饮食叙事与互渗思维

Gastronomy Narrative and Mentality of Participation

饮食男女为人之大欲,传世文献对饮食行为的记述,反映了人类为维系生存和改善状态所作的种种努力。互渗指先民心目中万物因“交感”和“触染”而发生的相互浸透,受这种思维的影响,一些现代人仍相信食物的某些属性会随摄入过程进入人体。在充饥解渴的生理冲动之外,一些层级更高的愿望也在左右着人类的饮食行为:一为祛病强身,许多民族都有按“相似性理论”从食物中寻求救赎的叙事,这种理论发展到极端便是视同类血肉为最佳滋补之物,“人吃人”的丑陋历史便是在这样的思想背景下发生;二为延年益寿,期盼青春永驻与肉体不朽属于世界文学的永恒主题,但其中也包括了许多盲目和不择手段的追求,对长生故事的记述大多带有揶揄意味,这表明人们骨子里明白任何努力都不能阻挡死神的到来;三为享受美食人生,人类之为万物之灵,在于能把源于动物阶段的进食行动升华为审美事件,进食目的在这一过程中被遮蔽,进食过程则作为一种感官享受被刻意彰显。在人类口腹之欲的深层,隐藏着生存者对生存本身的珍爱以及生命对生命母体即大自然的感激。

The desire for food and sex is the natural instinct of man.The description of dietary events in the handed-down literature works reflects the efforts of human beings to maintain their existence and improve their physical or mental condition.Participation refers to the interinfiltration of all things in the minds of the ancestors due to“sympathy”and“contagious touch”.Motivated by this thinking mode,some modern people still believe that the body will absorb certain properties of food enter during ingesting process.Beyond the physiological impulse to satisfy hunger and thirst,some higher level wishes(desires)also govern human eating behavior.The first is to remove disease and strengthen health.Many different nations have stories of seeking salvation from food according to the“similarity theory”,which,taken to its extreme,regards the flesh and blood of the same species as the best tonic,and the ugly history of“man-eating”has taken place against such an ideological background.The second is to prolong life.The hope of eternal youth and immortality of the body is one of the everlasting themes of world literature,but it also includes many blind and unscrupulous pursuits.Most of stories regarding pursuit of eternal life are wry,which make clear that the people understand in their bones that no effort can stop the death coming one day.The third is to enjoy tasty life.The reason why human beings can become the master of all things is that man has the ability to sublimate the action of eating from the animal stage into an aesthetic event.The purpose of eating is obscured in this process,and the process of eating is deliberately revealed as a kind of sensory enjoyment.In the depth of human appetite,it hides the survivor’s love for survival itself,and life’s gratitude to nature,the mother of life.