of two classes: nomadic or farmer. Lin chooses to focus on the city of Nanxiong, in Guangdong Province, in order to examine these particular subtletiesandnuances. Farmers not only can count on several crops every year, they can depend on a diversity of food crops as well as specialties. Housing: caves carved into the loess cliffs and mud-brick houses in rural areas; apartments in urban areas, Transportation: walking, mule, and horse in rural areas, Food staples: vegetables, rice, ducks and geese. Our results indicate that the effect of temperature on the ingredient usage pattern may not exist at all. The product of this exponent and the exponent of Heap's law (0.64) is close to 1, which is consistent with the previous result [21]. 3) and cosine similarity (Eq. Food, Culture & Society, 117. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YXZ YYA. It is the largest of all Asian countries and has the largest population of any . Sivin, Nathan, ed. The consumption of spicy chillis has long been documented in the Nanxiong region and is believed to have given farmers energy to work in these harsh conditions. 11105024, 11205042, 11105025, and 11305043 Program of Outstanding PhD Candidate in Academic Research by UESTC (Grant Nos. The kind of food produced and the cooking practices of different areas in China depend on the nature of the geography of each particular region. Figure 1 shows a map of China and the mean annual temperature of each region, annotated with the names of provinces and cuisines, where the colors represent cuisines. The -values of Fig. Variety is duck. Economic activities and resources today: Shanghai is the major city of this region. For example, regions with hot climates often eat very spicy foods. Housing: caves carved into the loess cliffs and mud-brick houses in rural areas, apartments in urban areas, Transportation: walking, mule, and horse in rural areas; cars, buses, and bicycles in urban areas, Food staples: wheat-noodles and sour cabbage. Of this, slightly more than half is unirrigated, and the remainder is divided roughly equally between paddy fields and irrigated areas; good progress has been made in improving water conservancy. Because such foods raise the body temperature and cause one to perspire. The basic statistics of regional cuisines in China. Physical characteristics: Nothing so dominates and defines southwest China as its rugged, highly eroded topography. This creates marshes and shallow, reed-filled lakes, which are good for thatching and weaving as well as migratory birds, fish, and snails. The exponent is obtained by the method in previous work [19]. Asia Society takes no institutional position on policy issues and has no affiliation with any government. There are large numbers of people who spend their entire lives on small or medium boats, making a living moving goods and people via the numerous lakes, canals, and rivers of the entire Yangzi valley. They often reflect values of the people who create them and define their place in the world. Mules are used in cities, and horses and camels in rural areas. An aid to creating an understanding of the nature of such fingerprints would be tables showing each region's common (yet distinctive) characteristics. Why? The bulk of the catch comes from Pacific fisheries, with nearly all of the remainder from inland freshwater sources. For simplicity, we set , which means that every recipe has ten unique ingredients. 4, with an exponent around . We thanks Huawei Shen, Yu Huang, Shaojian Wang and Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia for helpful discussion and useful suggestion, and John McCurley for editorial assistance. The Zhejiang region also has similar cuisine, generally noted for light In other words, is the number of recipes (in cuisine ) that use ingredient . The Contemporary Atlas of China. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. Beijing is known for jiaozi, the traditional Chinese dumpling, and Peking How does China's geography affect its food? All regional cuisines show similar distributions, which have a peak around . High and difficult mountains surround the basin. Clearly, to create political "China," it is still important to tie these different regions together. The results display a similar tendency found in the real data (B and D in Fig. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Junming Huang, Other important crops are potatoes, sugar beets, and oilseeds. Lin immersed himself in the food culture of the region, even working as a waiter for ten days. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Pond raising has always been important and has been increasingly emphasized to supplement coastal and inland fisheries threatened by overfishing and to provide valuable export commodities such as prawns. 