The Ancient Domestic Medico-Culinary Traditions of China (and Beyond)

People in China have long considered the perceivable effect of what they eat on their bodies, and they know techniques to adjust the individual ingredients in a dish to suit the individual constitution and appetites of the consumer. They think about food in unique ways. How and when did this knowledge come about? What assumptions inform these collective Chinese practices? In this lecture, Prof. Lo will introduce China’s ancient domestic medico-culinary traditions and will analyze how some elements of those traditions continue to shape practices in the present day. Such ancient ideas remain relevant to people interested in both Chinese cuisine and medicine—and to those who care about the relationship between local and global attitudes to health and patterns of consumption.

This lecture was made possible with generous support from the Carol, Edward, Ariana, and Joseph Wong Trust

About the Speaker

Vivienne Lo is professor emeritus of history at University College London. Her core research concerns the social and cultural origins of acupuncture, therapeutic exercise, and food and medicine. She translates and analyses manuscript material from early and medieval China and publishes on the transmission of scientific knowledge along the so-called Silk Roads. She has also published widely on the visual cultures of medicine and healthcare and convenes YIMovi, which showcases Chinese film and the crosscultural medical humanities (www.yimovi.com). Current projects include a history of nutrition in China and a translation of the Qimin Yaoshu, a householder manual from medieval China and, arguably, the world’s first-ever cookery book.