The Analysis Of Su Shi’s Food Culture In His Poems And Articles

Su Shi is not only a renowned writer, but also an expert in ancient Food Culture history, he has made such a great contribution to the Food Culture. As a crucial reforming period of Food Culture, Song Dynasty has saw the great changes from cullinary skills to feast customs. However, as China’s ancient literati are the most important cultural successors, whilst enjoying the delicacy, with the knowledge of "food the first necessity of man", holding the right to speak of the cultural heritage, but due to the Confucian’s words:"A gentleman never do kitchen stuff and the restriction of traditional ideas such as abstinence, literati of food culture research and records are rare. as a representative the famous officialdom of constrained style of the Song Dynasty, Su Shi has a nature of forthright and sincere, and never hide his love for food, to a certain extent breaks the confined idea of "A gentleman never do kitchen stuff. He was innovative. Some of his records is a tribute to the delicacy, he also took part directly in the practice of cooking and created many exquisite dishes and delicacies, masterpiece and anecdotes about diets spread across the nation. In his papers, there is a plenty of praise on exquisite dishes, wine, tea, and also put forward some unique ideas on making and drinking wine, frying and tasting tea, cooking health food etc. His poetry on diet greatly fulfill the connotation of Food Culture and his direct involvement in improvement and innovation of food, wine, fried tea enriched Chinese Food Culture, and his tremendous impact on Chinese Food Culture can not be ignored.This paper will sort out Su Shi’s poetry which related to the Food Culture and give a detailed analysis on the characteristics of food culture and phenomenon in Su Shi’s poems and behind which the complex relationship among the social, economic and political background, thus to analyze Su Shi’s view points on diet culture. Exploring Su Shi deeply will help us to know and understand connotation and significance of diet culture in Song Dynasty, and provide the reference for excavating modern social Dietetic Culture and promoting social and regional cultural development.