ABSTRACT
Changing tastes, diets, eating habits, cooking methods, and public eating places are closely associated with socio-economic development. They are also part of the globalization of the international culture of consumerism that affects food and cuisine. This is especially true in East Asia. While economists and political scientists have paid close attention to industrialization and economic transformation in the region, little has been done to document their consequences on food habits. Nor have there been adequate investigations into the impact the changes in food culture as a consequence of changing social, ethnic and national identities. Inspired by earlier theoretical work on food, cuisine, and history and consumption (Douglas and Sherwood 1996: Hobsbawn and Ranger 1986; Messer 1984; Mintz 1993), this chapter hopes to offer insightful interpretations on the chain reaction going on in the geo-political-economic spheres and made manifest in the local cuisines of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, by presenting a social history of the emergence of Cantonese cuisine (yue-cai https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203060346/ef3b9dda-4c01-446c-bd31-de926af13d85/content/ufig5_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>) in Taiwan and Taiwanese cuisine (tai-cai https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203060346/ef3b9dda-4c01-446c-bd31-de926af13d85/content/ufig5_2_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>) in Hong Kong.
