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About This Book
Attitudes toward food and commensality constituted a central fiber in the social, religious, and political fabric of ancient Chinese society. The offering of sacrifices, the banqueting of guests, and the ritual preparation, prohibition or consumption of food and drink were central elements in each of China's three main religious traditions: the Classicist (Confucian) tradition, religious Daoism, and Buddhism. What links late Shang and Zhou bronze vessels to Buddhist dietary codes or Daoist recipes for immortality is a poignant testimony that culinary activity - fasting and feasting - governed not only human relationships but also fermented the communication between humans and the spirit world. In Of Tripod and Palate leading scholars examine the relationship between secular and religious food culture in ancient China from various perspectives.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- One: Moonshine and Millet: Feasting and Purification Rituals in Ancient China
- Two: Food and Philosophy in Early China
- Three: When Princes Awake in Kitchens: Zhuangzi's Rewriting of a Culinary Myth
- Four: The Offering of Food and the Creation of Order: The Practice of Sacrifice in Early China
- Five: Eating Better than Gods and Ancestors
- Six: A Taste of Happiness: Contextualizing Elixirs in Baopuzi
- Seven: Feasting Without the Victuals: The Evolution of the Daoist Communal Kitchen
- Eight: Pleasure, Prohibition, and Pain: Food and Medicine in Traditional China
- Nine: Buddhist Vegetarianism in China
- Ten: Buddhism, Alcohol, and Tea in Medieval China
- Eleven: The Beef Taboo and the Sacrificial Structure of Late Imperial Chinese Society
- About the Contributors
- Index