Food, they say, is the essence of life. Or, as Joseph R. Conlin puts it, “food is third only to air and water as a basis of life and, much more than the others, is an important element of culture and social relationships.”1 Many people delude themselves that they “eat to live,” comments Deh-Ta Hsiung, but he believes that the Chinese are honest enough to admit that they “live to eat.”2 Despite these observations about the significance of food, surprisingly little has been written about food and human relationships. Anthropologists have only begun to study this subject; Marvin Harris, Peter Farb, George Armelagos, Mary Douglas, and Jack Goody are some of the pioneers in this field.3 Of the subject of food and Chinese culture there has been
