The Rise and Development of Hakka Gastronomic Field in Taiwan: an Exploration Centered around the Hakka Restaurants in Twin Taipei City and Taoyuan City

In Taiwan a dramatic metamorphosis of Hakka dishes and Hakka food—from a never heard “no name” to a typical ethnic “gastronomy”一has occurred during the two decades between 1980 and 1999. This transformation is not a “natural” consequence of social development; instead, it takes place only through the construction and development of Hakka gastronomic field in Taiwan. In this research, the Bourdieu’s framework of field theory will be employed to analyze the process by which Hakka food started to get engaged in in struggles of legitimation and then the Hakka gastronomic field developed as an autonomous domain in mid 1990s, achieving a sufficient coherence of practices, institutions, representations, and principles of evaluation to sustain itself as a distinctive Hakka gastronomic field. And this research will explore how Hakka cuisine becomes the key belief of and Hakka restaurants the central axis of the Hakkagastronomic field, through the activities of Hakka chefs, aided and abetted mainly by cultural intermediariesand Hakka Affairs Council. In order to explore the rise and development of Hakka gastronomic field in Taiwan, this research will take the Hakka restaurants in Twin Taipei City and Taoyuan City as major cases and examine their key aspects such as practices, institutions, representations, and principles of evaluation by using qualitative methods of in-depth interviews, content analysis, observation and photography. It is this which conferred a special relationship between food and Hakka self-identity, becoming a crucial basis for the celebration of Hakka ethnic cuisine and social honor.