WP4 draft The decline of the local food
Through the development of globalization, people can easily find different food worldwide, not to mention the diverse food options in China. Eating is not the necessity of life, but also what brings people joy by its delicious taste and the lively atmosphere it fosters. With more and more choices in food types and restaurants, people prefer to try out novel things rather than the local choices they were already familiar with. When people open Yelp to find restaurants to go to in Qingdao, Shandong province, they are offered a wide variety of choices such as hot pot, Korean BBQ, Dim sum, and so on except for Lu cuisine(Shandong cuisine). Why do people not want to eat at Lu cuisine restaurants? While some people believe that Lu cuisine will never disappear because it is the origin of Chinese food and also the most basic home cooking food in northern China, the change in people’s eating habits causes the decline of local food — Lu cuisine. I will explain the reasons for what stimulates this issue and the solutions of how to deal with it.
Lu cuisine has an important position in Chinese food culture with its transition, widely regarded as the origin of Chinese court cuisine. Due to geographical and historical factors, Chinese Cuisine is generally categorized under eight significant traditions. They are Anhui (Hui Cuisine), Fujian (Min Cuisine), Guangdong (Yue Cuisine, or Cantonese Cuisine), Hunan (Xiang Cuisine), Jiangsu (Su Cuisine), Shangdong (Lu Cuisine), Sichuan (Chuan Cuisine), and Zhejiang (Zhe Cuisine) (Sigurðsson, 2017). On the other hand, Shandong Cuisine (Lu Cuisine) is best known for its long tradition, far-reaching influences, fresh ingredients, salty flavor, and rich culture (Wang & Tang, 2011). Through the collision and connection of different parts of China, lu cuisine went into ordinary families and gradually influenced other cuisine majors in China. As a result, Lu cuisine is one of the most widely spread Chinese cuisines.
However, for some people, especially young people, Lu cuisine is not their top choice to eat outside. They think Lu cuisine is not popular and fashionable enough. Young people do not want to eat “grandmother cooking” outdoors. Through the development of globalization, people in China tend to taste different dishes worldwide. More and more people like to try out something new. All those Sushi and Korean BBQ restaurants create desirable moments to share on social media as a sign of being ahead of the trend. Without the consumers, Lu cuisine restaurants have to shut down. In this case, many people do not want to learn Lu cuisine due to the very limited profits it is making. We can imagine that people who know how to cook genuine Lu cuisine will become fewer and fewer over a few years. Some Lu cuisine dishes may even disappear eventually.
The change in people’s dietary tastes also caused the decline of public enthusiasm for Lu cuisine. Due to the enormous work pressure, more and more people attempt to seek excitement from food. Spicy food has become the most popular food type in China. The spicy and heavy-tasting food will bring multiple tastes for people. As a relatively mild and salty-based food type, Lu cuisine is not in accord with people’s desires nowadays. For example, when I hung out with my friends, we usually went to a hotpot restaurant. The multiple flavors of hotpot and especially the spicy broth makes me forget the stressful workload and instead allows me to focus on the food itself. Except for the flavor of Lu cuisine, its oily cooking style is also considered unhealthy. Nowadays, people pay more attention to healthy food than usual. Therefore, the change of people’s eating habits decreases their enthusiasm for Lu cuisine.
Nevertheless, some people believe Lu cuisine will never disappear because it is the most basic and traditional Chinese food. People can see Lu cuisine at every northern Chinese family’s dining table. Also, as the earliest major of Chinese cuisine, almost all the other cuisines absorb and adapt Lu cuisine’s cooking methods. For example, soy is the essential condiment that came from Lu cuisine. Nowadays, soy sauce has already become a primary seasoner in Chinese cuisine. If every family is making Lu cuisine for their daily meals, why do people think the popularity of Lu cuisine will decline in the future? However, a person who knows how to cook at home does not mean he is a professional Lu cuisine cook: they typically have a lot of differences in ingredients and production processes compared to the authentic ones. People need specific standard and detailed recipes for Lu cuisine — one of the essential factors limiting the development of Lu cuisine, even Chinese cuisine. For example, when people learn to cook Chinese cuisine at home with a cookbook, they will always see words like “a spoonful of salt” or “a moderate amount of soy sauce.” But they do not know exactly what the “moderate” refers to. The unified Lu cuisine cook standard may cause the decline of Lu cuisine.
To promote Lu cuisine, we need to make a clear standard for it, from the recipe to the ingredients, which the government should take responsibility for. We can use other countries’ practices as precedents. Through the growing interest worldwide in regional cuisine, there are many worldwide famous dishes from the local areas of Italy, a country with a long history of food. Neapolitan-style pizza — ‘Pizza Napoletana’ — is one of these. The Italian government made a series of standards and regulations to facilitate the spread of authentic Napoletana-style pizza. Based on the article Regarding Neapolitan Pizza ‘Pizza Napoletana,’ “as regional foods become ‘globalized,’ there is the natural evolution and adaptation to local tastes and ingredients, but also the desire to define the ‘ideotype;’ thus preserve the original characteristics”(Morris, Craig, and Maria 1). The Italian government tries to keep the original taste of their cuisine, and define the quantity of each ingredient in the essential procedure. For example, they made a standard of the Pizza Napoletana’s powder. “‘Common wheat flour’ with the following characteristics: Alveograph W 220–389, P/L 34 0.50–0.70; Farinograph water absorption 55–62%, stability 4–12 min, ‘Value index E10’ 35 max. 60, Falling Number 300–400 s, dry gluten 9.5–12.5%, protein 11–12.5%”(Morris, Craig, and Maria 2). The data clearly shows the proportion of each constituent in the flour, which helps cooks around the world to make the authentic Pizza Napoletana. Therefore, we can taste the traditional Italian pizza in different corners. If the Chinese government makes a standard production process, it will be easier for people to learn to cook traditional Lu cuisine. These people will bring Lu cuisine to their community and spread the culture of Lu cuisine, which will help more and more people to be familiar with the local food–lu cuisine.
