Yeh-lien, from Agrestic to Commoditized Cuisine
Yi-ting Chung
Shou-Cheng Lai
Ph.D. Graduate
Department of Agriculture Extension,
National Taiwan University
[email protected]
Assistant Professor
Department of Agriculture Extension,
National Taiwan University
[email protected]
Abstract
Food is not merely the thing that maintains our body. Food always carries the culture,
tradition and symbolic meaning. As the changing of the culture of consumption, the forms of
food consumption and taste preference changed dramatically. In the process, the types of
food increased, the restaurants expanded as well as the taste diversified. Under the
transformation of the consumer culture and the emphasized local identity, the ethnic food and
local cuisine are rapidly rising up and become popular. “Yeh-lien” as a kind of wild aquatic
plant, was took as a kind of food on the table only when lacking of ordinary vegetables.
However in the context of the emergence of rural tourism and new emphasis local ethnicity,
local cuisine and ethnic food have played more and more important roles. And “Yeh-lien” as
its associations with poverty and agrestic had transformed into a commoditized cuisine.
“Yeh-lien” now is associated with ethnicity and local traditional culture. This paper aims to
inquiry the commodification of “Yeh-lien”. The finding is that “Yeh-lien” as a kind of local
cuisine has become a central focus of socio-cultural forces and gained a key position that
reflects socio-cultural power relations. In the process, the cultural intermediaries play a core
role into the transformation. As a consequence, the commdification of “Yeh-lien” has
influenced the production sphere. The production and landscape have changed through the
socio-cultural power.
Keywords: consumption culture, ethnic food, local cuisine, cultural intermediaries
Introduction
Food is not merely the thing that maintains our body. Food always carries the culture,
tradition and symbolic meaning. As the changing of the culture of consumption, the forms of
food consumption and taste preference changed dramatically. During the changing era, the
types of food increased, the restaurants expanded as well as the taste diversified. Under the
transformation of the consumer culture and the emphasized local identity, the ethnic food and
local cuisine are rapidly rising up and become popular.
In Taiwan, there are more and more ethnic foods and local cuisines being introduced.
Since the 1990s, those devalued local culture has been employed to promote local
development through an engagement with visitors and consumer. Unexceptionally, Meinung,
as a rural village in South Taiwan with its Hakka ethnic culture tradition, has been engaged in
the trend. In the same time, we can see a move within rural tourism to promote local
economy through local food. Under the trend, a local-specialized dish named “Sauteed Yehlien” has risen and became more and more popular. The restaurants all over Meinung
provide the dish. Recently, we can also see the dish provided by the urban restaurants.
“Yeh-lien” as a kind of wild aquatic plant, was took as a kind of food on the table only
when lacking of ordinary vegetables. However in the context of the emergence of rural
tourism and new emphasis local ethnicity, local cuisine and ethnic food have played more
and more important roles. And “Yeh-lien” as its associations with poverty and agrestic had
transformed into a commoditized cuisine. “Yeh-lien” now is associated with ethnicity and
local traditional culture.
Our question is that why this kind of agrestic and unknown food would become a famous
Hakka cuisine of Meinung? Within the growth of consumer culture, food consumption and
production implies the exercise of social and cultural power. In this paper, we attempt to
analyze the transformation of “Yeh-lien”, which identity has been recognized as a local
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and ethnic specialized food. We would want to know where the “new” food came from,
why it succeeded, who benefited from its production and sale, how its price had changed.
Reviewing the related studies on food and consumption sociology, we focus on the
various symbolic meanings of “Yeh-lien”, the socio-culture transformation power and the
changed sphere of production. The study is based on semi-structured interview to collect the
data. We conducted interviews with farmers including the earliest one and the largest one to
understand the changes of the production. The interviews also conducted with the owner of
the restaurants to collect the information about consumption. Additional, the secondary
information from newspaper was also reviewed to help examining.
From agrestic to cultivated
Food is part of the foundation of human’s life. Human beings need foods to maintain the
body. Thus, food contains the meaning of subsistence. However, the meaning carried by food
is not only that of “subsistence” but also the meaning of cultural and symbolic.
