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Paper short abstract

This paper explores the East Asian winter solstice custom of eating red-bean porridge. This commensal act transforms a food into a cultural symbol, telling a story of communal survival against disease by blending astute natural observation with protective folklore.

Paper long abstract

Engaging with the panel’s theme of “nature(s) in narrative,” this paper explores the East Asian winter solstice custom of consuming red-bean porridge as a form of commensality where food, stories, and social encounters entangle. This practice exemplifies how nature is transformed into “edible culture” through material and symbolic acts. The ritual emerged as a profound response to deadly infectious diseases like smallpox, with the porridge believed to offer protection from epidemic demons.

This table-story is rooted in our ancestors’ astute observations of natural phenomena, such as determining the solstice, which surprisingly align with modern science. This precise observation of “the natural” fostered fantastic narratives about the food’s power to combat “unnatural” or supernatural disease forces. The custom thus becomes a site for negotiating the relationship between food, communal identity, and environmental challenges like widespread disease.

The folklore’s endurance highlights how the act of eating together is narrated and remembered to reinforce community well-being. This paper posits that science (observation) and fantasy (folklore) are not always antithetical; they converge at the table in a dynamic performance that bridges materiality and narrative, creating enduring customs that are shaped by societal challenges.