From Shrimp to Foie Gras: Tales of Food, Gender, and Power in Contemporary China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Why would a Chinese restaurant that claims to be the true heir of local culinary and cultural traditions put Western-style baked goose liver on the menu, next to traditional dishes like stir-fried shrimp? How do Chinese women address power asymmetry in the workplace ? This article uses the cases of five female managers of food establishments, who break into two generations and occupy a spectrum of positions on gender and ideology, to illustrate how women can wrest power from patriarchy by participating in the collective project of food nostalgia in contemporary China. Both beneficiaries and victims of the patriarchal system, they demonstrate in their autobiographical storytelling cultural beliefs and narrative patterns from pre-socialist and socialist China while registering generational differences in gender position. Intersectioning with culture, gender, and politics, food functions as a prism to refract the complex processes of Chinese modernization and Chinese women’s inevitably fraught experiences therein.