Special Event: “Chinese Food and Herbs: Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable”

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.
“Chinese Food and Herbs: Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable”

A lecture by Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman, with a food tasting to follow. This talk will explore the terms Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable and compare them to the health benefits of Chinese food, Chinese dishes, and Chinese herbs.

When you sit down for a meal at a chain restaurant, how can you tell if your food is healthy, natural, fresh, or sustainable? When chains make these claims about their products, are they really providing us with better options, or are they simply trying to capitalize on abstract concepts of “freshness” and “health,” while serving meals that are still highly processed? Acclaimed food scholar and researcher Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman argues that fast-food definitions of “fresh” and “healthy” are disingenuous and misleading. In this talk, Newman will explore uses of these terms, and will contrast Western fast food to the fascinating, nourishing, and time-tested traditional cuisine of China. Timely issues about health, economics, and the food industry will be addressed, and she will suggest how we can improve our diet  by relying on concepts – and recipes! – from Chinese culture.

Dr. Newman founded and is editor of the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first and the only American English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture. Her devotion to research and promotion of this dietary culture is well-known world-wide and is the pursuit of a lifetime of efforts.

The Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection, more than 4,000 books and complementary research materials, is a special collection at Stony Brook University Libraries.

Co-sponsored by Special Collections of the University Libraries, the Charles B. Wang Center, and The Confucius Institute at Stony Brook University.
Free and open to all.

The Ginseng Book by Louise VeningaLocation:
Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1
Nicolls Road
Main Entrance
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 632-4400

 

Kristen Nyitray

Kristen Nyitray

Associate Librarian; Director, Special Collections and University Archives; and University Archivist at Stony Brook University Libraries
Contact her for research assistance with rare books, manuscript collections, historical maps, and SBU history. E-mail: kristen.nyitray@stonybrook.edu.
Kristen Nyitray
Posted in Asian and Asian American Studies, Events, Library Outreach, Special Collections & University Archives