at the National University of Singapore, I was struck by how the Chinese students ate Chinese food, the Indians ate Indian, and the Malays ate Malay, with little crossover. The same can be said in the West: we might like the occasional Indian, Chinese or Mexican meal, usually heavily adapted for the local palate, but our staple diet is Western — breakfast, lunch and dinner. At the centre of East Asia’s food tradition, as with language, is China, which enjoys one of the world’s most sophisticated food cultures, with an extremely long documented history, probably at least as long as that of any other food tradition of similar variety. [383]Chinese cuisine, like all food cultures, has been shaped by the ingredients available and China has been particularly rich in the diversity of its plant life. Since ingredients are not the same everywhere, Chinese food acquired an indigenous character simply by virtue of those used. [384] Given the country’s size and population, ...»