5. For example, if recipes in a regional cuisine use ingredients (with duplicates) in total and ingredient appears in recipes in that cuisine, we have . http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalDistance.html, Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions. The food culture of Nanxiong is founded on Hakka cuisine. Share: You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, Your email address will not be published. Fresh water must come from wells that often are salty because of poor drainage. meat) is the regions main protein. For two regions and , the temperature difference is simply , where is the annual average temperature of region . China: A Provincial Atlas. The figure shows a clear trend that geographically closer regional cuisines have more similar ingredient usage patterns. Second, traditional Hakka cuisine the basis of Nanxiong food uses lots of mountain food products and, therefore, mountainous terrain becomes a historical symbol for ethnic Hakka. New York: Macmillan Publishing, U.S.A., 1995. Mild climates and abundant rainfall mean farmers in this area generally expect to obtain three or more crops every year. The kind of food produced and the cooking practices of different areas in China depend on the nature of the geography of each particular region. This was the primary achievement of Qin Shihuangdi. This cuisine is very nutritious and healthy. Tibetans are Monasteries have been at the center of society since at least the eighth century. A must-read! (2) Is climate similarity the main factor determining similarity? Why? is a traditional delicacy perfected during the Qing Dynasty and served The subtropical characteristics developed in the harsh climate and isolated land of Tibet. Like so many of China's distinct physical environments, it is dominated by ethnic peoples not fully identifiable as "Han," who speak distinct languages and often have closer ties to Chinese overseas. We then add the modified new recipe to the pool of cuisine . FOCUS, 39, no. Within China, there are many variations of taste throughout the regions. As shown in the previous work on spices [14], annual temperature strongly predicts the usage of spices, and we further assume that temperature is a strong climate factor that affects ingredient availability. First, it is colder in the mountains in winter when there may be snow; eating chillis helps to protect against the cold, wind, and damp. To study the connections between taste and place within a regional framework, Lin focused on the case study of Nanxiong cuisine. Learn more. Nomads gather in family clusters. In addition the nearby mountains (Huangshan and Wuyi) are favorable for crops other than aquaculture (rice, shrimp, ducks, and so on), which is prominent in the lowlands. Another of the most noted regional creations is dim sum (dot-hearts Hsieh Chiao-min and Jean Kan Hsieh. A tour de force essay written by Dr. Roddham Narasimha. This makes it an interesting place to research the sense of identity that the food from this region offers. The two most obvious outliers (in solid red) are Yungui and Hong Kong cuisine. For example, regions with hot climates often eat very spicy foods. Because such foods raise the body temperature and cause one to perspire. With probability proportional to their topological distance, cuisine will select another regional cuisine . peppers are considered helpful in reducing the internal dampness. Until the 1950s, one out of every five Tibetans was a Buddhist nun or monk. Food has been studied in depth by many disciplines including history [4][7], sociology [8][10], philosophy [11], [12], literary criticism [13], etc. In addition, the geographical distribution of energy places most of these resources far from their major industrial users. GL10 3FA yak), dairy and wheat. In April 2012 we downloaded all the recipes from the Chinese recipe website Meishijie (http://www.meishij.net/), which categorizes all recipes into regional cuisines. Highly variable weather means good harvests for only three out of every five years. Thats why many continue to add more chillis than visitorsmight expect. This hot food is thought to increase resistance to the cold, which is useful in Chinas harsh, windy mountainous regions. Includes case studies on Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.S. 9 indicate significant difference ( for both cases). "China's Modern Silk Road." Spiciness, though, is considered part of what has made Nanxiong a great city. regions of China and wheat products for the northern areas. Cities, such as Chongqing (in Sichuan province), Wuhan, and Nanjiang, are driven by economies tied to water-borne transportation and commerce-not agriculture or even food processing. climate, agriculture. T: +44 1453 828 951. Fig. Economic activities and resources today: Sichuan has always been known for its tea, silk, flowers, medicinal herbs, and diverse wildlife, including pandas, deer, and tigers. One of the main conclusions of Lins studies is that place is one of the most important shapers of cuisine. For instance, one participant in the study didnt view Cantonese cuisine as being particularly spicy. Sichuan (Szechuan) cuisine: hot, spicy chilis, ma po doufu, hot pot Our result may arise due to the fact that China is still a single country with smaller temperature variation than the whole world. Based on our results, we propose a model of cuisine evolution based on the copy-mutate mechanism. The Taklamakan is too barren for agriculture but is often used as a nuclear test site. The null hypothesis says the two classes and have identical probability distributions. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. as 100 different choices! Discover a faster, simpler path to publishing in a high-quality journal. Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China, Affiliation: Place is paramount Except in the bright sunlight, it always is very cold. 3 Soil Quality The quality and mineral contents of the soil in a given region can affect local food habits by making certain crops more or less successful, depending on the crop's needs. With probability we add one new ingredient to the ingredients pool and replace the ingredient having the smallest fitness in the recipe that was generated in the previous steps with the new ingredient in order to assure all the ingredients in the ingredient pool have been used. For example, regions with hot climates often eat very spicy foods. Regional cuisine is chosen with probability(5)where is the number of recipes of regional cuisine and is the total number of recipes of all regional cuisines. In fact, the increased globalisation and homogenisation of food has caused many to seek out authentic dishes from their childhoods. Harnessing this opportunity, we address the following questions about the evolution of regional cuisines: (1) How does the similarity between regional cuisines scale with geographical distance? We showed that the results of our model agree with our empirical findings. People traditionally lived in dispersed communities rather than nucleated settlements because food and water were available everywhere. For further reading on this region, go to: http://www.uygurworld.com/_sgt/m3_1.htm. Contents [ hide] Denote the similarities of two classes as (far, with topological distance ) and (close, with topological distance ), and and is the mean of and , respectively. The country has rich overall energy potential, but most of it remains to be developed. She enjoys shopping at her local farmers markets and growing herbs and produce in her garden. Its also important to note that Lins research suggests that ethnicity plays a limited role in taste and that place is far more important. One of the main conclusions of Lin's studies is that place is one of the most important shapers of cuisine. In addition, the quality of the soil in cultivated regions varies around the country, and environmental problems such as floods, drought, and erosion pose serious threats in many areas. China, Chinese (Pinyin) Zhonghua or (Wade-Giles romanization) Chung-hua, also spelled (Pinyin) Zhongguo or (Wade-Giles romanization) Chung-kuo, officially People's Republic of China or Chinese (Pinyin) Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo or (Wade-Giles romanization) Chung-hua Jen-min Kung-ho-kuo, country of East Asia. all types of vegetarian food. Their value in political control was demonstrated in 1989 when televised "wanted" posters were broadcast instantaneously throughout China, and in June 1997 when the reunification of Hong Kong became an ethnic rallying point. This food doesnt tend to be spicy, using ingredients such as chicken, mountain rats, mushrooms, crabs, pickled cabbage, dumplings, duck, goose, and pork. Wholesale destruction of Chinas accessible forests over a long period of time gave way to an energetic reforestation program that has proved to be inadequate; forest resources are still fairly meagre. Unsupported Browser Detected.It seems the web browser you're using doesn't support some of the features of this site. According to the method in previous work [20], the exponent of Zipf's law corresponding to Fig. YBXSZC20131035, YBXSZC20131034) and China Scholarship Council. McColl, Robert W. "House and Field in the Karakorams." Web Sciences Center, School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, People's Republic of China, It is not surprising that eating with chopsticks from small bowls, apparently developed in China in the Han Dynasty. Performed the experiments: YXZ. Transportation remains the most crucial factor. Tourism is also crucial to Sichuan's economy. Results of cosine similarity are not displayed, as all of them display similar tendencies with PCC. Using the metric of spiciness, hes uncovered how Nanxiong food differs from similar styles and how this is expressive of the place identity for those peoplelivinginthisregion. Its history reflects both its rugged topography as well as its proximity to the modern countries and peoples of southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma). Economic activities and resources today: Fishing and boat commerce dominate life and culture. Located mostly in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, the region is arid to semi-arid. Because it is close to the tropical cyclones of the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea it has abundant rainfall (often causing erosion or denuded slopes). The landmass of China spans North-South and East-West rather evenly, providing a good test bed to study the effect of geography and climate. Tobacco comes from the centre and parts of the South. This economic growth has had both positive and negative effects. Jiaozi dumplings are often filled with pork and vegetables, but Why? To fully appreciate China's broad geographic and cultural diversity, one needs to identify general characteristics that act as guidelines. The kind of food produced and the cooking practices of different areas in China depend on the nature of the geography of each particular