| Summary: |
The four pieces in this chapter all revolve around the changing relationship to basic food stuff traditional associated with backwardness and deprivation in the context of a search for the “authentic” by urban middle classes. Jakob Klein deals with the repositioning of the potatoe from a staple of the poor to a new superfood. Samuel Berlin tells the story of laid off factory workers learning to make their local delicacies to sell to an urban clientele while Erin Thomason recounts returning Henanese migrants’ nostalgia for “shaoguo”, a highly polluting biomass oven. In her piece on eating videos, Caroline Yiqian Wang puts the spotlight on the social and culinary benefits from watching other people eat online. |
