“A Cuisine Worthy of a Nation: Nationalizing and Internationalizing Beijing’s Cuisine in the Twentieth Century”

Abstract:

How did Beijing cuisine – originally several different cuisines, divided by ethnicity and class – get forged into a single entity which would come to represent the Chinese nation, and be exported abroad and revered at home?  By problematizing standardized elements of the cuisine of one Chinese urban center, this research considers the ethical importance of kitchen laborers during the republican (1911-1949) and revolutionary (1949-1979) periods and the ways that modernization goals of nationalism and socialism impacted the interlocking spheres of both food production and consumption.