中西方饮食文化差异英语专业论文.doc

An Analysis to the Differences between Chinese and Western Food CulturebyLi GengheClass 1,Grade 09Tutor:Foreign Languages College ofCapital Normal UniversitySep 21,2009摘要 本文旨在通过分析中西方饮食文化的差异以及在全球化的影响下两种饮食文化的相互互补和兼容来了解饮食文化的方方面面以及通过它来指导我们的餐饮实践活动，在提高认识的基础上扬长避短，改善饮食结构，提高饮食质量。对跨文化交际中的饮食文化差异进行研究也能增进中西方人民的相互了解，促进交流，享受不同的饮食带来的不一样的感受。为了使研究得出科学的结论，具有更强的说服力，本文作者主要用对比的方法对两种不同饮食文化的差异进行深入的分析，包括烹调准则、文化特征、饮食对象、用餐方式和用餐礼仪五个方面，总结出各自的特点、优缺点以及不同的历史渊源，最后倡导中餐西用把两者结合起来。本文分为五个部分来介绍。 关键词：饮食文化；中西；差异 Abstract This paper aims to understand the complicated aspects of food culture and to guide the catering things in restaurants and so on. In order to achieve this goal, this paper makes an analysis in detail to the differences of food culture between the Chinese and Western as well as the mutual supplementation and compatibleness of the two food cultures under the globalization. In the basis of improving our ability of realization, we should enhance the strong points and avoids weaknesses, improving diet structure, advancing the diet quality and ensuring everyone to have healthy diet in their daily life. The study conducted of the differences of food culture in the macroscopic field of cross-cultural communication also can promote the mutual understanding between the people of the East and West. It could promote the exchange and make people enjoy the different feelings through the different diet. In order to make out a more scientific study conclusion which has a strong persuasive power, this paper makes a thorough analysis with the contrasting method to the differences of the two different food cultures. And this is carried out in the following five aspects: cooking criteria, cultural characteristics, food objects, eating habits and table manners. From this, I summarize their respective characteristics, the good and bad points and the different historical origins as well as finally initiate a dining approach to unify them together. This article is divided into five parts.Key Words: Food cultures; The Chinese and Western; DifferencesTable of Contents摘要1Abstract2Table of Contents3Outline4I.Introduction of Food Culture6A.Characteristics of Chinese Food Culture7B.Characteristics of the Western Food Culture8II.Analysis of Cultural Differences between Chinese and Western Food9A. Different Cooking Criteria: Norms and Casual91.Norm and Exactness in Western Cooking92.Flavor and Liberty in Chinese Cooking10B Different Cultural Characteristics: Individuality and Harmony111.Westerners individuality122.Chinese Harmony12C.Different Food Objects13D.Different Eating Habits15E.Different Table Manners17III.Underlying Causes17IV.Significances to the Hotel Catering Departments Based on the Study19V.Conclusion21References23OutlineThesis Statement: The differences between Chinese and Western food culture are derived from the differences in their ways of thinking and philosophy of life, and ever since the ancient times, Chinese and Western food cultures collision and exchange have largely promoted the progress and development of human society to some degree, making the food culture become an important part of world culture.I. Food Culture IntroductionA. Characteristics of Chinese Food CultureB. Characteristics of the Western Food CultureII. Analysis to the Cultural Differences between Chinese and Western FoodA. Different Cooking Criteria: Norms and Casual 1、 Norm and Exactness in Western Cooking2、 Flavor and Liberty in Chinese CookingB. Different Cultural Characteristics: Individuality and Harmony1、 Westerners Individuality 2、 Chinese Harmony C. Different Food ObjectsD. Different Eating HabitsE. Different Table MannersIII. Underlying CausesIV. Significances to the Hotel Catering Departments Based on the StudyV. Conclusion An Analysis to the Differences between Chinese and Western Food CultureThe differences between Chinese and Western food culture are derived from the differences in their different ways of thinking and Philosophies of life: Chinese people pay attention to the harmony and unite between Heaven and Man; while Westerners focus on people-orientation; Chinese sitology uses food to express feeling and message and the meaning is too deep and hard to describe. However, the Western interpretation of food is that it has to be kickshaw, and has its own style. Ever since the ancient times, Chinese and Western food cultures collision and exchange have largely promoted the progress and development of human society to some degree, making the food culture become an important part of world culture.I. Introduction of Food Culture Food culture refers to the technical, scientific and artistic aspects in the process of the food production and food consumption, the development and utilization of food ingredients in specific social groups , as well as the diet-based customs, traditions, ideology and philosophy, in a