Journal: 9/15/03
Mike Steely
Report: “What and How to Eat: Changes to Chinese Dining Habits Courtesy of Sars”, by Zhang Hua
It is inevitable, of course: The scene in the Chinese restaurant, the non-American kind, found in the real China or Taiwan, where the locals could not give a hoot if their dishes have to conform to the American palate. And here is the newcomer who encounters some strange critter on the plate, but is faced with either gulping it down, or chukking it under the table, but to leave it on the plate and have the host lose face?
I was certainly not a newcomer, when, even after years and years in those kinds of situations , I was still socially “forced” to comply with the group and “go for it, ” and that meant savoring mountain rat, exotic slimy foot-long eels, and on and on. That is, until I went vegetarian, thereby circumventing any possibility of embarrassment.
In the August edition of China Today (www.chinatoday.com.cn), reporter Zhang Hua, in the article “What and How to Eat: Changes to Chinese Dining Habits Courtesy of SARS,” highlights two repercussions of how a recent epidemic may have had the potential to reform age-old traditions at the heart of Chinese culture.
Zhang first notes how SARS has had an effect on the changes in what Chinese eat. After SARS was found to have originated in Guangdong Province, an area renowned for its cuisine of exotic wild animals, and where research into the origin of the disease was reportedly linked to the civet, Zhang reports that subsequently the China State Forestry Bureau and State Administration for Industry and Commerce “prohibited wildlife hunting and trading. “ He adds: “They also conducted all-around investigations into farms that tame and breed wild animals.” Additionally, the China Wildlife Conservation Association has come out with public notices to stop eating wild animals. The message, according to Zhang, has apparently been heeded, prompting the public to make changes in dietary habits, with one result being that “this trend prompted many game restaurants to change their menus.”
The SARS factor has also promoted a change at the table that would make Mao cringe: it appears the Chinese are beginning to forego eating out of the same pot – a tradition as ingrained as apple pie is to America. Zhang recounts several instances of dinner parties in which Chinese food was served western-style, and although this new mode to dining may have its opponents in China in the form of the traditionalists, the advocates of Chinese food being eaten western-style, Zhang says, are “in the majority”. He also mentions a seminar, “Separate –serving mode of dining – Hygiene and Food and Beverage,” which was held lately in Beijing. I say we ship Martha Stewart over and get her in on the act.
