ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the social functions of food, constructing hierarchies and differentiating between peoples. It examines three civilizations, two of the classical world and one of the postclassical. The empires of China and Rome both developed sophisticated agriculture and considered the preparation of food as a mark of their civilized status and distinction from barbarian outsiders. The banquets of Baghdad were arguably the site of the first world cuisine, although elite foods of Rome and China likewise depended on exotic ingredients brought from distant lands. Rice has become the indispensable staple of modern Asian cuisine, but historical Chinese civilization emerged in the northern Yellow River valley, a region too arid for rice cultivation. Chinese agriculturalists also used cooking as a standard of civilization to distinguish themselves from the nomads living beyond the Great Wall. Unlike the Chinese, Romans marched out on the road to empire as uncouth conquerors of a civilized Mediterranean world.
