Food Culture in Yu shi nan nu (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) by Ang Lee

Food Culture in Yu shi nan nu  (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) 

Sinòpsi: 

1- ¿Quins trets de l’alimentació que apareixen a la pel·lícula podem considerar que són comuns a les cuines de l’Àsia  oriental? 

A. Estris, tècniques i textures  B. funcions “metagastronòmiques”

c. La cultura del beure 

D - la vessant estètica de l’alimentació

2- Seleccionar  3  productes dels que apareixen a la pel·lícula.: Rice, Salt, Ginger

3- En un moment de la pel·lícula es fa referència a les propietats afrodisíaques dels aliments.

Explicar el paper de l’alimentació a la medicina tradicional xinesa.

4- A la pel·lícula es fa referència a les transformacions recents en l’àmbit de l’alimentació.

5- Quins serien, al vostre parer, les principals diferències/aspectes comuns- entre la cultura alimentària a la pel·lícula i la del vostre entorn sociocultural.

(Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) -Taiwan, 1994, Dir. Ang Lee, 109 Min.

Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think

1- ¿Quins trets de l’alimentació que apareixen a la pel·lícula podem considerar que són comuns a les cuines de l’Àsia  oriental? 

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish

- too much handling will spoil it."
Lao Tzu

      A. Estris, tècniques i textures 

Cooking devices. The division of the space shows us the importance of every detail:

Outside the house: the poultry in the cage. Besides, we can see a large section outside with all the ceramic containers (about 20: small and large vessels that can keep anykind of food preserved) … for a small family of four!

Inside the house, pans (sauce-pans, frying-pans, deep-pans) casseroles, etc.

In the kitchen proper a professional table with a line of fire area where we see three ring fires. On the side wall a perfect rack with three lines of cutting tools: From an axe to large blades, to wide chopping knives with pronged ends, sharp shapes, ans do on. I counted above forty! Sure you can do anything with such weaponry.  

The cooking tools can be very basic items:  a wok, bamboo baskets, a rice cookery, a gass ring to heat the wok, a thick chopping board and a spatula.

Cooking techniques. The paramount feature seemed to me the time devouted in the running time to chop everything in small, uniform pieces. The range of cutting devices is justified.

Then the cooking uses little fat and taste comes from a wide range of spices or seasonings. About this I kept the record of a dialogue where daughter and father discuss the taste of a soup (the ingredient is irrelevant right now):

What's wrong?" she says.                                                "Nothing, it's delicious. Yet..." Chu continues.
"What?"                                                                        Too much, and its effect is ruined."
"I disagree. It's not too much. You're too timid with it."            "I'm certainly not."
"Don't boss me around."                                                            "I'm not. It was a minor criticism about a slight taste of

 too much of it”

We can see so many ways of cooking: boiling, simmering, smoking the meatballs in the barrel, adding hot fish to the fish, etc. Among them the central presence of the wok due to its shape: a smooth curved surface. First, stewing the food (liquid evaporates very fast) and second the even distribution of heat allows stir-frying the small pices at different timings to perfection. Both point out to a tremendous saving of fuel. The Chinese word being ‘kuo’. For a taste of simplicity at the end of the film Jia-Chien is preparing pancakes on a metal plank with a big dough in her hand while she manages to answer a phone call.

Not surprisingly the director Ang Lee employed three full time chefs.

Textures. From the three classic features: colours, tastes and textures, we may start with the words of chef Chu: ‘for me, texture is everything’.  Enough said.

To exemplify this part other ingredients are added to texture and flavor coated in a uniform and firm sauce. The variety of sauces shares mostly a thick quality. The preparation of soya sauces is easily preserved is boiled when made into curd and its starch is important to add texture to the plates. 

Sweet and Sour Sauce is a popular condiment to serve with deep-fried dishes. We see a close-up in the first scene pouring it over a roasted meat in a bowl to achieve the right crispy texture that enhances the taste.

