Research Paper
wut85ne64246
GEAS2018MintzWorldCuisineshow.ppsx“Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine”
Sidney W. Mintz (2009)
1
Global cuisine/Culinary culture
Today: Sidney W. Mintz, “Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)
Thurs. Feb. 8: Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto, “Sushi reverses course: consuming American sushi in Tokyo.” japanfocus.org (2011)
Wed. Feb. 14 Recitation
Upload response paper to Sakai Assignments
Deadline: Tues. Feb. 13, 10:oo PM
Review:
Steger Chap. 2 “Globalization in history: is globalization a new phenomenon?”
Stages of globalization defined by humanity crossing through technological “thresholds”
Stages of globalization
What technological breakthrough does Steger identify that allowed humanity to cross into each new stage of globalization?
1. Prehistoric (10,000-3500 BCE)
2. Premodern: Age of Empires (3500 BCE-1500 CE)
3. Early modern (1500-1750)
4. Modern (1750-1980s)
5. Contemporary (from 1980s)
Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Prehistoric: divergence
Globalization dynamic
Prehistoric: multidimensional divergence
Steger: Pre-Modern Era (Age of Empires) 3500 BCE-1500 CE
The Chinese Empire was the most enduring and technologically advanced of the world’s empires
The most extensive trade route in the world was the “Silk Road,” which Steger calls a land route.
What is the Silk Road?
A combined overland & overseas trade route that crossed the Eurasian landmass and linked its ports
Shosoin 正倉院 Imperial storage house 701-760, Nara, Japan
Close-up of log structure
Shosoin History: “time capsule”
Holds items donated by Empress Komyo between 756-760 in memory of her late husband, Emperor Shomu.
Located on the grounds of Todai-ji Temple in Nara, where the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) is located.
Some items originated in India, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Korea, and Tang Dynasty China; others were manufactured domestically.
Shosoin crystal bowl (Roman) 8th c.
Atlantic Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Steger: Early modern period (1500-1750)
“During these two centuries, Europe and its social practices emerged as the primary catalyst for globalization after a long period of Asian predominance.” (p. 28)
3. Early Modern (1500-1750)
European powers could not spread overland into Africa or Asia due to Muslim powers that blocked their way.
Instead, they turned westward by sea to find a new trade route to India.
Objective: Trade in spices
During these 250 years, Europe was the leader in globalization.
Why wasn’t China the leader of globalization?
Steger, p. 26: “By the 15th century CE [1405-1433], enormous Chinese fleets consisting of hundreds of 400-foot-long ocean-going ships were crossing the Indian Ocean and establishing short-lived trade outposts on the east coast of Africa.
“However, a few decades later, the rulers of the Chinese Empire’s series of fateful political decisions to turn inward halted overseas navigation and mandated a retreat from further technological development.
Map of Zheng He’s Seven Voyages
Zheng He's fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Indonesia and Thailand. The extend of Zheng He’s voyages are hard to determine but it is reasonable to assume that with China’s invention of the compass, it allowed him to reach parts of Africa, Australia and many areas around the Pacific.
Image of Giraffe Being Lead Into the Ming Zoo
Cont.
“Thus, the rulers cut short their empire’s incipient industrial revolution, a development that allowed much smaller European states to emerge as the primary historical agents behind the intensification of globalization.”
Alternate explanation
Starting in the early 15th century, Ming dynasty China experienced increasing pressure from Mongolian tribes to the north.
In recognition of this threat, in 1421 the Ming Emperor Yongle moved the capital north from Nanjing to present-day Beijing.
From the new capital he sent military expeditions to defend the northern borders.
The expenditures necessary for these land campaigns directly competed with the funds necessary to continue naval expeditions.
Treasure Ship (bao-chuan)
The Ming treasure ship are the type of ships that Zheng He voyaged in. His fleet included probably an overall of 62 treasure ships. The measurements noted above for the Ming Treasure ship liken its size to a football field. The treasure ships supposedly can carry as much as 1,500 tons.
West: Zheng He’s 1405-1434
Zheng He's fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Indonesia and Thailand. The extend of Zheng He’s voyages are hard to determine but it is reasonable to assume that with China’s invention of the compass, it allowed him to reach parts of Africa, Australia and many areas around the Pacific.
