Write Foodism

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Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: This book is a collection of contemporary Chinese prose. It includes 58 works such as "A Date with Deliciousness," "The Egg Transformation," "Being Pompous," "The Era of Reading Recipes," "Unappetizing TV Dramas," "On the Demise of Old Brand Names," "Broth and Soup," "Kitchen Conversations," "Calling People," and "Eating While Waiting." From this book, readers can understand the author's writing style and demeanor. My name is Shen Hongfei, and I am a male media worker. Shen Hongfei is my pen name. The character "Hong" comes from the lineage of the Shen family in Xiangxi, while "Fei" was created by my grandfather. This word has a double meaning: first, it commemorates the food scarcity of the early 1960s; second, it expresses the hope for a prosperous future when food supply will be abundant. It carries a sense of "both challenge and opportunity coexisting." Of course, Shanghai is a city that rarely experiences true hunger. Even in the early 1960s, I was always well-fed and had no lack of basic nutrition. However, the air of famine was suitable for cultivating in people's physiological mechanisms a lively factor that made them crave food, leading to a habit of easily entering a state of craving, which gradually developed into a part of one's personality. Many years later, I noticed a phenomenon: those born during the Three Years of Natural Disasters generally had better appetites than people from other years. Over thirty years later, food supply was not only abundant but also at its peak, even to the extent of events like "milk being poured into the Mississippi River," which we would have never believed back then. Even more surprising was the fact that after being full, people could still write about their food experiences. Writing about food in "New Life" was at the invitation of Ms. Cai Jing, then the deputy editor of the "Southern Weekly" supplement. The saying goes, "When there is a lavish feast, one must change color and act accordingly." Therefore, out of great kindness, I did my best and took up my pen to write about food. I am not a food connoisseur, nor am I skilled in cooking. My only confidence lies in my insatiable appetite—a gift from the era of hunger. A poet once wrote, "I am a person who fears death, and I am still afraid of death even after death." I think I am qualified to say, "I am a very greedy person, and I am still very greedy even after being full." Additionally, I eat a wide variety of foods and have too many favorites, from Chinese, Western, Korean, Japanese, and Southeast Asian cuisines—I like them all. Of course, I only love and can eat things that are considered normal in any culture. At the same time, I have no intention and no ability to concern myself with readers' dining preferences. I only want to use words and sentences to evoke emotions and deconstruct the flavors and behaviors of food. If dining is a series of grand human dramas, then the role of "food writing" is at most like the intermission storyteller in Brecht's theater. Eating and drinking are truly things without principles. What is delicious and what is not is extremely personal and emotional. As the saying goes, "There is no fixed taste, and what suits the mouth is precious." "Food writing" is basically a personal experience, and if it does not align with the private experiences of the readers, it is natural; if there are similarities, it is purely coincidental. I hope everyone can forgive me.
There was once a dedicated reader who wrote to question whether the various eating and drinking behaviors I described in "Food Writing" might suggest the of using public funds for meals. Here, I would like to make a serious and responsible clarification: "Food Writing" contains not a single word or sentence that comes from public funds. Moreover, publishing personal feelings among fellow enthusiasts is not only unrelated to eating with public funds but is essentially "eating with private funds for the public." If there is even a hint of dishonesty, I will be punished by being tied to a chair for three days and three nights, facing a table of unrefined Manhan Quanxi, and starved to death.