Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Food, an essential perquisite for existence, plays an irreplaceable role in the development of society and in the progress of human beings, in ancient times and modern times, in East and West. This paper discusses the differences of areas, circumstances and customs between Chinese and the Western cultures; the paper also talks about the differences of logic of thinking and philosophy, which contribute to the differences between Chinese and western food cultures, hoping that such information will help the readers in their intercultural communications.

Key words: food culture; differences; Chinese culture; Western culture；

摘要：不管是在古代还是现代，中国还是西方，饮食都是人类生存必不可少的条件,并且在人类社会进步和发展的过程中扮演着不可替代的角色，这篇文章讨论了在不同的地域、环境和文化差异下饮食文化的不同。文章同时也阐明两种文化思想和理论上的不同，正是这些不同产生了两种不同的饮食文化。希望这些信息能够让增进两种文化的交流。

关键词：饮食文化；差异；中国文化；西方文化

1.    Introduction
What is culture? As a matter of fact, as early as in 1952, two anthropologists, Kroeber and Kluckhohn, published a book with over two hundred pages devoted to 164 definitions of culture, none of which are the same. Since then, many other scholars have offered additional definitions, ranging from broader ones to narrower ones. Bate and Plog (1990) propose a descriptive definition that includes most of the major territory of culture on which scholars currently agree:
Culture is a system of shared benefits, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.
Food, an essential perquisite for existence, plays an irreplaceable role in the development of society and in the progress of human beings. Food culture is an important feature of a national culture (Bian, 2005). Chinese food is famous all around the world. Since the ancient times, Chinese people have advocated the diversity of food choice and the basic vegetarian food and avoid excessive intake of fat. In modern times, Chinese people run the teahouse, restaurants and hotels here and there. Meanwhile, the western countries are famous for the culture of communication. On the important occasions like dancing parties, birthday parties, wedding parties and grand celebrations, and talking is more important than the diet.