Eating in Early Modern East Asia
Fall 2021, HSMT x EAS x DTF
AS.140.323 (3 credits)
Course Information:
Course Meetings: TTh 9:00-10:15 am
Location: Maryland 104
Instructor: SJ Zanolini
Contact: sjz@jhu.edu
Office Hours: After class & by appointment
Course Description:
Can we identify a distinctly East Asian food
culture? Or can we only speak of East Asian
food cultures, plural? In what ways are
regional food cultures and culture writ
large mutually constitutive? Students will
explore these questions over the course of
the semester through focused readings on
the following aspects of localized
foodways: agricultural environment,
ingredient availability, recipe composition,
meal patterning, and the mutually
constitutive relationship between diet,
health, and illness in early modern medical
literature.
Night market, c.1612, in Hainei qiguan 海內奇觀
This is a seminar-style discussion course. It does not assume prior knowledge of Early Modern or East
Asian history. Students are expected to read all assigned articles before coming to class. Class time
prioritizes discussion among students, allowing us to make connections between assigned readings,
short lectures, additional media, and short student presentations.
Learning Objectives:
1. Topical
a. Explore the diversity of East Asian culinary cultures in order to:
i. Better appreciate the regional and cultural histories of East Asia
ii. Move beyond a nationalist approach to history
b. Distinguish common approaches to the field of food studies, including cooking practices,
recipe studies, dining culture, biographies of individual foods, and nutritional analysis
c. Compare and contrast present and past food cultures in East Asia
2. Practical
a. Summarize the arguments in historical writing, identifying limitations as appropriate
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b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Closely read and contextualize historical sources in translation
Articulate and defend an original historical argument
Revise writing for clarity and additional information
Practice public speaking through individual presentations
Independently produce a research-grounded final project
Assignments:
1. Recipe shares (3)
Although this is a history course, many of the foods and practices we will discuss exist in the
present. To more fully engage with the material realities of accessing, preparing and consuming
food, students will select 3 recipes to explore as methods/processes. These write-ups will ideally
chronicle personal attempts at making a recipe, but they may also be a critiques of recipes
found online. Recipes may be historical or modern, written or filmed. (300-500 words)
1 recipe share is due per month (1 in September, 1 in October, 1 in November).
2. Reading reflections (3)
Students will sign up for 3 supplementary readings (see appended list of topics), writing a brief
summary of the reading that stresses how it connects to other readings and themes from the
course. (300-500 words) Reading reflections are due 6am on Thursday of the week assigned.
3. Annotated bibliography (midterm project)
a. Due Friday at 11:59pm EST of week 10, and consisting of:
i. A 1-page project introduction, including an explanation of topic, and proposal
for a longer research paper or creative project exploring it
ii. A list of 9-12 relevant & appropriate article length sources (or 3 books), Chicagostyle citation, followed by a short summary of topic, argument, methods,
contributions, and limitations of the work.
4. Final project consisting of either:
a. Term paper: 10-12 pages, 12pt font and standard margins, Chicago-style citation
b. Creative project with 3-page process paper: students wishing to pursue a more creative
method of presenting their research may choose this option. Past examples of
successful student work include visual artwork, mock newspapers written from a
historical vantage point, lesson plans, podcasts, and short illustrated books.
Grading
Active engagement in discussions
Recipe shares (3)
Short reading reflections (3)
Annotated bibliography
Final project
20%
15%
30%
15%
20%
Grade Appeals
If at the end of the semester you wish to appeal your final grade, I agree to reread all of your work with
a more critical eye to make sure that I did not miss anything nor make any errors in calculation or
judgement. Your revised final grade may go up or down once I have finished the review process.
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Readings
All readings for the course are available on the annotated reading platform Perusall. To access this site,
go to https://app.perusall.com/ to register an account, then input the course code: ZANOLINI-DFJPZ
Participation in asynchronous discussions on this site counts in evaluations of active course engagement.
The Johns Hopkins Writing Center
The Writing Center offers undergraduate and graduate students free, individual conferences with
experienced tutors, all of whom are trained to consult on written work in the humanities and social
sciences. For more information, see https://krieger.jhu.edu/writingcenter/
Academic Ethics
The strength of the university depends on academic and personal integrity. In this course, you must be
honest and truthful. Ethical violations include cheating on exams, plagiarism, re-use of assignments,
improper use of the internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded
assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition.
