Food and Environment
in Early and Medieval China
ENCOUNTERS WITH ASIA
Victor H. Mair, Series Editor
Encounters with Asia is an interdisciplinary series dedicated to the exploration of all the major regions and cultures of this vast continent. Its timeframe extends from the prehistoric to the contemporary; its geographic scope ranges from the Urals and the Caucasus to the Pacific. A particular focus of the series is the Silk Road in all of its ramifications: religion, art, music, medicine, science, trade, and so forth. Among the disciplines represented in this series are history, archeology, anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. The series aims particularly to clarify the complex interrelationships among various peoples within Asia, and also with societies beyond Asia.
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
FOOD AND
ENVIRONMENT
IN EARLY
AND MEDIEVAL
CHINA
E. N. ANDERSON
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8122-4638-4
To the Silent Gardeners
“The tree of humanity forgets the labour of the silent gardeners who sheltered it from the cold, watered it in time of drought, shielded it against wild animals; but it preserves faithfully the names mercilessly cut into its bark.”
—Heinrich Heine, 1833, as quoted in Gross 1983: 323
This book is dedicated to the billions of ordinary people, almost all of them nameless and forgotten, who domesticated rice, developed bread wheat, invented brewing, created soy sauce, tamed the dog, and otherwise discovered our foods, domesticated our crops, invented our basic food processing techniques, and created our basic food production systems—while their leaders, the famous kings and premiers and generals, waged war and massacred. The ordinary people of history gave us life while the leaders gave us death. It is the ordinary creative farmers and gatherers and food technicians who have won immortality. Their names are lost, but their true glory is deathless.
“Let us now praise famous men….
There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported.
And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them.
But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten….
Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out.”
—Ecclesiasticus 44: 1, 8–13
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Prehistoric Origins Across Eurasia
Chapter 2. China’s Early Agriculture
Chapter 3. The Origins of Chinese Civilization
Chapter 4. The Development of China’s Sustainability During Zhou and Han
Chapter 5. Dynastic Consolidation Under Han
Chapter 6. Foods from the West: Medieval China
Chapter 7. The Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty
Chapter 8. Shifting Grounds in Ming
Chapter 9. Overview: Imperial China Managing Landscapes
Appendix I. Conservation Among China’s Neighbors
Appendix II. An Introduction to Central Asian Food
PREFACE
This book covers the development of the Chinese food system from earliest times into the Ming Dynasty. Most attention is devoted to recent work on pre-dynastic China and on the Yuan Dynasty, since these are both key to the system and the subjects of recent major research. Considerations of space have made me leave most of Ming and all of Qing and postimperial China for other venues, but I provide conclusions about China’s food system at the end of imperial times in the early twentieth century, as well as a few comparisons with recent times. For notes on later times, see my website postings “Ming and Qing: Population and Agriculture” on late imperial food and science, “China’s Environmental Ruin” on contemporary mainland China, and “Chinese Food Updates” on contemporary food ethnography (www.krazykioti.com). These are works in progress, are not to be taken as final, and not to be cited without my permission.
This book owes everything to Victor Mair, who expressed interest in my work and helped and encouraged at every stage. I also owe an enormous debt to my lifelong coworker Paul Buell, and to many friends and helpers in the world of Asian food, especially those who kept contact and remained encouraging during my long years away from China studies—including Jacqueline Newman, Charles Perry, Françoise Sabban, and others. Many more recent friends and fellow scholars have also helped with the enterprise, including Sidney Cheung, David Knechtges,