Dayuan's EE1

Dayuan Zhao

WRIT-1133-27 MWF 12-2

Prof. Eric Leake

04/30/12

Research about Food and Culture: Different Climate Create Different Diet Habit

       Admittedly, every different region have its own diet habit, this diversity originate from lots of different reasons. Maybe this part of land’s unique custom make this group of resident like to eat this kind of food, maybe the history issue make this region’s cocking system has a huge difference from other parts. But in my opinion, the biggest regional issue which can influent the diet habit most effectively is the climate.

       My hometown is located in the north part of China; the temperature is very low in that place it is sort of like the climate in the Minnesota. In my hometown Liaoning province, the most representative food type is soup, because the elder generation think soups can drive cool away. The most popular soup maybe is sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs. When I mention the sour pickled cabbage, most people will be very confused, and cannot know what I am talking about. The answer is sour pickled cabbage is a kind of the unique food in the southeast part of China, when winter is coming, almost every family will begin to prepare to store the sour pickled cabbage. When winter is coming, the temperature is extremely low. That leads people’s diet habit changes. More families will cook some hot soup to keep them warm. They would buy many Chinese cabbages and make them into sour pickled cabbages. The way to do this is very typical as following. You need to buy a big clay jar, and put some water in the jar to help cabbages ferment; then put twenty to thirty cabbages in to the jar. It is somewhat like cheese’s product method. After one and half month, you can open the jar.

The reason why sour pickled cabbage is so popular in my hometown is the winter is so cold; there are no fresh can be ate in this season, so sour pickled cabbage became a substitute. There is an interest thing about sour pickled cabbage is that it cannot cook with any kind of other vegetables in one dish. Put any other staff with sour pickled cabbage with be very strange except meat. My mother is good at cooking this kind of eating material, and she also make some changes with the original cooking method, when she want to cooks sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs, she also puts some fish ball and rice noodle into the bowl, those two things is also what I like to eat, so I miss my mother and her sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs very much now.

       Another place I want to talk about is colder than Liaoning – Russia. Because Russia is almost the coldest place in the world, so the soil in Russia is not good at plant almost crops, this leads food source is fish. Because Russia has an unusual long coastline, the fisher industry in Russia is very significant. When I mention the Russia food, caviar cannot be ignored. Caviar is one of the “three best foods in western world” (another two are Foie gras and Truffles.) “Traditionally the designation caviar is only used for sturgeon roe from the wild sturgeon species living in the Caspian and Black Sea” (from Wikipedia) Russia and Iran monopolize the ninety-five presents of the caviar market in the worldwide. In Bosnian, caviar means roe, strictly speaking; only the sturgeon eggs can be name as caviar. The best caviar is originated in the Caspian Sea where is bordering Iran and Russia. Not all sturgeon eggs can be made ​​of caviar, more than 20 kinds of different sturgeon can be used in the worldwide. Only three varieties of sturgeon which are Beluga, oscietra, and Sevruga’s eggs can made ​​of caviar, the most senior of the Beluga, an annual output of less than one hundred, but also more than 60-year-old Beluga in order to make caviar.

       There are two kinds of caviars which are red caviar and black caviar, sturgeon eggs and cod roe. Red caviar’s price is much higher than black one. The first level caviar is use more than 60-year-old Beluga’s eggs to make; the second level is use more than 40-year-old Asetra’s eggs to make; the third level caviar is use more than 20-year-old Sevruga’s eggs to make. The price of this kind of luxury food is also startling. The first level caviar’s price is 1200 yuan/ 30 grams in China. Caviar has a nickname "black gold”, sturgeon caviar in Moscow, the market price of more than $ 830 per kilogram, in London, England, sold for more than 5000 U.S. dollars per kilogram. That is inacceptable to almost residents. As to me, I never tried any type of caviar, I think that is unnecessary.

History of consumption caviar is also deserved to be mentioned. Speaking of the origin of the caviar, you have mentioned many years ago of an emperor living in Iran’s beach, because of his food preferences, the caviar has become a fashionable food. At that time, many people who were eating caviar are very healthy and strong, since then, Iran's men are crazy hooked on this kind of newfangled food what can gives them power symbol. Thus, for the first time, caviar shows its nutritional value, and get the attention of the world.

The following country I want to talk about is not as cold as those two places. I will talk about a country which is located in tropic region.

       Brazilian barbecue originated in the western grasslands of Brazil. At first, the herdsmen's life are very difficult, does not solve the problem of food and clothing. Bring some difficulties to their life. Later, herdsmen came up with a way to solve them eating and clothing issue. They slaughter their cows and cook them, they use branch to burn camp fire, use willow branch to string those beef together, sprinkle with coarse salt, and use fire to burn it off. The beginning production method is relatively simple, later, pastoralists found it they put some wild vanilla in to the beef, it become succulent, fresh and delicious. Thus, this extraordinary food passed down.

Brazil is the biggest country in Latin America, and the food style in Brazil is very unique. Profit from the big arable land, Brazil can feed the fifth biggest group of population in the whole world. The most famous dish in Brazil is Roast beef. This dish is the most popular one in Brazil; the dish is also an essential element of the banquet when Brazilians want to entertain their superior guests. This kind of Brazil roast beef is different with the regular barbeque beef what we always eat, it doesn’t add seasoning, they just sprinkle some salt on the beef surface, the grease are seeping outside, charred outside and tender inside, this dish has a unique flavor. You can order different parts of the beef, such as thigh, before the haunch, the haunch, cattle peak, steak and tenderloin, there are more than 10 parts are ready for choose. Which part you want to taste, the waiter will cut it and put it into your plate.

Region issue is a big reason to divide which kind of food is group of residents will eat; maybe this kind of crop is very fix for this region, so they always eat it. Maybe because of the custom, they eat this kind of food of a long time, so this kind of food became to them unique food style. Because some persons who live in a place which is far away from home, they also want to try the foods from their homeland, so some Asian restaurant like Jason’s Thai will be so popular in the U.S.

All in all, those three examples can totally tell us climate issue will change the local diet habit a lot, when you stay in a new country, maybe you cannot adapt the new cooking system and materials. But if you can switch your thought, you can find another aspect, which is this kind of diversity extremely adorable. One of the best nature’s gifts is the different environments and different species, our ancestors’ bright mind leave us so many kinds of unique food like Chinese sour pickled cabbage, Brazilian barbecue and Russian caviar. What I already describe is far short of every foods type in the worldwide, but what I want to say is different climate will totally changes the regional food style. Profit from this issue, the types of food around the world can be this rich and we can taste all of them in different regions. If there is just one type of food existing in the world, people’s daily live will become so boring and desperate. I have read a famous Chinese writer’s blogger, he travel to the U.S., he went to Chicago and attend the “TASTE of CHICAGO” and found some kinds of food which are Americans’ like, such as French fries, turkey leg, pizza, cheese cake and barbeque sausage. Every kind of food he mentioned has very high heat, in china, we always be told eat too much heat is not a good habit to body, but in America, less heat will make people feel weak. This is another difference between China and America’s food culture.