Asian food cultures and markets · room 1 of 3 · Ongoing

Markets and delicacies

What a wet market is, edible bird's nest, shark fin soup, South Korea's dog-meat law, and food as status.

Markets and delicacies Fugu and poisonous puffers The economics of tuna

For grades 6-8 and up. Some cards discuss slaughter and endangered animals in plain terms.

Ongoing

What a wet market is

economicstrade & commercializationhistory

A wet market is a fresh-food market where fish, meat and vegetables are sold from open stalls, and the floors are wet from ice and washing. Most sell no wild animals at all. After the COVID-19 outbreak, China banned trade in most wild land animals for food in February 2020, while ordinary fresh markets kept running.

Why do many families prefer a market to a supermarket?

Sources: Standing Committee of the National People''s Congress, Decision on wildlife trade, Feb. 24, 2020; Lin et al., A better classification of wet markets is key to safeguarding human health and biodiversity, Lancet Planetary Health 5 (2021)

SI painting, reconstruction · made with an OpenAI image model for newSchoolWorks.com

Ming dynasty to today

Edible bird's nest

economicstrade & commercializationbiology

Swiftlets in Southeast Asia build cup nests from their own hardened saliva. Cooked as soup, the nests have been a luxury food in China for centuries. Today most come from purpose-built swiftlet houses in Indonesia and Malaysia, where owners play bird calls to attract colonies, and top grades sell for thousands of dollars per kilogram (estimate).

How does a building for birds become a kind of farm?

Sources: Looi and Omar, Swiftlets and edible bird''s nest industry in Asia, Pertanika Journal of Scholarly Research Reviews 2 (2016)

SI painting, reconstruction · made with an OpenAI image model for newSchoolWorks.com

1990s to 2022

Shark fin soup

economicstrade & commercializationbiology

Shark fin soup is a banquet dish meant to show generosity. A 2006 study estimated that fins from 26 to 73 million sharks pass through the trade each year (estimate). Many countries now ban finning at sea, and the United States banned buying and selling shark fins in December 2022.

Can a law in one country change a demand that sits in another?

Sources: Clarke et al., Global estimates of shark catches using trade records, Ecology Letters 9 (2006); Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2023 (Dec. 2022)

SI painting, reconstruction · made with an OpenAI image model for newSchoolWorks.com

2024 to 2027

South Korea ends dog meat

historyeconomics

In January 2024 South Korea passed a law banning the breeding, slaughter and sale of dogs for meat, with a grace period ending in 2027. The government counted about 1,150 dog farms and roughly 470,000 dogs at the time (estimate) and offered farmers payments to close. Eating dog had already become rare among younger Koreans.

How do food habits change: by law, by generation, or both?

Sources: Republic of Korea Ministry of Agriculture, Special Act on ending dog meat (passed Jan. 9, 2024); Reuters, South Korea passes law banning dog meat trade (Jan. 9, 2024)

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

Ongoing

Delicacy and status

economicstrade & commercialization

Across many cultures, rare foods signal wealth: caviar in Russia, truffles in France, bird's nest and abalone in China, bluefin tuna in Japan. When incomes rise, demand for such foods rises fast, and wild animals that supply them can be overharvested before rules catch up.

What foods signal status where you live?

Sources: Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

SI painting, reconstruction · made with an OpenAI image model for newSchoolWorks.com

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