Gourmets in the Land of Famine

By: Seung-Joon Lee

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Synopsis: Focusing on the rice trade, Lee (history, National U. of Singapore) examines conflicts over the system of food provisioning for the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou) between 1900 and 1937 and its impact on the city's food politics and culture. He describes how the viewpoints of local managers of provisioning understood Canton as a part of an international network of trade in maritime Southeast Asia and how this view came into conflict with the nationalist modernizing plans of Sun Yat Sen's Guomindang, who came to see foreign-rice imports at cheaper prices into Canton as a source of trade deficit and outflow of national wealth. He also describes how the international rice trade, spurred in Canton by its place within maritime trade networks and the decline of arable land in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, came to impact the dietary preferences of different sectors of the Cantonese urban population. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)