region. With this representation in hand, we quantify the similarity between two cuisines using the Pearson correlation coefficient (Eq. The -values of all cases indicate significant difference ( for both cases). While it lies within Guangdong Province, its close to the borders of the Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. People choosing were to settle and grow crops, and raise communties was all examples of how geography affect life in ancient china. The blue ones are the results generated by our model, while the yellow ones are results of the dataset. the most notable division is found between the North and South regions (A): result for all regional cuisines; (B): result when neglecting outliers. Lin argues that taste is not just an abstract concept but rather a way of creating ones own geographical identity. In traditional Chinese medicine and nutrition, hot chili The study showed that the regional approach is a useful one because it has a long historical duration, is concretely identified, and covers a large area. Economic activities and resources today: Even today the North China Plain is a land of dispersed agricultural settlements. In the initial state there are ingredients in the ingredient pool, and each regional cuisine contains one recipe that consists of random ingredients chosen from the initial ingredient set; that is, . One approach to describing the regional cuisine of China is to note the Housing: mud-based, single-story structures with flat roofs, Transportation: walking, wheelbarrows, bicycles, cars. Today "fingerprint" carries the same idea, namely some thing or place that is distinctive. However, geographical proximity alone might drive nearby cuisines close because of frequent communication and migration. Physical characteristics: The defining physical feature of this region is the large Sichuan Basin, which is divided into two parts, Chengdu and Chongqing. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Crops also need to be rotated regularly to ensure continued successful cultivation. Other specialty crops, such as tea and citrus fruits, are grown, but the coast is subject to typhoons. general characteristics of cooking and culture by location: North, South, Chinese Buddhist belief has for centuries prohibited the eating of animal flesh, and the monks here have spent an age perfecting the cooking of all types of vegetarian food. How does geography affect food culture? Number of spices per recipe vs. mean annual temperature. the high altitude requires even hardier agricultural products: where it doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079161, Editor: Petter Holme, Ume University, Sweden, Received: July 10, 2013; Accepted: September 18, 2013; Published: November 18, 2013. Nevertheless, such an approach is promising. The Yangzi River is a thoroughfare of trade, meaning that Sichuan is rapidly changing with the influx of foreign investors and developers. His research interests lie in Chinese cuisine and culinary tourism, where he has helped to rethink Chinese food through a geographical lens. Cold climates also kept invaders out. We use MailChimp as our marketing automation platform. The 1,200-mile (1900 km) Huanghe or Yellow River begins in the western Qinghai Province and travels a meandering route through North China to the Bohai Sea in Shangdong Province. Many maps show both natural and man-made features. For example, regions with hot climates often eat very spicy foods. pilaf dish served with mutton and traditionally eaten with the clean, Cultural Geography through Food. Other important crops are potatoes, sugar beets, and oilseeds. Housing: nomads live in yak-felt tents. Lins research uses a regional framework to understand the complex connections between taste and place. strong dependence on fish and crustaceans and its light and sweet flavoring. We assume that each recipe has exactly the same number of ingredients (). Both countries have removed government controls, increased foreign trade, and built strong export-based economies. The advent of the World Wide Web and online recipe repositories have begun to provide unprecedented opportunities for data-driven, quantitative study of food culture. In his research paper, Taste and place of Nanxiong cuisine in South China, he specifically explores the identity of the city, Nanxiong. in Cantonese), which are small bite-sized appetizer foods. Mosques and some residential architecture have Central Asian or Persian-style influences. A research team in Hangzhou, China, found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried potatoes, was linked with a 12% higher risk of anxiety and 7% higher risk of depression than in . The kind of food produced and the cooking practices of different areas in China depend on the nature of the geography of each particular region. two deserts among mountainous terrain. Peking duck Yu-Xiao Zhu, This same principle can be used to facilitate understanding complex cultures and societies, such as those in China. The concept of place tends to be smaller, less concrete, and with less history. bean-curd and vegetable dish cooked with some of the most powerful chilis Because such foods raise the body temperature and cause one to perspire.
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