How Food Cultures Promote the Economy Development

Name: Ran Wang

WRIT1133-27, MWF 12:00

Prof. Eric Leake 

04/15/12

549 Words

                             How Food Cultures Promote the Economy Development

       After reading The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen written by Mary Ann O’Donnell and Breaking Bread with a Spread written by Sandra Cate, I found the intimate relationship between these two articles. Although these two passages are written by different authors, and the stories happened in different countries, they both use the food culture development to support the society development in different areas. Firstly, Mary Ann O’Donnell talks about the connection between the development of Shenzhen’s social economy development and the food culture. To be more specific, she uses the food culture development to prove how fast the economic development in Shenzhen is. Originally, analyzing the geography condition, Shenzhen is a good place to foster fishing industry since it is a harbor city. Long time ago, there were many fishers live in Shenzhen. The fishers lived by fishing and enjoyed a natural and harmonious way of life. Later, because of the Chinese-characteristic socialist development, people who live in Shenzhen no longer need to make their living from the fishing industry – they are able to live under the subsides and supports provided Chinese government. With these huge subsidies, those who still foster their old fishing industry became much richer than before. About this situation, China has an old saying: Food is the paramount necessity of the people. So the fishing industry, the various food resources made Shenzhen a rich place. After Shenzhen became rich, the people there can eat delicious and good food rather than just eat enough as before. This is a good example to show the connection between economy development and the food culture.

   

   I was deeply attracted by the second article Breaking Bread with a Spread. I had no idea about  either the food in jails or the connection between prison food and the economic growth. After reading this article, I got my answers. The author, Sandra Cate, talks about the prison food; also, he establishes the relationship between the prison food and the economic growth. In the article, the author describes how bad the original prison foods are. Because most inmates cannot stand this food, they believed the prison food was the most discussing food in the world. Based on this reason, they had an idea about making the prison food better. Then they found a way which is using the leftovers of each meal to make a new food. After they combined the leftovers, tested and adapted recipes form many great sources. Eventually, they found it is the best way to make food better. For example, they put the breaking bread on the instant noodle; it makes the instant noodle much better than before. Along with the discover of this new way of making new food, they invented different types of foods - such as Asian food, Mexican food etc. – and they called this food spread. People who are good at making this food began to spread and sold this food to other prisoners. Finally, the prison food formed a phenomenon; and the spread of this phenomenon started to promote the development of the economy in prisons. So, even in different regions, the food is an indispensable link to promote and sustain the economic development.