[Upcoming Seminar] ‘The People Here Don’t Cook’: ‘Good Food’ in the Eyes of Ecological Farmers and Consumers in Shanghai

Title: ‘The People Here Don’t Cook’: ‘Good Food’ in the Eyes of Ecological Farmers and Consumers in Shanghai

Speaker: Leo PANG (PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, SOAS University of London)

Date and time: 24 February 2017, 1:00p.m.-2:30p.m.

Venue: Room 115, Humanities Building, New Asia College, CUHK

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The rampant food safety scandals and environmental pollution affecting the Chinese food supply has given rise to a new breed of farmers, who gave up white collar jobs in the city to return to peri-urban farmland to grow produce without using synthetic fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. When their produce does not sell at markets, they often justify their poor sales by referring to the lack of people who cook in the area as the main cause. This complaint reflects the farmers’ perception of home cooked food as “good food," as they believe that knowing the origins of produce makes the food more reliable and therefore better than food consumed outside the home. The shared belief in what constitutes “good food” between consumers and farmers, and the willingness of consumers to pay for ecological food as well as their appreciation of the farmers' efforts, strengthens the bonds between them. 

Leo Pang is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. He works on ecological food and farmers’ markets in Shanghai, as well as restaurants and cuisine in Australia and Hong Kong.

All interested are welcome!