B. funcions “metagastronòmiques”      

Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?
Confucius

We don’t see much of the moral or religious functions in the film. The relevant ones are the social ones: ad intram et ad extram the family. To remark the differences we must remember that Chef Chu has gained respect as a leading chef in Taipei, but his exhuberant dishes don’t get any response from his grown daughters who eat with carelessness and unimportance the superb food as we will see. 

As Lee said in an interview to Moviemaker in 2001 “the humble daughters can accept anything till an outburst moment, then there is chaos, and after the dust settles we have harmony again”. As a result, every Sunday reunion ends in more things falling apart. Things are boiled up and on the go three marriages and a funeral later will show the Chu family that life is unpredictable.

Ad intram.

B1. Family bonds.  I quote the father's definition of a family: "All under one roof, leading separate lives, still we worry for each other. This worry, that's what makes us a family …”

The ‘family’ word in Chinese jia gets the radical for pig on the left and everything under one roof. This character is shared by the Korean and Japanese neighbours.

In Japanese ie ‘significa casa, però s’acostuma a traduir com a ‘familia’ o ‘llar’ fent referència a la gent que hi viu com al mar físic’ (material uoc: Família i gènere –mòdul 3)

Chu is superb at preparing meals, but his communication skills with his beloved daughters are nul. Unable to speak his mind he cooks every Sunday to have something to hold to although one daughter call it “ritual torture”. Then in another scene we hear “how many more dinners can we stand?”

B2. communication-through-food. What the daughters need to hear most are often the things that Chu find hardest to say, and vice versa. The second daughter, Jia-Chien, comments that the neighbors difference in kinship communication:

 Jia-Jen: "Can't they stop that karaoke"?

 Jia-Chien: "We communicate by eating. They do it by singing."

In another scene Jia-Chien recalls the nostalgy of the kitchen during her childhood to her friend Raymond's: “everything goes with smells and tastes … so that I go back to my infancy when I start cooking’.

Ad extram.

Friendship. The team-spirit that can be at the restaurant between Chu and his loyal friends, the old Chen and the owner. The latter, still reluctant of Chu’s negative to go back to work with him snaps: ‘If you are thinking of opening a rival restaurant in town ... then I will go with you’. The old Chen says once ‘You're still the greatest chef in Taipei. Like that composer…Beethoven.’  We quickly know he is become Chu’s other half in the cooking business (as we will see below).

At the school where Jen-chian works there is the karaoke scene, everyone accepted, everyone invited.

c. La cultura del beure (la pel·lícula amb les explicacions del mòdul)

Tea tempers the spirit, harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude

and relieves fatigue, awakens the thought and prevents drowsiness.
Lu Yu, The Classic Art of Tea

Just like such daily necessities as rice and salt (see next section), liquor also has a close relationship with people's lives.There a couple of moments where the spirits play an important role, and an accepted one, in society:

Chef Chu uses the drinks to escape the sober state of a household where it seems he can not get merriment anymore. Only his friend can understand him. At the end of the after-hours supper with some white wine they are walking holding by the shoulders and philosophising about life.

The other one is the last anouncement, where the father follows a strict rule of drinking one round with every single party, four in all: three daughters (plus sons-in-law) and neighbours.

The alcohol’s effect on her father is for Jia-Chien the cause of his ‘strange behaviour’.

This yellow liquor may well be the rice wine (Shaoxing wine) probably the most popular Chinese spirit.

Circumstancially, there are a variety of situations where intimately the two characters talk round a cup of tea. The elder sister, Jen-Chien with Jin Ron, the neighbour; Jia-Chien with his colleague Li Kai. The only difference is Jia-Ning with his friend when while visiting his house they drink cold plain water.

At the Karaoke, the soft drinks and water, keep the school joined beyond age differences.

D - la vessant estètica de l’alimentació 

The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live.

In the film we appreciate the succesful efforts of Jong Lin, the camerawork, to display the food in a palette of colours (and guess the tastes!). Two anecdotical details of the aesthetics, so important in a film: Pei Mei, a famous Chinese chef, served as a consultant and the first cooking scene was shot in a full week.

