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XuetangX

A Bite of Chinese History and Culture

China Agricultural University via XuetangX

Overview

With food as the mainline, the course follows the steps of human origin, migration, evolution, and social development. It presents a beautiful picture of the history and culture of the human diet to students. From the global migration of fishing, hunting and gathering, to the agricultural civilization of settlement and animal husbandry, and future to the changing of modern society, from China to the world, it depicts that human beings are continually exploring and changing food and the invisible hand behind the food is quietly changing human beings. Food is the catalyst for human evolution and the basis of human civilization. The course's easy-to-understand content is suitable for food and non-food major students to learn that history can be delicious.

Syllabus

  • Chapter 0 introduction
    • Introduction to the course
    • Definition of 'history' in this course
    • Definition of 'culture' in this course
  • Chapter 1 Human diet through the history
    • Origin and migration
    • The exploration of human diet in different historical period
    • China and the world
    • Today and future
  • Chapter 2 The history of utensils
    • Stoneware-Pottery Era Utensils
    • Bronzeware-Iron Age Utensils
    • Lacquerware-Modern Utensils
    • Social functions of utensils
  • Chapter 3 Features of human diet
    • Way of cooking
    • Philosophy of dietary
    • The Eight Chinnese cuisines
    • National characteristics
  • Chapter 4 The legend of human diet
    • Eating posture and tools
    • Meal system
    • Separation or sharing
    • The origin of cereals and staple foods
  • Chapter 5 Evolution of human diet
    • Overview
    • Gifts from Nature-Collecting and Hunting
    • The discovery and use of fire-heat processed food
    • The culture of farming and captivity
    • Industrialized food
    • Food of the future
  • Chapter 6 The invention of human diet
    • Prehistoric taste evolution and food invention
    • Origin and invention of western diet
    • Origin and invention of Chinese diet
    • Chinese diet culture circle
  • Chapter 7 Food safety of human diet
    • The history and culture of Chinese food safety
    • Tracing the history and culture origin of Western food safety
    • Current status of global food safety
    • Future trends in food safety
  • Chapter 8 Current food industry
    • beer
    • wine
    • coffee
    • tea
    • Coca Cola
    • The future of food development
  • Chapter 9 The science of human diet
    • colour
    • aroma
    • flavour

Taught by

HU Xiaosong, Qun Shen , WU Jihong, CHEN Fang, and SONG Yi

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