Report any violations you witness to the instructor. You may consult the associate dean of student
affairs and/or the chairman of the Ethics Board beforehand. For more information, you may refer to the
guide on “Academic Ethics for Undergraduates” and the Ethics Board Web site at
http://www.jhu.edu/design/oliver/academic_manual/ethics.html. Please see the helpful guide to
citation practices on the library’s research help website: http://library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/. If you
have any questions, please raise them with your instructor.
Mental Health
The health and wellness of students are of utmost importance to us here at Johns Hopkins. The
Counseling Center provides a safe, confidential, nonjudgmental space where students can feel free to
explore a wide variety of concerns and issues. The Counseling Center offers a wide variety of services to
assist students including drop-in hours, workshops, group therapy, brief individual therapy, couples
counseling, psychiatric evaluations and medication management, substance use assessments, eating
assessments, and 24/7 crisis intervention services. These services are available to all eligible Homewood
and Peabody undergraduate and graduate students. All counseling services are offered free of charge to
students. In addition, self-help resources are available to assist students in understanding and
addressing common concerns. If you feel that you or someone you know could profit from our services,
please call the office. They will either provide the help that you need or help you find someone who can.
For more information: Telephone: 410-516-8278; https://studentaffairs.jhu.edu/counselingcenter/
The Office of Student Disability Services
The office of Student Disability Services advises Johns Hopkins students with disabilities on
available services, guides you as you register for and request accommodations and assistive
technology, acts as a liaison with your instructors, and provides advice and mentoring throughout
your matriculation. They work with the university’s central ADA Compliance Officer and
comply with federal, state, and local disability regulations throughout our process. If you are a
student with a disability or believe you might have a disability that requires accommodations,
please contact Student Disability Services at 410-516-4720, studentdisabilityservices@jhu.edu,
or view their website https://www.jhu.edu/life/disability-services/
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Classroom Climate and Expectations
I am committed to creating a classroom environment that values the diversity of experiences and
perspectives that all students bring. Every member of this class, campus community, and sentient being,
generally, has the right to be treated with dignity and respect. Listening to the unique perspectives of
our peers helps us find the limitations of our own perspective as well as expanding our knowledge base.
Producing an inclusive classroom environment is a mutual project. The following expectations can guide
you as we engage in potentially challenging intellectual discussions:
•
•
•
Listen carefully to what others are saying even when you disagree with what is being said.
Comments that you make (asking for clarification, sharing critiques, expanding on a point, etc.)
should reflect that you have paid attention to the speaker’s comments.
Be courteous. Don’t interrupt or engage in private conversations while others are speaking.
Allow everyone the chance to talk. If you have much to say, try to hold back a bit; if you are hesitant
to speak, look for opportunities to contribute to the discussion.
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Course Schedule
Week 1. Unpacking Contemporary Ideas about East Asian Foods & Foodways
8.31 – Course Orientation
9.2 – Definitions, expectations, biases
1. Michelle King, Jia-chen Fu, Miranda Brown, and Donny Santacaterina, (2021). “Rumor, Chinese
Diets, and COVID-19: Questions and Answers about Chinese Food and Eating Habits.”
Gastronomica 21.1: 77-82.
2. Dan Jurafsky (2014), “Ketchup, Cocktails, Pirates,” in The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the
Menu, 49-63.
Week 2. Mise en place, China
9.7 – Yuan and Ming foodways
1. Miranda Brown (2019), “Mr. Song’s Cheeses: Southern China, 1368–1644” Gastronomica 19.2:
29-42.
2. “Valerie Hansen walks you through the Qingming scroll,” Aug. 3, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rp4nMn-Gms
3. Frederick Mote (1977), “Yuan and Ming,” in Food in Chinese Culture, ed. K.C. Chang, 210-258.
9.9 – Qing foodways
1. Jonathan Schlesinger (2017), “The Mushroom Crisis,” in A World Trimmed with Fur, 93-128.
2. Jonathan Spence (1977), “Ch’ing,” in Food in Chinese Culture, ed. K.C. Chang, 259-294.
Week 3. Mise en place, Japan and Korea
9.14 – Korea
1. Okpyo Moon (2015), “Dining Elegance and Authenticity: Archaeology of Royal Court Cuisine in
Korea” in Re-orienting Cuisine, ed. Kwang Ok Kim, 13-30.
2. Michael Pettid (2008), “Daily Foods,” in Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History, 27-67.
9.16 – Japan
1. Eric Rath (2010), “Introduction,” and “Japanese Cuisine, a Backward Journey,” in Food and
Fantasy in Early Modern Japan, 1-37.
