PETER ZHANG

EOOD AS A SOCIAL MEDIUMAND A MEDIUM OE CULTURE

It's not easy to see the grass in things and in words (in the same wayNietzsche said that an aphorism had to be "ruminated," and a plateau isnever separable from the cows that populate it, and which are also theclouds of the sky).

—Deleuze and Guattari'

Ws''e are what we eat. We are what we do not eat.Sichuan, Guizhou, and Hunan are three provinces in China that are

close to each other. People from Sichuan have no fear of peppery foods(^fÖÄ). People from Guizhou never find any food so peppery as to befearsome (Ä^fÖ). It is the fear of people from Hunan that the food maynot be peppery enough ( fÖ^^) . The difference is a matter of degree. Inthe eye of their compatriots, pepper has become inseparable from thetemper and temperament of men and women from the three provinces.

There are many ways in which food both binds and divides people socially.The bread and wine taken at a sacrament definitely have social valence.

At a shared moment in a shared space. His flesh and blood fuse many intoone. The social business of congregation is ritually enacted and realized.

When two people dine out at a sushi restaurant in Japan, they arealmost always served an odd number of pieces. The Japanese thus get aninfinite number of opportunities to show that they put others first.

"We eat out of the same pot and hold the same flag," so goes a linefrom a Chinese song about camaraderie.

Dr. Zhang is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Grand ValleyState University in Grand Rapids, Michigan with research interests in the intersection ofrhetoric, media ecology, cultural studies, and Chinese culture. He has written on GillesDeleuze, Marshall McLuhan, "minor rhetoric," communication and ethics, the Englishlanguage, and the Chinese culture. Currently, he serves on the editorial board of the Journalof Contemporary Rhetoric. He also serves as a manuscript reviewer for Explorations inMedia Ecology and as a board member of the Grand Rapids Chinese Language School.

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PROBES I75

One person's food, another person's sacred animal. Muslims don't eatpork. Indians don't eat beef.

One person's food, another person's poison."When in South Korea, do as the South Koreans do." This line can be

taken too literally. To establish rapport with local business partners, anAmerican in Seoul forced himself to finish a plate of fish eyes, which wasoffered to him as a delicacy. Finding that he liked it, they ordered anotherplate for him.

A Han Chinese was being received by a group of Uyghur friends inXinjiang. They offered him a lamb tail, which was food reserved for impor-tant guests. To show respect, he ate all of it, and nothing else for the nextthree days.

Those good at eating eat the two ends (é^nfenêlMiit:), be it fish or fowl.A man from Hunan was visiting his parents-in-law in Hebei. He couldn'tstand it when his parents-in-law threw away the head and the claws whenpreparing a chicken dish.

"Fish are friends, not food," so says Finding Nemo. Yet we goodhimians think otherwise. Fish served whole is often (but not always) deemedas "dirt" (matter out of place) on the dining table in the United States, butnot in Mexico or China. In China, when a fish dish is laid on the table, thehead is supposed to point to the guest of honor, who's supposed to do the"ribbon cutting."

The line between food and drugs is permeable. People can develop ayen for both. In China, there is such a thing called medicinal food. In theUnited States, both are under the regulation of the FDA. Substancedependence is a more inclusive term than drug addiction because it can applyto both.

As symbol-using animals, we react as much to what we think we haveeaten as to what we actually have eaten.

A woman from the Midwest received a bowl of sweet potato noodlesfrom her neighbor. Thinking they were jellyfish, she was freaked out andthrew them away.

Korzybski used to do an experiment in his seminars, calling a food by adifferent name to see how people's reactions immediately change dependingon what they think they're eating.

We don't eat stuff. We eat meaning.Anglophones eat pork, beef, mutton, and so on. Han Chinese people eat

pig meat, cow meat, sheep meat, and so on. The difference is that Anglophonesspeak animals out of their food.