The father cooks elaborate dishes with enough food to serve 20 people which cover the large dining table. Every time the surface is akwardly covered by a large display of bowls, china plates, 

At the swift opening scene Chu disguises some dissolving shark’s fins into a gorgeous ‘Dragon head playing in the sea’ to the perfect satisfaction of the clients.

About the art of displaying a colourful dish I rememeber three recipes:

·      ‘Steamed deer spare ribs with ginger in a pumpkin pot’,

·      the lovely surface of ‘Lotus flower soup’, and

·      ‘Chicken wrapped in clay’.

At the last family reunion we see the ornamental and careful designs of the cut-out pieces of vegetables that acompany the main courses: a white lobster and an orange parrot. 

The last piece I recollect here is the breadrings that made such a deep impression in  Jia-Chien at an early age: she could become a princess. The magic of food.

2- Seleccionar  3  productes dels que apareixen a la pel·lícula.

To the ruler, the people are heaven; to the people, food is heaven.
ancient Chinese proverb

My choice went to Mi, Lu & Chiang (Rice, Salt and Ginger). My inspiration came from the famous poet Su Dong Po who loved pork, and apparently created this recipe:

Dong Po Pork

Pork with soy sauce (salt here), ginger and spring onion for up to five hours, until it is as soft as butter. I have tried to recreate the dish as I ate it in Shanghai; soft, gooey and irresistibly rich. Serve it with a platter of Chinese cabbage or on a bed of beansprouts quickly tossed with oil, ginger and Chinese rice wine, along with plenty of rice to soak up the juices.

found at  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,4703-538763_3,00.html

Rice. In China, the history of rice in river valleys and low-lying areas is longer that its history as a dryland crop. Rice was introduced to Japan no later than 100 B.C.

Its significance is clearly revealed in Culture. In China, the deadliest of all insults is to up a bowl of someone else’s rice and spill it on the ground. From the language side, it represents the very foundation: the word for ‘rice’ (mi) can also be the one for ‘eat’ (shi) the one we find in the title. Likewise when somewhere in the East Asian region you hear: ‘Have you eaten steamed rice today?’ ‘steamed rice’ stands for ‘meal’. Incidentally, to compare basic with non basic- we eat rice (mostly as a ‘paella’ dish) nowadays -perhaps a derivation from the Arabic ‘baiyya’ (what is left). Not the same thing.  

Rice is implicit and not specially shown in the lavish scenes, but always present, as the proverb states: “A meal without rice is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.”

Ginger. This perennal herb can show a remarkable record in Chinese culture important as spices but as medicines as well. As a condiment ginger has got a larger presence than any other spice or seasoning. Valued for its clean, sharp flavor, ginger is used in soups, stir-fries, and marinades.  It is especially good with seafood, as it can cover up strong fish odors.

It played a crucial role in the last scene (see dialogue above) where was the flavoring ingredient in a dish seasoning taste. Its usage is common on the East (China, Japan and Korea) and also in the South-east. My best source came from foodtimeline.org (I quote generously):

In modern China,  people single out the root of young ginger...for its delicate flavor, absence or  near absence of fibers, and thinner skiin that that of mature ginger. Young  gingerroot may be pickled, preserved in other ways, or employed as a spice, and  is ordinarily used in larger amouts thatn mature ginger...Grated gingerroot,  with sesame oil and sugar, may be made into a condiment. Gingerroot may be included in sauces and marinades,...It may be made into a sweet. (from Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices, Andrew  Dalby -2000 (p. 21-22))

Salt. The presence of Salt in Chinese cuisine shall not be overlooked. It’s the essential condiment throughout its long history where sprinkling salt directly on food was too expensive. Usually it has been added with salt-based sauces and pastes. We know the role of salt in history (the famous silkroute was mostly salt!). The Romans left us with some basic words (salary, soldier <payed with ‘soldada’ =salt>). It was the basic tax paid by everyone to the rulers and the main source of the Han and Tang Empire. When in debt… go to salt as the Revolutionary Chinese Government did in 1913 to secure a huge International credit. In modern Italy it is sold in ‘Sale e tabacco’ shops.

