ABSTRACT

Throwing new light on how colonisation and globalization have affected the food practices of different communities in Asia, the Routledge Handbook of Food in Asia explores the changes and variations in the region’s dishes, meals and ways of eating.

By demonstrating the different methodologies and theoretical approaches employed by scholars, the contributions discuss everyday food practices in Asian cultures and provide a fascinating coverage of less common phenomenon, such as the practice of wood eating and the evolution of pufferfish eating in Japan. In doing so, the handbook not only covers a wide geographical area, including Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, India, China, South Korea and Malaysia, but also examines the Asian diasporic communities in Canada, the United States and Australia through five key themes:

  • Food, Identity and Diasporic Communities
  • Food Rites and Rituals
  • Food and the Media
  • Food and Health
  • Food and State Matters.

Interdisciplinary in nature, this handbook is a useful reference guide for students and scholars of anthropology, sociology and world history, in addition to food history, cultural studies and Asian studies in general.

chapter 1|10 pages

Introduction

part 1|95 pages

Food, identity and diasporic communities

chapter 2|16 pages

Geographies of Fusion

Re-imagining Singaporean and Malaysian food in global cities of the West

chapter 3|10 pages

Finding France in Flour

Communicating colonialism in French Indochina through bread

chapter 4|19 pages

Japanese Culinary Mobilities

The multiple globalizations of Japanese cuisine

chapter 5|15 pages

Food and Identity Construction

The impact of colonization in Indonesian society

chapter 6|16 pages

Searching for Culinary Footprints

A question of cultural identity – Kristang foodways and the Portuguese culinary legacy in Melaka

part 2|54 pages

Food rites and rituals

chapter 8|18 pages

Eating of Wood

The practice of mokujiki in Japan

chapter 9|12 pages

Cooking for Demons, Soldiers, and Commoners

History of a ritual meal in Java

chapter 10|9 pages

Enjoying a Dangerous Pleasure

The evolution of pufferfish consumption in modern Japan

chapter 11|13 pages

Crossing Japanese Rice Products with Italian Futurism

Fortune cookies, onigiri and arancini as communicant rice-bites

part 3|76 pages

Food and the media

chapter 13|17 pages

Her Hunger Knows no Bounds

Female–food relationships in Korean dramas

chapter 14|14 pages

Untouched by Human Hands

Making and marketing milk in Singapore, 1900–2007

chapter 15|15 pages

Feasting on ‘the Other’

Performing authenticity and commodifying difference in celebrity chefs’ food and travel television programmes

chapter 16|15 pages

‘Sauce in the Bowl, not on your Shirt’

Food pedagogy and aesthetics in Vietnamese ethnic food tours to Cabramatta, Sydney

part 4|26 pages

Food and health

chapter 17|12 pages

Uncle’s Body

Food, obesity and the risk of middle-class lifestyles in urban India

chapter 18|12 pages

Shaping Nutrition

The role of state institutions in the production of nutritional knowledge in Maoist China

part 5|71 pages

Food and state matters

chapter 19|14 pages

“Protect Agriculture and Food Safety!”

Transnational protests against preferential trade agreements in East and Southeast Asia

chapter 20|17 pages

Agriculture, Food Security and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Stability and change in Japanese agricultural policy making

chapter 22|12 pages

Japanese Foods (Washoku) with Wine

A study in non-state culinary politics