TITLE: ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology



Anthropological

Introduction

Anthropology has long been interested in human diets. The main objective of this article is to introduce the perspective of cultural anthropology about food in culture, and the way by which food embodies the relevant sociocultural significances. The case studies chosen cover the study of the Chinese in Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as studies conducted in the Asia and Pacific Islands. The short review in this article aims to provide some ideas and case studies about the interrelationship between food and culture. The anthropological perspective of food in different cultures may provide an insight into the study of Overseas Chinese and help to expand it to a wider concern on a variety of human activities. In this way, the writer believes the study of Overseas Chinese can mark its particularity, research value and potential in world academia.

Food, in the first instance, is what grows on farms, comes from the sea, is gathered from the jungle, sold in the market, and appears on our tables at mealtimes. However, as a cultural phenomenon, food is not simply an organic product with biochemical qualities that may be utilized by living organisms to sustain life; rather, food is both the substance and symbol of social life, a means by which people communicate with each other, and, an embodiment of that communication itself (Foster & Anderson 1978, pp. 265). In fact, Anthropologists have long been interested in diets, especially in the sociocultural determinants of food; the nutritional and medical consequences of particular consumption patterns, which includes pattern of food; and the changing patterns of food production and markets, also, the awareness of the socioeconomics of hunger, famine and food aid (Pottier 1996, pp. 238).

Food Classification

Classification is the activity in which objects, concepts, and relationships are assigned to categories. We cannot think about the world unless we order it into categories and categories also help us to act upon the world (Ellen, 1996, p. 155). The principle of distinguishing food and nonfood, edible and inedible plants and animals may vary from culture to culture. For example, people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia assign food into hot and cold qualities according to its physiological effects on the body in particular contexts (Anderson 1980, pp. 26). Similar classifications are equally pervasive in India and some South American lowland cultures as well. Other classificatory schemes exist, such as: the Wik-Mungkan in Papua New Guinea, who find visual analogies between plants and human sexual organs and, thus, categorize plants into those with male and female qualities.

Culture defines meals as well as food. The category of a formal meal typically includes the selection of a set of basic foods (staple, secondary, or snacks), frequent use of characteristic flavorings, the characteristic processing of such foods, and the adoption of a variety of rules dealing with food acceptance and combination (Douglas 1997, pp. 62). Basically, meals can be divided into two types: formal meal and ...