The tradition of culinary nostalgia continues today, in “old Shanghai” theme restaurants that link city residents to an image of Shanghai’s former glory, while the city itself is transformed into a global destination of the future (Swislocki, 2008, p. 2). The establishment of 1192 “Old Shanghai” Street is the place to recall a nostalgia especially among the old-age groups. Setting designed in an old Shanghai style and filled with local restaurants such as Dahuchun, Taikang and Xiaoshaoxing, ranging from formal dinner to pastries, 1192 street blurred time and space, appeal to Chinese, especially the old-age groups who have really witnessed the former glory.
The restaurants defined as authentic (Zhengzong) tastes in 1192 street are the childhood memories of the old. Dahuchun, opened in 1932, the oldest extant local restaurant famous for its traditional Pan fried bun is one example. Asking a Shanghailander where to eat Pan fried bun, the answer will be “Dahuchun”. Different with bun in other regions like Jiangsu, an authentic Shanghai pan fried bun should be made by leaven dough, sweet pork and no soup included. From 1932 to 2020, the huge change of Shanghai city erased not only the scenery but the lifestyle, and the old-age groups are unable to follow up. Yet there has been something left: food. So food-orientated as Chinese, this traditional taste really comforts people, recalling their connections with the past, the most familiar Shanghai that they have ever experienced. In this street, when they eat Pan fried bun, it is far more than a tasty bun, but a proof of their existence in this city and a means of maintain their local social identity. Because the remain of traditional Shanghai weidao is the symbol of old memory, within which a collective sentiment has generated, thus the old strengthen their relationship with Shanghai despite it runs forward without turning round.
In spite of the very efforts to rebuild the image of “Old Shanghai”, the setting is too artificial and more important, those old extant restaurants have to make changes to fit new fashionable tastes. As Swislocki stated, nostalgia can be a commercial strategy for restaurateurs (2008). To make a business success is to make profits as many as possible from the most potential consumers, among whom old-age groups are certainly excluded. New dishes have to be put out. For instance, Dahuchun, except for the traditional pork and crab bun, the trendy taste like rattan pepper shrimp bun is very popular among young generations. For the old, their pure memory has not existed any more, instead they need to seek the familiar elements in the mixture of the old and the new. While for the young generations, their culinary nostalgia is based on the imagination of Old Shanghai, which is from history textbook, TV series and films, and they may be even unable to recognize the old elements from mixture. From this sense, culinary nostalgia is not a pure yearning of the past but a connection between self and city even if the objects of nostalgia are the products of new days.
(links are on the pictures)
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