1-P4 Food Culture in Different Community

By stating how the meal or food was produced and served, O'Donnell related the moral and spirit inclination dominated in a certain community with which kind of food they were served. Compared with the equal allocation and stability of beef production, fish production was changeable and profit could be made though some bribery ways. Thus, O'Donnell linked the cattle eater to the socialism who cares about the wealth of whole society, and seafood eater to capitalism, who only focusing on own benefit. Analogously, O'Donnell claim the older shenzheners are characterized by socialism due to their dining habit. In the good old days, people got together in a dining stall and were severed with same dishes, no matter what class they belonged to. However, such tradition was total changed. Nowadays, the new generation desired to eat in a decent way, accompanying with those who comes from similar classes. People only care about their own wealth and the distinct between the wealth and poor are getting bigger and bigger these days. As a result, O'Donnell connected the new generation in Shenzhen with capitalism. All in all, as C claim, the moral and political imperative to feed people provides a resonant rhetoric for discussing inequality and corruption, from a cultural way.

Cate and O'Donnell's concerns vary quite differently in how food relates to each community they talk about. O'Donnell believes that the food could reflect a community’s moral and sprit while Cate focuses on the culture of food in the prison. Food is a different symbol for the prisoners. Both of the sucks food provided by the institution and the different schedule make people got hungry at night. What’s more, because of the strict institutional regulation, people got no change to do other things except making themselves some food. They make spread not only to seek a better taste of food, but also to pursue a new status without any supervision by the institutions in their inner mind.

For me, the most fascinating part of their study comes from O'Donnell’s article, in which he connected the transformation of food serving with transformation the moral intention from different generations. As one of the new generation in China, I deem the country as a fast-running train, which marked by increasing wealth and proliferation of commodity. The market could satisfy our desires and honestly speaking, I see food just as food, short of any nostalgia related to it, none to say relate to the moral and political imperative. But O'Donnell’s point of view gave me a brand new insight towards food. Indeed, from the empirical examples and his explanation, it quite reasonable to judge a community’s sprite by the way the food was serving. Say, if you care about others, then your will share the good with them, but not just enjoying the tasty dishes on you own. Similarly, if a country is perfectly denominated by socialism, every stakeholder will care about other people and share the wealth with the public, the distinct between the wealth and the poor will be eliminated. For those selfish capitalists, they won’t share their food with lower classes, not to speaking of sharing money wealth with them.