Moreover, besides making a standard recipe for Lu cuisine to spread its production, it is also important to raise people’s awareness of Lu cuisine. To make lu cuisine famous, especially among the younger generation, we need to draw their attention first and tell them about Lu cuisine’s food history and specialty. The celebrity generated by variety shows and TV programs is an excellent way to eliminate cultural diffidence. These reality TV shows and the power of the internet will help people realize the tasty and long history of Lu cuisine. Also, the celebrity charm will facilitate people to imitate their idols’ behavior. For example, a famous South Korean reality TV show–Kang’s Kitchen, invited a lot of entertainment celebrities to run a restaurant. These TV shows attracted a lot of attention. “According to CPI rankings released by CJ E&M and Nielsen Korea for the week of December 11 to December 17, ‘Kang’s Kitchen’ earned an overall score of 248.1 points, maintaining its №1 spot from last week.”(Danakim5 1) Kang’s Kitchen became the most famous and popular TV show in a short period of time and was liked by more and more audiences. Kang Ho-dong, a well-known South Korean MC, was in charge of the chef in “Kang’s Kitchen,” making cold noodles from his hometown–Jinju. After the broadcast of this variety show, his Jinju cold noodles became popular on the internet. More and more people started to imitate him to make the same Jinju noodle at home. Similarly, our local government can also use the internet to spread our local food–Lu cuisine.
Sometimes people need to change some flavor of traditional dishes to make them in line with people’s tastes today. Fusion restaurant is one of the perfect ways to improve the innovation of cuisines. Fusion cuisine blends the culinary traditions of two or more nations to create innovative and sometimes quite interesting dishes. (Mcmahon 1) People not only can taste different flavors from two or more nations, but they can also see some creative presentation of the food or the decorations in fusion cuisine restaurants. This innovative form of dining will help Lu cuisine to keep its traditional flavor and make it more healthy at the same time. For example, people can change the unhealthy peanut oil in Lu cuisine to olive oil, or use the air fryer to treat ingredients that need to be fried. In addition, fusion cuisine will not only improve the flavor of the food itself, but it will also attract people’s attention to this innovative form. “Running Man”, the most famous South Korean variety show, made a lot of creative fusion cuisine of Korean food on the show. “Attention on such fusion Korean foods continued after the broadcast and received popularity. Especially, meshing in with a situation where the focus of the Korean wave is going beyond idols and dramas to Korean cultures; fusion Korean foods had been an issue to rank on the internet search word hit list.”(no.7) Fusion foods became a keyword that draws people’s attention to Korean food and the culture behind it. Fusion cuisine is a good advertisement element to advertise Lu cuisine to the public.
In conclusion, people can introduce fusion Lu cuisine, utilize the internet and celebrities’ charm, and standardize the making process of Lu cuisine to facilitate its spread. However, if we study the deep reasons behind the decline of some local food such as Lu cuisine, it reflects that the people in that religion are not confident in their own culture. Why are Shandong people not confident with their local culture? This is the issue we need to further discuss about.
Work cited
1. Okumus, Bendegul, et al. “Local Cuisines and Destination Marketing: Cases of Three Cities in Shandong, China.” Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, vol. 23, no. 6, Routledge, 2018, pp. 584–99, https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2018.1469521.
2. Sigurðsson, A. (2017). The eight major regional cuisines of China. Retrieved from https://gbtimes.com/authors/152
3. Wang, R., & Tang, W. (2011). On protection of intangible cultural heritage of Shandong cuisine. In Culinary Science Journal of Yangzhou University, 2011(1), 6–9
4. Morris, Craig F., and Maria Itria Ibba. “Regarding Neapolitan Pizza ‘Pizza Napoletana.’” Cereal Chemistry, vol. 95, no. 3, AACC INTERNATIONAL, 2018, pp. 365–66, https://doi.org/10.1002/cche.10052.
5. Danakim5. “Kang’s Kitchen” Maintains №1 Spot In Content Power Index Rankings.” Soompi, 26 Dec. 2017, www.soompi.com/article/1098791wpp/kangs-kitchen-maintains-no-1-spot-content-power-index-rankings.
6. Mcmahon, Mary. “What is Fusion Cuisine? (with Pictures).” Delighted Cooking, 20 Mar. 2022, www.delightedcooking.com/what-is-fusion-cuisine.htm.
7. “The Charm of Fusion Korean Food That ‘Running Man’ Joo Won And Hong Seok Cheon Displayed.” Fashion, Celebrity, Movie & Music | Yahoo Life Singapore, 14 Aug. 2014, sg.style.yahoo.com/news/the-charm-of-fusion-korean-food-that-running-053657425.html.
