Buddhist Vegetarian Restaurants and the Changing Meanings of Meat in Urban China

This article charts the changing meanings of meat in contemporary urban China and explores the role played by Buddhist vegetarian restaurants in shaping these changes. In Kunming, meat has long been a sign of prosperity and status. Its accessibility marked the successes of the economic reforms. Yet Kunmingers were increasingly concerned about excessive meat consumption and about the safety and quality of the meat supply. Buddhist vegetarian restaurants provided spaces where people could share meat-free meals and discuss and develop their concerns about meat-eating. While similar to and influenced by secular, Western vegetarianisms, the central role of Buddhism was reflected in discourses on karmic retribution for taking life and in a non-confrontational approach that sought to accommodate these discourses with the importance of meat in Chinese social life. Finally, the vegetarian restaurants spoke to middle-class projects of self-cultivation, and by doing so potentially challenged associations between meat-eating and social status

Iconic dishes, culture and identity: the Christmas pudding and its hundred years’ journey in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and India

Asserting that recipes are textual evidences reflecting the society that produced them, this article explores the evolution of the recipes of the iconic Christmas pudding in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Combining a micro-analysis of the recipes and the cookbook that provided them with contemporary testimonies, the article observes the dynamics revealed by the preparation and consumption of the pudding in these different societies. The findings demonstrate the relevance of national iconic dishes to the study of notions of home, migration and colonization, as well as the development of a new society and identity. They reveal how the preservation, transformation and even rejection of a traditional dish can be representative of the complex and sometimes conflicting relationships between colonists, migrants or new citizens and the places they live in

Las guerras del <em>hummus</em>: comida local, récord Guinness y gastropolítica palestino-israelí

En mayo de 2008, un grupo de cocineros israelíes elaboró un platillo de hummus de 400 kilogramos y estableció así el récord mundial Guinness

Maasai on the phone: materiality, tourism, and the extraordinary in Zanzibar

Abstract Thousands of Maasai men have been flocking in recent years to the island of Zanzibar to take part in the burgeoning tourism industry. Many are employed as guards and security personnel. Others roam the beaches, selling souvenirs and touting tourist services, while some are involved in sex-tourism. In this article, we show how these men skillfully employ their traditional materiality: red robes, swords, daggers, clubs, beaded sandals and jewelry, as well as their own muscular bodies, so as to construct an extraordinary image, which they use to attract the attention of tourists and promote their businesses. Concomitantly, their use of modern material objects, such as mobile phones and stylish sunglasses, undermines their extraordinary image, making their presence mundane and even disturbing, to the extent of being accused by some Tanzanians and tourists of faking Maasai identity. We conclude by arguing that material objects and the ways in which they are used may define people as ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Materiality therefore underlies a complex, dynamic, and ambiguous perception of the extraordinary in contemporary tourism