ABSTRACT
In the contemporary People’s Republic, the splendour of China’s culinary traditions is being celebrated through cookbooks, exhibitions, museums, conferences, journals, associations, television programmes, websites and blogs. An exemplar of this trend is the seven-part documentary, “A Bite of China” (Shejian shang de Zhongguo). First screened on Chinese state television (CCTV) in 2012 – with a second series released in 2014 and a third in 2018 – the hugely successful first series moves beyond clichés about the “four great regional cuisines” of Sichuan, Shandong, Guangdong and the lower Yangzi, offering viewers mouth-wateringly alluring yet informative accounts, attentive to techniques, ecosystems and cultural practices, of everything from grilled tofu sold by roadside hawkers in southern Yunnan to the cosmopolitan creations of elite restaurant chefs in the metropolises of the country’s eastern seaboard.