Undergoing the rising consumer capitalism and rural tourism, the rural area has attracted
more and more consumers and visitors. Meanwhile, the development of special cuisine was
engaged in the trend.
“Meinung”, as a rural village with its “Hakka” ethnic culture tradition, has been
involved in the social and culture transformation trend. There are increasing restaurants
providing the so-called “Hakka cuisine”. The newspapers introduced the tourism
information as well as the special “Hakka cuisine”, in which the “Sauteed Yeh-lien”
was presented as the unique local and ethnic food. Then, what on earth “Yeh-lien” is?
Where did it come from?
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In order to answer the questions, we need to trace back the development of “Yeh-lien”
and its original role or function as a food in the rural village.
Figure 1: the “Sauteed Yeh-lien”
Yeh-lien as a subsistence food
“Yeh-lien” was a kind of aquatic plant originally grown wildly in an irrigation
reservoir in Meinung. People living near by the reservoir would pluck from the reservoir and
eat it. All the interviewees told us the similar memories about their acquaintance of this plant.
They remember that the plant was grown in the Zhong-zun reservoir in their childhood.
When the raining season had come, they would pluck the “Yeh-lien” home as a dish of
vegetables in their daily meal. During the raining season, there would be lack of green
vegetables. Local people found that there are some wild plants being eatable and “Yehlien” as a kind of plant that would not be affected by the rain became a kind of vegetable.
How and why the local people know that it is eatable? All the interviewees said that it was
the elder generation who told them or they got the information from the neighbors, even the
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eldest informant around 70 years old told us the similar story. The local knowledge that can
be used to recognize eatable wild plants is the tradition of particular areas and people.
Originally, food carries a significant meaning of bodily reproduction. We can see “Yehlien” was seen as a supplemental vegetable food during the raining season in the early times.
Since then, “Yeh-lien” has played a role in maintaining the human body. Besides the
meaning of subsistence, how do the local people perceive this kind of wild plant? The
Scientific name of this aquatic plant is Nymphoides hydrophylla while local people named it
“Yeh-lien”, which contains two characters. “Yeh” means wild and “Lien” means
lotus. Local people considered the plant as the lotus but smaller, so that they thought it as a
wild and pseudo one but not real. Furthermore, it was in the least capitalist society that people
needed to collect their food from the nature rather than the market. The interviewees recalled
that it was a tough and poor days that people need to get food from the nature rather than
exchange through the market. “Yeh-lien” was perceived as a food that poor people eat it.
Traditionally, “Yeh-lien” was a wild plant that could also be made as the subsistence
food, however it is perceived as an agrestic cuisine within the rural area.
Yeh-lien as a cultivated agro-food
“Yeh-lien” has been changed as a cultivated crop since 1970s while it was within an
ace of disappear. The natural environment of the reservoir was severely polluted under the
modernization development process since 1960s. “Yeh-lien”, which originally grown
wildly in the reservoir suddenly vanished away. But a farmer who acquainted “Yeh-lien”
well since his childhood found the seeds in his pond, which was near by the reservoir. We
have interviewed him and he recalled that:
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I was then having a fishpond. And I thought there must be a lot of “Yeh-lien”
but why I could not see any one of them? Once I drained off my pond and found
the seeds which looked like that of “Yeh-lien” I used to see before. I tried to
plant them, make it sprout and transplanted to the pond. Until then, I was sure that
these are “Yeh-lien”.
The farmer’s acquaintance of “Yeh-lien” helped it revived. Thereafter he cultivated
“Yeh-lien” in his pond as well as fish. Because he had run a store selling vegetables and
fishes, he started to sell “Yeh-lien”. He said that people would buy it when there were few
to choose in the raining season. Gradually, “Yeh-lien” has become an ordinary vegetable
sold in the local market for household consumption. As an agriculture product, “Yeh-lien”
was only knew by local residents and sold in the local market. In the context “Yeh-lien”
was transformed as a cash crop and cultivated commodity. Local people could no longer
pluck it freely but purchase it through money.