East: Vasco Da Gama’s route 1497-99
Electronic devices OFF
Sidney W. Mintz
“Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)
Mintz’s thesis (echoes Steger’s)
World cuisine, or global cuisine, is a dynamic process (not a stable system)
The process is continuous, ongoing, and surprisingly ancient
World food history (1)
Gradual and uneven spread of:
plants and animals
foods and food ingredients
cooking methods and traditions
World food history (2)
Interpenetration of local food systems now takes place with great speed on a world-wide scale, but it has its roots in the past
World food history (3)
“The current vogue for global analysis ought not to blind us to the ancient history of this phenomenon.”
Wheat-based culinary culture
Stretches from northern China to southern Europe
Developed several millennia ago
Steger, premodern period 3500 BCE-1500 CE (p. 24)
“Thanks to the auspicious east-west orientation of Eurasia’s major continental axis—a geographical feature that had already facilitated the rapid spread of crops and animals suitable for food production along the same latitudes—the diffusion of these new technologies to distant parts of the continent occurred in only a few centuries.”
Eurasian landmass from space
(Anderson: The Food of China)
Asia and Europe are not separate entities, but a patchwork of neighboring peoples
Through migration or invasion
they took and gave
what they grew & what they cooked
over long centuries
Innovation in food culture
“Whether we have in mind an ingredient, a plant, an animal, a cooking method, or some other concrete culinary borrowing, when such things spread and they come into the hands of receiving farmers, processors, or cooks, they have been detached from some particular cultural system; and when they are taken up, they become integrated into another, usually different one.”
Is global cuisine becoming the same?
No: There is a continuous, creative culinary process that always makes cooking new and different and defies standardization
Is global cuisine becoming the same?
Possibly: Standardization of food habits may come from large-scale economic changes that move masses of people around, shift the rural-urban balance, or create big migrant labor forces
The Columbian Exchange
Completely remade the world diet
Sweet potato crossed the Pacific westward from the new world in the 16th c., probably entering China via the Philippines
Corn & peanuts soon followed
The Columbian Exchange (1492)
European market for spices
Mintz: Trade in Eastern spices to Europe was cut by rise of Ottoman Empire in 1453
Cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, ginger
(Columbus’s voyages were inspired by a desire to find a sea route to obtain these Eastern spices)
Columbian Exchange: Steger
World diet was transformed during Steger’s Early Modern Period (1500-1750), when trans-oceanic travel began
Led to population explosion in Modern Period (1750-1980)
From 760 million in 1750, to 3.7 billion in 1970 (now over 7.4 billion).
Steger: Premodern trade networks
The negative side of trade networks was the spread of infectious disease.
The bubonic plague killed 1/3 of the population of China, Middle East, and Europe in mid-14th c.
Steger: Modern immigration
Waves of immigration transformed societies and social dynamics.
Mintz: bringing their foods, flavors, cooking methods
Small group discussion
In the history of globalization, do you think that the crossing of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans around 1500 is most consistent with:
the early dynamic of divergence,
the contemporary dynamic of convergence
a turning point in the dynamic from divergence to convergence?
Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Prehistoric: divergence
Globalization dynamic
Prehistoric: multidimensional divergence
Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Contemporary: convergence (global-local nexus)
Globalization dynamic
Contemporary: multidimensional convergence
Mintz: Complexity of culinary exchange (1)
Interchanges of culinary culture in the premodern era (corn, potatoes) were being superimposed upon those of the remote past (wheat, spices)
Mintz: Present superimposed on past
Dynamic of Convergence (Steger)
Globalization dynamic (Steger & Mintz)
Multidimensional/Present superimposed on past
Mintz: Complexity of culinary exchange (2)
Speed of diffusion of culinary culture may be fast or it may be slow
Mintz: Asia’s gifts to the West
Tea
Rice
Soy
Rice: one of Asia’s greatest gifts
Introduced to Europe after 711 when the Moors invaded Spain
Rice has displaced other grains in many societies as main source of starch (carbohydrate)
Tea
Introduced at English court in the 17th c. by Queen Catherine of the Portuguese noble house of Braganza, in the reign of King Charles II
One of the first true commodities, along with sugar
Soy
Soybeans have made an enormous contribution to Western diet, in form of cooking oil and protein-rich animal food, very different from their use in Asia
chickens, pigs, cows are fed soybeans
their meat is then fried in soybean oil
humans benefit from soy indirectly
World soy production 2008
Drawbacks of Western use of soy
Enables people to eat less healthily at the top of the food chain, rather than more healthily near the bottom
Brazil and Argentina are major exporters of soy to China, where it is used as animal feed (following Western model of soy use)
Negative results:
Increase in animal protein consumption in Asia
Destruction of rainforests in the Amazon
