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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Jin Feng, "Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways" (U Washington Press, 2019)
Description: Today I talked to Jin Feng of Grinnell College about her fascinating book Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (U Washington Press, 2019).Preparing and consuming food is an integral part of identity formation, which in contemporary China embodies tension between fast-forward modernization and cultural nostalgia. Jin Feng's wide-ranging exploration of cities in the Lower Yangzi Delta--or Jiangnan, a region known for its paradisiacal beauty and abundant resources--illustrates how people preserve culinary inheritance while also revamping it for the new millennium.Throughout Chinese history, food nostalgia has generated cultural currency for individuals. Feng examines literary treatments of J...