Figure 2: “Yeh-lien”
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Food as a means to identify
While food carries the meaning of subsistence, it also presents social and cultural
meanings. First, food is associated with the “identity of self”. A people’s cuisine, or a
particular food, often marks the boundary between the collective self and the other (OhnukiTierney, 1993: 3). People take culinary practice to identify the others. “Yeh-lien” was
taken as an eatable food only in Meinung, even when it was sold in the market. Local
residents usually said that only people living in Meinung knew it and ate it. Thus foodways
often represent an important expression of our identity, both as individuals and in reference to
a broader ethnic, class or religious grouping (Atkins & Ian, 2001: 273).
From cultivated to local-specialized
As a cultivated agro-food commodity, “Yeh-lien” has been provided in the restaurants
in Meinung since 1990s. Some of those restaurants serve local people while some of them set
up to serve tourists under the transformation of the society in Taiwan. The rise of new culture
of consumption and tourism had caused the new trends in food consumption. The “new
culture of consumption” is seen developing around “traditional products” and centered upon
the rediscovery of traditional cuisines (Murdoch and Miele, 1999, p.473). Traditional Hakka
cuisine was rediscovered in the trend. And “Yeh-lien” was then shaped to be a kind of
Hakka cuisine represented Meinung.
Yeh-lien as a local-specialized cuisine
We reviewed the newspapers from the year 1945 to 2007 and found that the reports
related to “Yeh-lien” associated with “Hakka cuisine” of
“Meinung specialized
food” increased after 2000. “Yeh-lien” was consumed not only in the household during
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raining season but also the restaurants all the year. Why “Yeh-lien” began to be sold as
food in the restaurants? How are the entrepreneurs in food service industry in Meinung
presenting the new food “Yeh-lien”?
One of the entrepreneurs we interviewed told that:
The seller, who also produced “Yeh-lien”, asked me if I would like to provide
this kind of food. I formally ordered another vegetables from him. And I said that
I don’t know how to cook, because I am not born to live here. I married here. He
taught me how to cook then I started to provide the “Sauteed Yeh-lien” till now.
The interviewee remembers that their restaurant was the forth set up in the downtown.
When they began to provide “Yeh-lien”, they needed to introduce the “new” cuisine to
consumers. They suggested consumers to try this “traditional” and “ unique” food of
Meinung. They emphasized that we would have no chance to eat it only if you came to
Meinung. “This kind of plant is just grown in our Meinung”, they introduced like such.
During these years, the entrepreneurs observed that most of the consumers who ordered
“Yeh-lien” are the visitors or tourists. Few of them are local people.
We can see in the information from newspapers and the interviews that “Yeh-lien” has
been considered as the local-specialized cuisine representing the tradition and culture of the
“Hakka” ethnic group. The cultural and symbolic meaning of “Yeh-lien” was implied
on the basis of the phenomenon. As Warde suggested, “food is also a significant means of
cultural expression and is often used as a general means of commentary on contemporary
culture (Warde, 1997: 22).” “Yeh-lien” has been explicitly associated with specific
history and culture.
Furthermore, food is also tied closely with particular geography or places. Plants or agrofood products grow within different natural conditions. Atkins & Ian (2001) recognized three
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variations of such food-place associations. First, there are highly specialized production
regions. Second, foods may have originated with a traditional recipe in a particular place. The
ingredients and the recipe are adapted to suit local tastes. The third one would be included
foods that have maintained strong links with particular regions in terms of production, quality
control and identity. From the conception of food-place associations, we can also recognize
that “Yeh-lien” is represented highly associated with the place “Meinung”, as local
people and the newspapers always said that it is grown only in “Meinung” or it is only
provided in “Meinung”. Besides, the recipe of “Sauteed Yeh-lien” is highly suit local
tastes. Traditionally, local people used a particular bean sauce sauteed with Yeh-lien. This
bean sauce had been the particular “Hakka” taste for a long time and it made “Sauteed
Yeh-lien” full of traditional “Hakka” taste, which is the dominant taste in Meinung.
Finally, we also recognized that “Yeh-lien” is strongly linked with particular regions in
terms of identity as “Hakka Meinung”. Accompanied with the new consumer and tourism
culture, “Hakka” and “Meinung” has been represented as the cultural symbols and both
of them embodied in the food “Yeh-lien”.