As R. Worf wrote on the impressive Mark Kurlansky’s Salt: A World History:

Nothing exhibits the infinite variety of the human experience better than the way different cultures struggle with a similar problem, such as how to find and produce salt on a large scale.

Kurlasnsky tells us about all this and more. From the recipes I selected the ubiquous how jiangyou (soy sauce) came in:

Fish fermented in salt was one of the most popular salt condiments in ancient China -called jiang. Soybeans were added to ferment with the fish, and in time the fish was dropped altogether from the recipe and jiang became jiangyou.  

(to read the first chapter: A Mandate of Salt go to www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm?book_number=960)

The gourmet Zhu Ziye confessed once his culinary secrets with other cooks and everybody agreed  that the the simplest yet the most difficult thing about cooking  was not "choosing the ingredients" or the art of "chopping" but to do-the adding of salt”. The old Wen has to do this difficult task. He is chef Chu tongue to choose if it is palatable. The only time ‘salt’ is mentioned in the film is when ‘do not add salt to the fish’.

3- En un moment de la pel·lícula es fa referència a les propietats afrodisíaques dels aliments.

Explicar el paper de l’alimentació a la medicina tradicional xinesa.

The one that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of the physician.

Chinese medicine foundations go back to yin and yang principles. Arcane sages thought of a correspondence between cosmos and body and interweave them to as a sign of mutual interplay and restraint. This model of balance defines the opposing, yet complementary sides of nature towards warm and hot elements.

To express them we could go to any Chinese dish as in the film duck-oil sauteed pea sprout. There is always a balance in color, flavors, and textures. We have to eat with a healthy balance between the two which means more things come to play. Ingredients ate not 100% pure and we have to consider the importance of balance and contrast between foodstuff in each dish. Besides, cooking methods also have more of a yin or yang property: Yin qualities mostly in boiling, poaching and steaming and Yang qualities in deep-frying, roasting and stir-frying. When changing diet habits doesn’t work, we can go to medicines. In the Japanese lands there is the legend about rice that if soaking before cooking releases life energy and gives the eater a more powerful soul.

I will quote Jia-Chien comments when at her friend Raymond's, "I felt like cooking…It's ancient philosophy. Food balance with energy, flavor and nature. . . . This is duck-oil sauteed pea sprout. One duck--two dishes with two flavors. Hot and cold. A perfect balance."

In traditional Chinese medicine, proper food is the first defence line and an important factor for good health. The pace of the film is as rapid as the final meal preparations, in keeping with Chinese custom of serving everything quickly and as fresh as possible. The foodstuff consists of small morsels that reach the mouth with the chopsticks so that can be chewed slowly. Slowfood and saliva: good for your body.

   

The basic natural needs for survival are sex and food. The very expression of them is as old as literature. In the script is superbly portraited in an overlapped guise twice. The first one in an eliptic way in the opening scene Jian-Chien is making love with his friend and his father is in the kitchen blowing a chicken balloon. Sex and kitchen. No transitions. Lovely. The second one is a way of stating the foundations of the film as we listen in this dialogue:

Old Wen: "Good sound is not in the ear, good taste is not in the mouth, and good sex . . .

                    God knows where…"
Chu:    "Eat, drink, man, woman. Food and sex. Basic human desires. Can't avoid them."
Chef Chu links the concepts and I guess it refers that love is a driving force anytime, anywhere. Age is not an unsurmontable problem and the title Yu shi nan nu comes from  a Chinese proverb that that expresses fond wishes for the continuation of life in a very taosist way. The English have a proverb that says “we are what we eat” and another that what for someone is food for another person is poison”.

All over the film we have been learning of the passion for both sides on Chu’s life. So we can accept some symbolism when chef Chu lost his sense of taste and surprisingly regained only in the last scene of the film. I guess it shows his appetite for life is unrequisted with age.

"What about my soup?"
"Your soup, Jia-Chien...I taste it. I can taste it."
"You can taste?"
"I taste it. Some more, please. Daughter."
"Father."

4- A la pel·lícula es fa referència a les transformacions recents en l’àmbit de l’alimentació.

