ABSTRACT
The food stories told by Chinese and Jews can unravel deep complexities of ideology, culture and identity. One of the distinctive features of both Chinese and Jewish communities lies in the preparation of food. Jewish civilization is complex in that it covers a broad spectrum of stages in the process of evolution from an agricultural-and land-based culture – as portrayed in the Bible where cattle, grains and fruits, harvests and seasons were an essential part of daily life for families, economics, sacrifices and taxation – to its present axis as a culture of exile and landlessness where religio-legal structures articulated in the Talmud and rabbinic periods transformed a living culture into a constructed doctrine. This new incarnation melded a more or less forgotten land culture with ideology/theology, and reconstructed memory banks infused with the myriad of later teachings and traditions of communities that formed and re-formed and dispersed again over far-flung regions of the Diaspora, forging a living primarily from trade and manufacturing, and distanced from direct contact with agriculture. Food and eating habits have always revealed fascinating details of this saga but are often misunderstood owing to the complexity and the many transformations over the ages.