word, the sum of all the food things of a combination of the way, process, function of food production and consumption（张亚红, 2009）.The study on food culture is extremely rich in content. Generally, it can be chosen from two aspects: the first is, the whole analysis and research aiming at specific groups of food culture phenomenon and the second is the specific analysis and research on a certain area of the food culture phenomenon.A. Characteristics of Chinese Food Culture The diet is actually the content of our daily life, but why do we say that it contains specific culture? This is because the diet has a special status in the Chinese culture. And it is also different between China and the West. Chinese people's diet starts as early as in the Qin Dynasty. At that time, the typical diet primarily consists of the miscellaneous grains, in addition to some supplementary food such as vegetables and meat. Certainly this kind of diet relates to our Chinese first religion Buddhism a lot which advocates vegetarian diet. And the rice is the staple food, but the vegetable is to get food down. The rice is not delicious, so people must eat the vegetable which is more delicious than rice to get the rice down. And this urges Chinese cooking to make the unsavory food to become the delicious food, which gradually becomes the most important goal of cooking. Moreover the technology of diet processing in Chinese cooking is first-class, thus manifesting the characteristics of Chinese culture. The Chinese cooking's diet process technology is first-class in the world, thus it has manifested the Chinese culture characteristic.All these enable the Chinese diet culture to have the following characteristics. First, the Chinese cooking technology has developed a lot and many things which do not look like eatable food in the Westerners eyes can become the food rich in the appearance, the fragrance and the taste under the Chinese chef's careful cooking. Second, Chinese recipes are widespread, and everything that can be eaten will be full used. and everything that can be eaten will be fully used. The West botanist, the Chinese eat more than six times types of vegetables than the Westerners. Third, For the Chinese people, the pursuit of eating is just to pursue best happiness of life, food becoming the first requirement.B. Characteristics of the Western Food CultureIn the Western diet, meat always has a high proportion because the diet was initially base mainly on animal husbandry. In the modern times, although the proportion of crop cultivation has been increasing, the proportion of meat in the diet is still much higher than that of China. As the natural delicious taste of meat, for the Westerners there is no need of too much decoration for food, limiting the development of cooking. Europeans mostly use tools to show their affluence, for instance, the number of kinds and luxury become the content to care about. Moreover, they will not make the pursuit of eating which is easy to satisfy to be the pursuit of the best happiness. We take Europe and America as a representative for the West, for its culture similarly has a well-established and long history. To the middle ages, the European culture had grown up, and during that time the old Wests diet culture had already formed. Its main feature was: the bread flour was the staple food, raw material was also very rich, their manufacturing method was simpler than that of China, but they also paid great attention to the taste.II. Analysis of Cultural Differences between Chinese and Western Food There are distinctive food cultures in different nations and countries, with strong national character and diversity of features. Food Product, due to the geographical features, the climate of the environment and the customs and so on, will appear great difference in the raw materials, taste, cooking methods and eating habits. The comparison of the differences between Chinese and Western food culture will be from the following five areas: different cooking criteria, different cultural characteristics, different food objects, different eating habits and different table manners.A. Different Cooking Criteria: Norms and Casual1. Norm and Exactness in Western Cooking Westerners emphasize science and nutrition, so the whole process of cooking is in strict accordance with the scientific norm. The use of recipes is an excellent proof to this. In the Western recipes the measurement is calculated by grams and in the surface the recipe seems to be scientific. Westerners are always holding recipes to go to buy food and make dishes, but compared to Chinese cooking, it is a very mechanical thing, so in front of complex circumstances it is often powerless. And this consistency has led to a drawback of Western food-the lack of features. When people are in different places, when you want to taste the