“爱国土豆运动”:土豆在中国市场的价值和推广

Eating Potatoes Is Patriotic!State,Market and the Common Good in Contemporary China

本文探讨了中国自2015年以来推广马铃薯作为主食的尝试。根据中国农业部的说法,马铃薯的道德利益包括加强国家粮食安全,促进中国农业的环境可持续性,以及改善国民的膳食健康。但是,如何推广土豆?方言把土豆称为“洋芋”。国家是否试图让市民相信,吃土豆是为了他们自己的利益,并依靠“市场的隐藏之手”将个人的自身利益转化为更大的共同利益,正如历史学家丽贝卡·厄尔(Rebecca Earle)所说的18世纪欧洲马铃薯推广的例子,还是它呼吁公民的道德价值观,包括他们对国家福祉、力量和环境健康的关注。它如何平衡马铃薯的爱国潜力与其外国血统和与西方美食,包括快餐的联系?通过对马铃薯推广的调查,旨在阐明中国当代改革社会主义政治文化在国家与市场,个人主义与道德,民族主义与国际主义之间的关系。

Ethical food consumption has typically been addressed by scholars in the context of alternative food movements,and debates have revolved around the role of capitalist markets in furthering or appropriating these movements’ethical goals.Yet states,too,attempt to shape food consumption in ways that may be understood as‘ethical’,and often do so with the help of market mechanisms.This paper explores attempts since 2015 by the Chinese state to promote the potato as a Chinese staple food.According to China’s Ministry of Agriculture,the ethical benefits of the potato include strengthening national food security,furthering environmental sustainability in Chinese agriculture,and improving the nation’s dietary health.But how does the reform socialist state go about promoting this‘foreign tuber’,as the potato is known in many dialects,among Chinese eaters?Does the state try to convince citizens that eating potatoes is for their own benefit and rely on the‘hidden hand of the market’to translate individual self-interest into a greater common good,as historian Rebecca Earle has argued was the case of potato-promotion in eighteenth century Europe?Or does it appeal to citizens’moral values,including their concern with national well-being,strength,and environmental health?And how does it balance the patriotic potential of the potato with its foreign origins and associations with Western cuisines,including fast food?Through an investigation of potato-promotion,this paper seeks to shed light on the relationship in China’s contemporary,reform-socialist political culture between state and market,individualism and morality,and nationalism and internationalism.