Food's disappearing community
By Yang Yang | China Daily | Updated: 2026-01-17 09:48
"The one for baby food is what I eat in my hometown. Buying food online is tricky. If you're not someone who wants to eat that cabbage every day, why would you spend so much time on it?" she says.
"If it's your first time trying cabbage as a child or a person cooking it for the first time, and you pick a cabbage that tastes terrible, you might think that's just how cabbage tastes. If you then develop an aversion to cabbage, your choice is essentially made for you. This situation is unfortunate, and it's worth being written about and shared," she says.
When people see photos of food on online delivery platforms, their ideas about how to cook these ingredients tend to fade. Chen says, "That's because they are completely different from what you see in the market", she says.
"For example, when you see fish in the market, you can tell whether it's fresh or not, and you can pair it with ingredients found nearby. But the fish you see online are 'zombies'," she says.
Chen makes great attempts to inform people online how to choose the right food, but readers want a shopping link.
These changes urge her to consider deeper reasons for food and cooking in modern society.
"People are feeling disconnected from their food. To help bridge this gap, I started a podcast in 2022 and wrote this book in 2024," she says.
"Modern people don't have the patience to accumulate this common sense because they don't want to spend time on it," she says. "This book provides a different perspective on how people relate to food."
