From Bodhisattva Earth to Man-Made Meat Essence: Famine Foods in Late Qing, Nationalist and Maoist China

This article examines change and continuity in the selection, conceptualisation and state-sponsorship of 'famine foods' in late Qing, Nationalist and Maoist China. It employs as case studies the following severe famines that struck North China under three markedly different regimes: the North China Famine of 1876-79, the Henan Famine of 1942/43 and the Great Leap Famine of 1958-62. Continuities that cut across the three periods include the particular non-grain foods - beginning with tree bark and wild plants and extending to Bodhisattva earth (Guanyin tu) - consumed at the local level, and a tradition of elite involvement in identifying and endorsing items that could relieve starvation. The terms used to describe survival foods changed significantly, however, as did the rationale for promoting such foods. Moreover, as twentieth-century Chinese modernisers joined their Western counterparts in championing the use of science and technology to address food crises and other disasters, state-run health and scientific agencies played an increasingly active role in testing and promoting recipes for non-grain foods. This trend reached its zenith during the Great Leap Famine, when the government launched a 'food substitute' (daishipin) campaign that aimed to address food shortages without reducing grain quotas by encouraging the mass-production of food substitutes such as chlorella and artificial meat. This campaign can be understood as a sharp departure from Qing China's grain-centred famine relief policies, a radical extension of rhetoric and priorities laid out during the Nationalist period and a case of high modernism gone badly awry.

FAMINE FOODS AND FOOD SECURITY IN THE NORTHERN MAYA LOWLANDS: MODERN LESSONS FOR ANCIENT RECONSTRUCTIONS

Inequality and changing responses to food scarcity may create a stigmatization complex around certain foods. Here, we conduct a literature search to develop a working definition of “famine foods” in the Maya lowlands, centering qualities such as hardiness, productivity, nutrition, preparation, and stigmatization complexes. An analysis of the nutritional characteristics that might make up such a food yields the idea that famine foods are likely members of a time- and place-specific arsenal of plant resources. We compare the results of the literature search to botanical data from a rejollada survey from Xuenkal and a solar (house garden) survey conducted in Yaxunah. Examining the data through the lens of a history of manipulation of food access, shifting relations of power, and modern responses to food insecurity illuminates cultural plasticity and resilience in diet and agricultural strategies in the Maya lowlands. We conceptualize solares and rejolladas as food-related resilience strategies.

What do starving people eat? The case of Greece through oral history

ABSTRACT‘Famine foods’ seems a self-explanatory term but careful reading of the existing literature suggests otherwise. ‘Famine foods’ seem to suggest repulsive and unfamiliar foods consumed only in famine situations. This paper, using the Greek famine of 1941–43 as a case study, suggests that this is not the case. Starving people continue to use foods that they are familiar with or that other sections of the population are familiar with. The very poor sections of the population may well use fodder food, which nevertheless they are familiar with and which in most cases was also used by some of their members even in ‘normal’ times.