Wenjun Fang (wf646)
Intangible cultural heritage tag on Food
Generally, when we talked about intangible cultural heritage, the most familiar ideas are different kinds of performance and traditional handicrafts. All those performing styles or handcraft techniques have a long history. They have been handed down from generation to generation and influenced history in a way. The idea of respecting the ancient wisdom and human history is the most critical reason we must protect those intangible cultural heritages. Ancient culinary techniques could be one of the most special ones during all kinds of intangible cultural heritage. It has a much more profound impact than any other type of heritage on modern human life.
Recently, intangible cultural heritage has become a popular title of dishes and attracts a lot of attention both online and offline. Dishes within such a label are usually the most famous regional specialties and very common in local restaurants. Such a recommendation term will easily attract tourists and foreigners who are not familiar with local food. However, for most restaurants, it is just a marketing method. The dish with the title of intangible cultural heritage is always selling at a higher price than the same dish without such identification. Of course, it has a more sophisticated table setting and a better dining environment. Such experience will make people feel like they are tasting something different. The restaurant is selling such expertise to the customers, trying to let them believe that the dish is different, and enjoying the traditional delicacy represents the higher social classes.
Other than restaurants, food bloggers are also willing to use intangible cultural heritage food as the topic of their videos. Attached was the video from my followed food blogger, who is doing funny cooking videos about surprise cuisines or food that are usually hard to cook at home. In this video, she is cooking a court dish that was reputedly one of the most favorite empress dowager Cixi dishes. To cook this dish, the chef has to fill every single bean sprout with chicken mesh. The bean sprout’s diameter is only 2 millimeters on average, which is a really hard process. There has no recipe in detail. In fact, what we learned about this course all came from the history research materials about the empress dowager Cixi. There are only descriptions about the dish’s visible part and how it tastes, but no details about the raw materials, the sauce that is used, or the way of cooking.
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