陈冲The Difference on Chinese and WesternDietary Cultures.docx

1、陈冲The Difference on Chinese and Western Dietary Cultures深圳大学成人教育学院 毕 业 论 文题 目：The Difference on Chinese and Western Dietary Cultures班 级：姓 名：陈冲学 号：指导教师：赵越婴日 期：2012年11月22日 Abstract: This paper aims to understand the complicated aspects of food culture and to guide the catering things in restaurants an

2、d so on. Basically, the diet is essential for human survival and development, one of the basic content of social life. But later, in the basis of improving our ability of realization, we should enhance the strong points and avoids weakness, improving diet structure, advancing the diet quality and en

3、suring everyone to have healthy diet in their daily life, and till now, it may cause different dietary cultures between China and West, just due to the different of geography, environment, culture, climate, religion. Now my study here will focus on a few topic about this subject: Cooking criteria, c

4、ultural characteristics, food objects, eating habits and table manners.Key Words: Food cultures; The Chinese and west; DifferenceTable of Contents Part One Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5、. . 1 1.1 Chinese food culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 1.2Western food culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Part Two The definition of culture and food cult

6、urePart Two. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 2.1 The definition of culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.2 The definition of food culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7、 . . . . . . . . . 2Part Three The reason and factor caused the difference of food culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 3.1 different food object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 3.2 different eating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8、 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.3 different table manners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.4 Cultural background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 3.5T

9、he different historical developments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Part Four Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Part One Introduction With the development of human society, interc

10、ultural communication and combination between countries have become more and more frequent, so intercultural communication has been playing an important role in our life. Everybody should eat something every day, but the food culture of each country is different. “Food, as essential prerequisite for

11、 existence, is any substance that provides the nutrients necessary to maintain life and growth when ingested.” It plays an irreplaceable role in the development of society and in the progress of human beings ,whether in ancient times when primitive man ate the raw flesh of birds and beasts or in mod

12、ern times when humans have entered the new era of information and whether in east or in the west. There are great disparities between China and western countries in the etiquette and content of food, so the comparative study of Chinese and western food cultures will help us increase cross-cultural a

13、wareness that tolerating, understanding, and furthermore, appreciating and respecting cultural differences is essential if we are to achieve cross-cultural competence during the interaction. Moreover, as we communicate with people from different cultures, we will learn more about them and theirs way

14、 of life, including their history, values and the substance of their personality, and eventually, we will understand them better, or feel empathy with them. Based on the above-mentioned purposes, accordingly to this research, to some extent, is of great significance both theoretically and practicall

15、y. This thesis consists of five parts. 1.1 Chinese food culture As been well known, China is a huge country with a very long history. Of course, Chinese food is famous and unique around the world.What are the differences between Chinese and Western food culture? I deem that this is a valuable topic.

16、So I will focus on a few talk about this issue. China has 5000 years history. Chinese saying goes, hunger breeds discontent. So Chinese people attach great importance to food.For one thing, Chinese and Westerners are different concepts in the diet. Chinese people are focus on the taste.They pursue a

17、ll the Color, flavor and taste but Western concept of rational diet. They pursue nutrition and they absorb Calorie and protein. Chinese people choice food very carefully.They only use fresh material in order to make delicious food.1.2Western food culture Western country like English or American,they

18、 do not have fresh food because they buy their food form supermarket which only sells materials Chinese have a lot of ideas and techniques for cooking.For example,we cut a chicken in over ten ways and people can taste all them with relish. Western people do not have many skills for cooking,mostly th

19、ey only boil, steam and bake the food.For another thing, Chinese are westerners are different habits in the diet. Terms of diet, consumption of vegetables every day in China much more than Westerners.Chinese like coarse grains, while Westerners prefer refined grain. In face, whole grains contain mor

20、e nutrients than refined grains; Chinese people love to eat vegetable oil, while Westerners like to use cooking animal fat with high cholesterol, in addition to a daily intake is also a lot of butter. Part Two The definition of culture and food culture 2.1 The definition of cultureCulture is a syste

21、m of shared benefits, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of the society use with their world and with on another and that are transmitted from generation through learning. We define cultures as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meaning,

22、 hierarchies, religion, notions of time, role, spatial relations, concepts of universe and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.2.2 The definition of food culture Food culture obviously belongs to popular culture that is overt, ex

23、plicit and objective. Actually, till now, nobody has ever made a widely recognized definition because of various reasons. However, here, as far as this research is concerned, in order to make to comparison more concrete and practical, the author confines food contents, food habits, food etiquette, t

24、he attitudes towards food, the function of food, etc, that arc derived from each individual culture.Part Three: The differences of food culture.3.1 Different food object The Westerners have the traditions of nomadic and seafaring nations, leading their living mainly on fishing and hunting and supple

25、mentary on the cultivation they have more meat food and all they need in their daily life are taken from animals and even the refining materials of medicine are also taken from animals.They pay more attention to the intake of animal protein and fat, and their diet structure mostly consists of animal

26、 dishes, mainly beef, chicken, pork, mutton and fish. Therefore, meat has a high proportion in the diet. In modern times, the crop farming has been increasing a lot, but the proportion of meat in the diet is still higher than that of Chinese people. According to a survey of Western Botanist, there a

27、re more than 600 kinds of vegetables for Chinese people, six times more than in the West. In fact, in Chinese cuisine, the vegetarian is a common food. Meat dish becomes a common diet only in the holidays or in affluent families, so ever since ancient times there is a saying of “vegetarian food” whi

28、ch leads a dominant position in everyday diet. The Chinese make the plant-based dishes to be the main dishes, which has many ramifications with the Buddhists advocacy. They regard animals as “beings” while plants as “no soul”, therefore, they advocate vegetarianism. In introducing the characteristic

29、s of the Western diet, the Westerners put more emphasis on nutrition than the Chinese. They have relatively well-developed food industries, such as canned food, fast food and so on. Although the taste is monotonous, it can save time, and it is rich in nutrition, so generally the people in their coun

30、tries can grow stronger than the Chinese people. They have tall height, long legs, wide shoulders and muscular body, while the Chinese have diminutive body, narrow shoulders, short legs and weak constitutions. According to the fact that the Western diet is significantly different in the characterist

31、ics of the food objects from the Chinese diet, someone called the Chinese plant character,and the Westerners the animal character.The differences of the diet content between the Chinese and the Western are also reflected in that The Westerners like to eat cold dishes, from the cold dish platter, sal

32、ad to cold drinks, the table strewn with cold dish. However, the Chinese people like hot food, in addition that a few samples in the front of the main dishes are cold, the main course is hot. In the Chinese view, the hot food getting cold will lose much flavor. In order to get the delicious taste of

33、 food we should eat hot food. 3.2 Different EatingIn the way of having dinner, in China, no matter what the banquet is, people tend to sit around to enjoy the food placed in the middle of the table which are not only the subjects for people at the table to enjoy, but also a medium to share their feelings