2. James Huffman (2018), “Making a Life at Home: Putting Food on the Table,” in Down and Out in
Late Meiji Japan, 109-113.
Week 4. Material Histories: Grains
9.21 – Millet, wheat, and minor grains
1. Tae-Ho Kim (2020), “The Good, the Bad, and the Foreign: Trajectories of Three Grains in
Modern South Korea,” in Moral Foods, eds. Angela Leung and Melissa Caldwell, 130-149.
2. Eugene Anderson (1988), “Chinese Foodstuffs Today,” in The Food of China, 137-157
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9.23 – Rice
1. Francesca Bray (2020), “Health, Wealth, and Solidarity: Rice as Self in Japan and Malaysia,”
Moral Foods, eds. Angela Leung and Melissa Caldwell, 23-46.
2. Francesca Bray (1986), “Introduction” and “Appendix B: The Historical Experience of China,”
in The Rice Economies: Technology & Development in Asian Societies, 1-7 and 203-209.
Week 5. Material Histories: Meat, Vegetables
9.28 – Meat
1. Vincent Goossaert, “The Beef Taboo and the Sacrificial Structure of Late Imperial Chinese
Society,” Of Tripod and Palate, 237-248.
2. Akira Shimizu, “Meat-eating in the Kojimachi District of Edo,” Japanese Foodways: Past &
Present, 92-107
3. Eugene Anderson (1988), “Chinese Foodstuffs Today,” in The Food of China, 172-181.
9.30 – Foraging, Fermenting, Marketing
1. Kyoungjin Bae (2020), “Taste as Governor: Soy Sauce in Late Chosŏn and Colonial Korea,
Gastronomica 20.4: 53-63.
2. Robert Spengler, “Spices, Oils, and Tea,” Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods
We Eat, 247-270.
3. Eugene Anderson (1988), “Chinese Foodstuffs Today,” in The Food of China, 157-172.
Week 6. Material Histories: Beverages
10.5 – Tea
1. Lawrence Zhang (2020), “Becoming Healthy: Changing Perceptions of Tea’s Effects on the Body,”
Moral Foods, eds. Angela Leung and Melissa Caldwell, 201-221.
2. Yuan Mei (1716-1798), “Tea and Jiu,” translated by Sean J.S. Chen in The Way of Eating: Yuan
Mei’s Manual of Gastronomy, 184-194.
3. Optional: Tatsuya Mitsuda (2020), “Snacking, Health, Modernity: Moralizing Confections in
Japan, 1890-1930,” Moral Foods, eds. Angela Leung and Melissa Caldwell, 150-172.
10.7 – Wine
1. Joji Nozawa (2010), “Wine-drinking Culture in Seventeenth-Century Japan: The Role of Dutch
Merchants,” Japanese Foodways: Past & Present, 108-128.
2. Kwong, Charles (2013), "Making Poetry with Alcohol: Wine Consumption in Tao Qian, Li Bai and
Su Shi," in Scribes of Gastronomy: Representations of Food and Drink in Imperial Chinese
Literature. Hong Kong University Press, 45-67.
Week 7. Now We’re Cooking (and Preserving)
10.12 – Cooking and preservation methods
1. Rongguang Zhao (2015). “Traditional Chinese cuisine and cooking,” in A History of Food Culture
in China, 34-44. Trans by Guangliu Wang and Aimee Yiran Wang.
2. Erin Thomason (2021), “’If you haven’t shaoguo’ed, you haven’t eaten’: Sensorial Landscapes of
Belonging in the Kitchens of Rural China,” Gastronomica 21.1: 38-51.
3. Frederick Mote, “Yuan and Ming” in Food in Chinese Culture, 244-252.
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10.14 – Recipes
1. Sang-ho, Ro (2016). "Cookbooks and Female Writers in Late Chosŏn Korea." Seoul Journal of
Korean Studies 29.1: 133-157.
2. Yuan Mei (1716-1798), “Preface” and “Essential Knowledge,” translated by Sean J.S. Chen in The
Way of Eating: Yuan Mei’s Manual of Gastronomy, 1-22.
Week 8. Eating Spaces and Dining Cultures
10.19 – Narrowing the definition of “home-cooking”
1. Louise Edwards (2013), “Eating and Drinking in A Red Chambered Dream,” in Scribes of
Gastronomy, 113-132.
