Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways

Preparing and consuming food is an integral part of identity formation, which in contemporary China embodies tension between fast-forward modernization and cultural nostalgia. Jin Feng’s wide-ranging exploration of cities in the Lower Yangzi Delta—or Jiangnan, a region known for its paradisiacal beauty and abundant resources—illustrates how people preserve culinary inheritance while also revamping it for the new millennium.

Throughout Chinese history, food nostalgia has generated cultural c...