Preserve the old, but know the new.

I will start with Mr. Chu's insightful observation:

"People today don't appreciate the exquisite art of cooking. After forty years of Chinese food in Taiwan, the art is lost. Food from everywhere merges like rivers running into the sea. Everything tastes the same!"

There are obviously some changes in traditional Chinese society (values and customs).  Several types of cooking are represented:

Professional: in the beginning we watch the restaurant at a banquet for hundreds in Honour of the son of the Governor .

Glamourous scene that ofers sharp contrast with the younger daughter, Jia-Ning, serving French fries in Wendy, a fastfood outlet!

Next, in an early scene, he takes little neighbor Shanshan her lunch box at elementary school with her so we are confronted with the business of school catering, a new way of offering cheap menus.

Home. The quick pace of modern life in urban Taipei. We can consider the preparation of breakfast for children. Shanshan has left home without a rich ingestion of food to meet the demands of school life and isgoing to eat in the bus. Old Chu gets surprised. He must remember his copious breakfast at home at early days. And he is told that Shanshan best friend does not bring the lunchbox because her mum forgets very often!

There some times when we see characters enjoying a normal meal. Jia shen cooks to relax from a hard day at work with her friend. In another case she goes back to her infancy to steam off from work pressure with a superb meal.

5- Quins serien, al vostre parer, les principals diferències/aspectes comuns- entre la cultura alimentària a la pel·lícula i la del vostre entorn sociocultural.

Cutting stalks at noon time, Perspiration drips to the earth.

Know you that your bowl of rice, Each grain from hardship comes?
Cheng Chan-Pao, Chinese philosopher

The heart of the movie is not the cooking, although it is worth seeing the movie to watch it.

First of all, some sense of naturality. I could see myself reflected in the setting and perhaps accept that the characters don’t live up to Eastern Asian stereotypes. They go

after different zests for life, but share a general lack of appetite for life. We see how Chu has lost his sense of taste, and his daughters just want to go on with their separate, lonely lives. We accept the complexities of modern life, that change is the essence of life and the necessity for a balance in our hectic-paced lives.

We have seen a great array of characters, diversity of eateries, how we can survive with the very minimum (as in Confucius saying: ‘Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow - happiness may be enjoyed even in these.’). As in any place on Earth, writing on culinary issues will change things (or ‘cook rice’ in more Chinese terms).

The more striking differences were that all the food is almost available to all people and you take what you eat. The lack of forks and knives at the table and the dexterity of chopsticks (I’m still at the starter level here). Food tends to be fresh and the taste enhanced by spices with a rich texture. Perhaps that is why we always go back to our favourite Chines restaurant:  memories of powerful taste.

I will center now on some common features while watching the film:

My mother is a perfect cook (she ran succesfully a ‘tapas bar’ for 9 years) and could not pass a mere 10% of her kwoledge to any of her children. On food as in life we may accept Confucius saying: ‘Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

I can also recall some ‘paellas’ –our family meetings- with similar ingredients of boredom and incommunication. To think back as how much ‘family communion’ around the table has changed in all this years make me smile right now.

The disparity of societies can be also eliminated when we go to gender differences. My cousin Maribel was at 17 in a difficult decision as on which way she could follow her life roadmap. She wanted to be a chef.  To no avail. No-one in her family supported her: medicine was her way out in the end. I see how it matches perfectly the dialogue between Old Wen and Jia-Chien:
Wen: "How quickly you learned everything! What a talent, eh, Chu?"
Jia-Chien: "Til you exiled me from the kitchen."
Wen: "And you learned to do something serious with your life!"
Jia-Chien: "A woman can't be a real chef?"
Wen: "Yes, you could have become one of the greats. But your father was right to

 encourage you in your studies. Now look, such a success! You owe it all to

your father for throwing you out of our smelly old kitchen and keeping you on

the right path!"
Jia-Chien: "No one asked me what I wanted!"

To sum up, to learn about new peoples, is to learn about ourselves. I remember a curious proverb: "If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people."

=== the end ===