176 ETC • APRIL 2013

A friend once held an Easter egg hunt party, at which there was a deli-cacy called "the heart is too soft" ('ùX^), made of pitted dates with stickyrice inside. It was indeed soft and sweet. Speaking of the heart, there is akind of turnip in China called "beautiful at heart" (^Ù^MIt). The inside ispurplish red.

In Zhejiang, there is a dish made of stinky tofu and stinky wintermelon. It's called "two stinky odors go together" (Mt'^^^W), which is apositive appropriation of a negative idiom. Some call it "fragrance drifts tenthousand miles" ( # P ; Ç M ) .

Food, tea, and booze belong to the same social matrix. They mediatelust and love ahke (mM.'^X^^, M^fe^IA).

The shortest way to a man's heart is through his tummy.For the people, food is heaven (^(¿ i . ' ^Ä^) . In 1962, there was a famine.

Many people made flour out of a tree seed for food. Hesitancy became acultural syndrome. As the proverb goes, he who hesitates is constipated.

We need to relearn to eat with the tummy, not the brain. Eat whenhungry. Sleep when tired.

Save your last bite, and you'll sleep soundly through the night (il^fil—P.^ M — i t ) . Otherwise, "we eat all day, we fart all night," to misquote Dr.Seuss.

The eye is bigger than the tummy. Bite what you can swallow. Swallowwhat you can digest. When it comes to study, though, try and live by anotherpiece of wisdom: swallow as much as you can and then ruminate.

When inquisition (i.e., incrimination based on words) threatens a person,this person will either turn writing into the most obscure form of art, or turncookery into the most refined form of art. Their creative impulse will find anoutlet one way or another. By contrast, a people that enjoy parrhesia as abirthright often end up having imitation food only, served by narrow-hippedwomen.

Prudence in an inquisitive political climate means eating more dishes,drinking less wine, hstening to one's wife, following the party line.

A sure sign of cosmopolitanism is not the size of a city, but the vastavailability of ethnic foods there.

Lots of metis is passed on intergenerationally in the preparation of food.Those who feel frustrated at "a pinch of salt" in a recipe are civilized brutes.

Both the good and the bad chef are defined by a handful of salt (^fJSjlfp—ÍGÍk.mmn^-^).

The orderly manner in which the courses of a meal are served embodiesthe lineal principle of print culture. People go by the same principle when

PROBES I77

eating buffet. A sense of decorum tells one not to start with ice cream orwatermelon. In like manner. Fourth of July Fireworks, despite their discon-tinuity and ephemerality, put the lineal-mindedness of the culture on displayby building toward a climax, a "shooting spree."

Four things that will "help" you to put on weight: soup, sugar, lyingdown, and high-temperature food (üiffiÄM). The four Chinese charactersall sound hke "tongue," each with a different tone.

Two ounces of bird meat is better than half a pound of beast meat

In China, food preparation, presentation, and consumption are informedby the principles of yin and yang. One doesn't eat liver in spring because itwill cause too much "fire" in the body (#^ ' i - fF ) . Men eat ginger whilewomen drink soup (B^ei^. I^^i^Ii).

A little ecological sensibility goes a long way. In nature, poison andantidote are seldom far apart. The same goes with yin and yang. Tangerinesmay cause "fire," but the white veins on the inside of the peel will helpextinguish the fire. Simply try not to be so picky and puristic when eating.The same goes with lotus seeds. The green-colored bitter bud inside thepearl-like seed will keep you from catching fire.

Gariic helps with all diseases but hurts the eyes (MMfñ'M, ^E^ÍÜí) .Food as a "medium" (as McLuhan understands the term) is primarily

the discursive formation about food that not only fashions a people'sbeliefs, values, and practices but also constitutes their taste buds.

Reference

1. Gilles Deleuze Félix Guattari (eds) (1983). "Rhizome," in On the Line.(tr: John Johnston). New York: Semiotext(e), 53.

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