The final report of my food-related book

“Share with us the part(s) of the book you liked best and reasons for it”, and “Tell us how it met (or defied) your expectations”

My food-related book’s title is “The Globalization of Chinese Food”, and finally I read the final chapter. It was my favorite part of this book.  It was about how ethnic Chinese cuisine was developed in Beijing. In this chapter, the author discusses the historical relationship of the re-construction of the Xinjiand Road in Beijing. The street was filled up with traditional Chinese restaurants. Of course, even now, some Chinese restaurants have long history there, however, more and more other ethnic restaurants appear these days. The development of the cuisine business in Xinjiang Road and the process of the creation of the menus (how menus were created) reflect the history, and also they have adopted different cultures. The story was interesting for me, because I thought Chinese cuisine is unchanged dish. It has quite long history and Chinese food is well known all over the world. I like Chinese food, and I often go to its restaurants in Japan. There are not big differences depending on the restaurants, so I thought Chinese food is universal. However after I read this book, I realized that it has adopted Japanese culture. So I was shocked what I have eaten regarded as Chinese traditional food varies from original one.

 

“Overview of the entire book”

Each chapter is written by different authors, so the topics are various. But all chapters are related to the globalization of Chinese food. I like to eat Chinese food, so what I liked best about the book was that I could know its history and how spread internationally. On the other hand,  some graphs are too detail and I couldn’t understand them, so it should be easier, I think.

 

“Tell us what foods you might want to try or absolutely avoid as a result of reading the book”

I don’t want to try the nest. The bird’s nest is sometimes used in Chinese food. Through this book, I found there was a conflict between a tribe who believe the bird’s nest should not be eaten and a group who sell it for business. The tribe believes it is sacred, so I don’t want it, and I think there is no need to eat it