Of Tripod and Palate

JAMES A. BENN Assistant Professor of Chinese Religions at Arizona State University, USAROBERT F. CAMPANY Professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, USACONSTANCE COOK Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature and Director of Asian Studies at Lehigh University, USAVINCENT GOOSSAERT Researcher at the CNRS and Vice-Director of the Groupe de Sciences Sociales des Religions et de la LaIcité, Paris, FranceROMAIN GRAZIANI Maître de Conférences at the University of Paris 7 and lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure, FranceJOHN KIESCHNICK Lecturer in Buddhist Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol, UKTERRY F. KLEEMAN Associate Professor of Chinese and Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USAVIVIENNE LO Lecturer in the Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at University College, London, UKPOO MU-CHOU Research Fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, ChinaMICHAEL J. PUETT Professor of Chinese history in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, USA

• Introduction: Secular and Religious Food-ways in Traditional China; R.Sterckx Sacrifice, Feasts, and the Creation of Hierarchy: A Study of Food Exchange in Early China; M.J.Puett Moonshine and Millet: Feasting and Purification Rituals in Ancient China; C.Cook Food and Philosophy in Pre-Buddhist China; R.Sterckx Food, Medicine and Religion; V.Lo Eating Better Than Gods: Cuisines of Transcendence in Late Classical and Early Medieval China; R.F.Campany The Daoist Kitchen; T.F.Kleeman Buddhist Vegetarianism in China; J.Kieschnick Buddhism, Alcohol and Tea in Medieval China; J.A.Benn

"This is a highly successful book. In it, we find new insights from a remarkable range of international specialists on the significance of food in religion, political theory, social order, medicine, and human physiology, and how people in pre-modern China made their choices on what to eat and what not to eat." - Robert Chard, Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Oxford "If television has been described as the poor man's nirvana , then the medieval Chinese description of food as the Heaven of ordinary people seems even more apt, in the light of this fascinating collection of essays. Here, for the first time, it is possible to see the multifarious links between food and religion in Chinese civilization, so that the scholarship brought together here will surely provide a rich feast not only for historians and anthropologists of China but also for anyone who has ever wondered about the deeper cultural meanings of Chinese food." - T. H. Barrett, Professor of East Asian History, SOAS, London