2. Duncan Campbell (2013), “The Obsessive Gourmet: Zhang Dai on Food and Drink,” in Scribes of
Gastronomy, 87-96.
10.21 – Banqueting and meals out
1. Issac Yue (2018), “The Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet: History, Myth, and Development”
Ming Qing yanjiu 22: 93-111.
2. Eric Rath (2010), “Ceremonial Banquets,” Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan, 52-84.
Week 9. Dietary Healthcare
10.26 – Chinese medical perspectives of food
1. Vivienne Lo, “Pleasure, Prohibition, and Pain: Food and Medicine in Traditional China,” Of Tripod
and Palate, 163-185.
2. Rongguang Zhao (2015), “’Food as the People’s Prime Concern,’ Chinese Culture of Health and
Diet,” in A History of Food Culture in China, 4-14. Trans by Guangliu Wang and Aimee Yiran
Wang.
10.28 – Continued
1. Hsiang Ju Lin, “Food and Medicine,” in Slippery Noodles: A Culinary History of China, 99-116.
2. Sabine Wilms, “Placentophagy and Chinese Medicine,” personal blog post, May 11, 2016.
https://www.happygoatproductions.com/blog/2016/5/11/placentophagy-and-chinese-medicine
Week 10. Ritual Diets
11.2 – Ritual Foods and Festival Foods
1. Michael Pettid (2008), “Ritual and Seasonal Foods,” in Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History, 6890. Reaktion Books.
2. Rongguang Zhao (2015), “Traditional food for celebrations and festivals,” in A History of Food
Culture in China, 4-14. Trans by Guangliu Wang and Aimee Yiran Wang.
11.4 – Buddhist and Nationalist Vegetarianism
1. John Kieschnick, “Buddhist Vegetarianism in China,” Of Tripod and Palate, 186-212.
2. Angela Ki Che Leung (2019), “To Build or to Transform Vegetarian China: Two Republican
Projects,” in Moral Foods, 221-240.
3. Tatsuya Misuda (2019), “’Vegetarian’ Nationalism: Critiques of Meat Eating for Japanese Bodies,
1880-1938.” Culinary Nationalism in Asia, 23-40.
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Annotated Bibliography due Friday 11.5 at 11:59pm EST
Week 11. The Politics of Food
11.9 – Farming and social status
1. Francesca Bray (2013), “A Gentlemanly Occupation: The Domestication of Farming Knowledge,”
in Technology, Gender, and History in Imperial China: Great Transformations Reconsidered, 199218.
2. TBD
11.11 – Famine and social sedition
1. Xun Zhou, (2012). “’Kitchen Knowledge,’ Desperate Foods, and Ritual Healing in Everyday
Survival Strategies during the Great Famine in China, 1958-62.” Asian Medicine 7.2: 384-404.
2. Joseph Needham and Gwei-Djen Lu (1969), "The Esculentist Movement in Mediaeval Chinese
Botany, Studies on Wild (Emergency) Food Plants," Archives internationales d'histoire des
sciences 2: 225–248.
3. R. Bin Wong (1982), “Food Riots in the Qing Dynasty,” Journal of Asian Studies 41.4: 767-788.
Week 12. Modern Diets
11.16 – Modern Foods
1. Robert Peckham (2019), “Bad Meat: Food and the Medicine of Modern Hygiene in Colonial Hong
Kong,” Moral Foods, 173-200.
2. Hilary Smith (2018), “Skipping Breakfast to Save the Nation: A Different Kind of Dietary
Determinism in Early Twentieth-Century China.” Global Food History 4.2:152-167.
11.18 – TBD/Class choice
Week 13. Fall Break (11.22-11.26)
Week 14. Continuity & Change in the 20th Century
11.30 – Transnational Food Cultures
1. Christopher Laurent (2020), “Making Yakiniku Japanese: Erasing Korean Contributions from
Japan’s Food Culture,” in Food and Power, edited by Mark McWilliams.
2. James Farrar, “Red (Michelin) Stars Over China: Seeking Recognition in a Transnational Culinary
Field,” in Culinary Nationalism in Asia, 193-212.
12.02 – Closing Discussion, Final Project check-ins
1. Kircaburun et. al. (2021), “The Psychology of Mukbang Watching: A Scoping Review of the
Academic and Non-academic Literature,” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
19: 1190-1213.
Reading Week (12.7 – 12.10)
Final projects are due on the date of the final exam for this course set by JHU.
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