Currently, “Yeh-lien” is considered as a local-specialized cuisine. In recent years, the
development on the basis of such local specificity is seen as the key to promote the social and
economic well-being of the rural Meinung. However we have recognized the changing
meanings and the transformation of “Yeh-lien”, we would want to explore the mechanism
or power guiding the transformation.
The power of cultural intermediaries
Within our interview, we found that the media played a significant role in the
consumption and production of “Yeh-lien”. Most of the interviewees mentioned that the
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reports on newspapers and televisions helped the promotion of “Yeh-lien”. What is the
influence and power of media in the transformation?
In contemporary consumption culture, the media play a significant influence on rural area.
But what is the role of the media especially they represent the symbolic implication of food?
Sidney Mintz argued that foods carry the symbolic meanings including inside and outside
meanings coded on them. The researcher needed to decode the codifiers. The cultural
materials people employ in creating systems or symbols are not givens, but are the precipitate
of economic, social and political processes (Mintz, 1994: 114-5). Namely, the meanings
carried on foods are the serial codes which codified by the codifiers. We need to analyze the
formation of the meanings and explore the operation of the codifiers.
The farmer, who had cultivated “Yeh-lien” first, mentioned that he had been reported
on the media for three times. The first one was on the newspaper in 1994. The report
influenced the subsequent reports on the media. When we interviewed him, he played the
copied videos for us and recalled that:
The earliest one was “TVBS”, and “The Rural Village Today” was the
second. It was 1997. The show “The Rural Village Today” was popular then.
Many people watched the show.
Once “The Rural Village Today” had been
watched, a lot of people came to purchase my “Yeh-lien”.
Then, the media
reported more thereafter. And then, there were others beginning plant the crop.
Not only the producer noticed the influence of the media, the entrepreneurs of the
restaurants also experienced the power of the media. They experienced that usually the new
coming visitors were attracted by the introduction on TV. The consumers usually said to
them that they wanted to taste the food introduced on TV. Recently, consumers also get the
information about tourism or gastronomy from Internet. The extra-local power had caused
influence on rural economy apparently. Additional, they also perceived that the local
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activities such as festivals or concerts could attract a lot of visitors, who are almost equivalent
the consumers of the restaurants.
The researchers focus on consumption culture argued that the culture and symbolic
meanings attached on objects are the results operated by social and culture power (Mintz,
1985; Lury, 1996; Warde, 1997). As our interview has showed, the media exercise their
social and cultural power on the object “Yeh-lien”, which contains a new meaning for outcoming consumers and local people. Bourdieu suggests that there is a group of people whose
jobs involved in information and knowledge production bringing a significant influence for
contemporary society. The rising group named as cultural intermediaries, whose job is
providing the symbolic goods and services. They mediate the sphere of production and
consumption through the provision of symbolic meaning on objects. We found that the
cultural intermediaries had played the key influence on “Yeh-lien” as agrestic food
transformed to local-specialized cuisine. As a consequence, the commdification of “Yehlien” has influenced the production sphere. The production and landscape have changed
through the socio-cultural power.
Conclusion
“Yeh-lien”, which representing the traditional ethnic culture, embodies the symbols
such as “Hakka” and “Meinung”. It implies the commodification of particular local
food in the contemporary consumption capitalism. It was kind of an invented tradition as
Hobsbawn (1983) argued under the trend that centered on the “traditional products”.
Retrospectively constructed practices, including cuisine, are presented as “genuine,
authentic traditions” (Hobsbawn & Ranger, 1983).
Our finding is that “Yeh-lien” as a kind of local cuisine has become a central focus of
socio-cultural forces and gained a key position that reflects socio-cultural power relations.
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The cultural intermediaries play a core role in the transformation. The invented symbolic
meanings are recognized by local people as well as visitors. The re-formulated perception and
taste reconstruct the representation of the rural community.
As a consequence, the commdification of “Yeh-lien” has influenced the production
sphere. The standardized agri-business and capitalist production relationship are under
developing. The production and landscape have changed through the socio-cultural power.
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