local cuisine, definitely no one would choose foods like Kentucky Fried Chicken, because Fried Chicken requires not only the ingredients according to recipes, but also the temperature of the oil, fried chicken, and the time. The process must be strict in accordance with specifications, so the world's KFC taste is the same. In addition, the standardized cooking requires preparing ingredients, adding the spices accurate to grams, cooking time accurate to seconds. As the production of standardized Western dishes, it makes cooking into a mechanical work. There is no creativity. Steak, fried chicken and salad are always taking the same kinds of forms, so cooks work has become an extremely monotonous mechanical work, like an automated assembly-line worker, or even by a robot to act in his place. Moreover, a dish in different regions, different seasons and for different people has the same taste. There is no change. Even in high-leveled banquet, the diet has no more elegant table tools and more luxurious decoration, but the dish is still the same kind.2. Flavor and Liberty in Chinese Cooking What the Westerners can not understand is that the Chinese cooking does not pursue the accurate standardization, but respect randomness. Looking carefully at China's recipes, you will find that the amount of raw materials to prepare and the amount of spices to add are just vague concepts, such as "a spoon", "bowl", "little bit" and so on, but how much is actually “a spoon, a bowl” and “a little”, there is no specific criteria. Chinese cooking, not only pays attention to the major cuisines having their own flavor and characteristics, but also the same dish of the same cuisine will have some changes for the different spices used in the match with a variety of different side dishes according to individual hobbies and characteristics. Sometimes, to make the same dish, the same chef will do some adjustments according to different seasons different occasions and the different identities, tastes and requirements of different people. It may even change because of our own emotional Change. It uses different spices to cook a "Mapo tofu" for the guests in Sichuan and Su Zhou. Another example is “Braised Fish”, in winter the dish should be dark in color and the taste should be strong, while in summer it should be light in both color and taste. For people in Jiang Su and Zhe Jiang provinces, braised fish can be seasoned with sugar, but for the Chuanxiang customers, it should be made spicier. From this，we can see that without the randomness changeable Chinese cuisine, we will lose its unique charm. The randomness of the food processing infinitely expands Chinese recipes. A variety of raw materials, cutting techniques, spices and cooking methods make a cross-combination which can make one material into a dozen or dozens of dishes. Xingjians "All sheep seats," Guangdong's "all-fish seats and Beijing's "a whole duck" are the best proofs of this. The most commonly used raw material- chicken, in a Cantonese chefs hands, will be made into dozens or even hundreds of courses of dishes. This arbitrariness creates a dazzling array of dishes in Chinese cuisine.B Different Cultural Characteristics: Individuality and Harmony The master of Taiwan Guoxue Mr. Qian Mu,（金炳镐,1999）, in the preface of "Modern Chinese Academic Lun Heng" writes, “Cultures differences, it is not the same as the academic. China attaches importance to harmony, while the Western emphasize the difference." Eastern and Western culture differences also affect their own food culture. Chinese and Western food culture clearly reflects this cultural identity of "harmony" and " individuality respectively "（金炳镐,1999）.1. Westerners individuality Contrast to oriented "flavor" of Chinese food, Western food is a rational concept. The color, smell, taste, shape, and nutrition must be assured that a days intake of calories, vitamins and protein and so on should be given attention to. In a word, nutrition comes first. The concept of eating with the West as a whole philosophy is to adapt the system. At a banquet, you might pay attention to food containers, the use of materials, and the colors of the dishes, but no matter how high-end luxurious, the steak from Los Angeles to New York has only one flavor, no art at all. In a main course, there is no mixture of different materials, chicken is chicken, steak is steak, Even if it has been a mixed dish, it is also carried out in the plate For example, in a "French lamb chops," there are mashed potatoes on one side next to Hill lamb chops and green beans being cooked in the other side of the distribution plus a few film Tomato into it. There is a sharp contrast in color, but the tastes of raw materials are separate, with its own flavor. Even if it is a matched dish, it is just like “1+1=2”, very simple and perspicuity. What have been