Gaoheng Zhang, "Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities" (Fordham UP, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Gaoheng Zhang, "Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Gaoheng Zhang
Date: January 31, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores Dr. Gaoheng Zhang’s new book, Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities. The discussion examines the dynamic movement of food traditions between China and Italy, highlighting the transcultural exchanges that shape concepts of authenticity, identity, and culinary innovation. Through historical analysis, personal anecdotes, and cultural criticism, Dr. Zhang and Dr. Melcher probe topics such as migration, evolving stereotypes, the hybridization of cuisines, and the power of media in framing public understanding of “ethnic” food.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Author’s Background and Motivation

• Introduction
  • Dr. Gaoheng Zhang is an associate professor of Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia specializing in Sino-Italian cultural exchanges. He has researched both Chinese migration to Italy and Italian migration to China. (03:01)
  • Motivation:
    • Pragmatic: The publisher suggested separating a larger manuscript on food, fashion, etc., into separate books, allowing greater depth.
    • Intellectual: Recognized from conversations a unique opportunity in combining Chinese and Italian food studies due to their global popularity and intersecting stories.

    “I realized that there is a research opportunity there combining food, Italian food and Chinese food in one book, and help the reader understand that, in fact, you know, two of the world's most popular food traditions have intersecting stories to tell, very interesting stories to tell.” (04:38)

2. Framework: Food Mobilities

• Key Concept:
  • Food mobilities refers to the movement of foods, peoples, and culinary ideas across borders and through media.
  • Three layers:
    1. Physical movement (e.g., Neapolitan pizza in China)
    2. Human migration (immigrants and their cuisines)
    3. Cultural/media movement (culinary discourse in media and online) (06:00–08:36)
  • “For me, most importantly in this book, the level of meaning of food mobilities is that it's a media and cultural mobility... people, yes, they eat it in the restaurant, but they also talk about it in the food blog or... on social media.” (07:41)

3. History of Chinese Food Entrepreneurship in Italy

• Early Developments:
  • First formal Chinese restaurant in Rome, 1949; likely informal eateries since the 1920s and 1930s as smaller migration began from elsewhere in Europe. (09:15–12:00)
  • Major migration waves in the 1980s post-China’s “open door” policy fueled restaurant growth.
  • Diversity appeared in the types of Chinese restaurants, often focusing on seafood or simple food for busy workers, reflecting many migrants’ origins in coastal Zhejiang province.
  • SARS crisis in 2003 led to discrimination and closures, ending a phase of prosperity. (13:38)

4. Post-SARS Evolution and Diversification

• Shifts after 2003:
  • Many Chinese entrepreneurs pivoted to open “Pan-Asian,” Japanese, and later Korean restaurants, leveraging changing Italian perceptions (perceived Japanese cuisine hierarchy, higher prices). (14:59–17:24)
  • Chinese migrants also became owners of Italian espresso bars, as generational shifts led native Italians away from labor-intensive businesses. Deals were often made in cash, beneficial for Italian sellers.

    “...many of the Italian espresso coffee bars in Italy now are managed by Chinese migrants. And that is a heritage from the SARS crisis...” (17:44–19:05) "[An Italian coffee shop owner] said: 'mi vendo'... she was suggesting that she would sell the coffee shop to me." (19:38)

• Student Influence:
  • Influx of Chinese international students (via Marco Polo & Turandot programs in the 2000s/2010s) created new demand for more authentic Chinese food in Italy and led to a new generation of young Chinese food entrepreneurs. (20:41–24:43)
  • Many enter food business due to limited employment pathways in their trained fields.

5. Media, Stereotypes, and Popular Representations

• Role of Media/Cultural Products:
  • Most Italians/Chinese don’t interact directly; knowledge is mediated by film, menus, graphic novels, and especially social media.
  • Dog Meat Stereotype:
    • Italian suspicion about Chinese people eating dog meat is traced to American popular culture, which shaped Italian media portrayals.

      “...the Italian stereotype, and let’s say performance of this stereotype derives energy, rhetorical energy from the American context...” (29:18)

    • Zhang argues it is less a genuine belief than a cultural tool to emphasize difference and justify exclusion:

      “...this stereotype must have served a cultural purpose... to distinguish the European towns from the ethnic Chinese...” (31:00)

  • Regulatory and hygienic realities make actual dog meat consumption in Italy almost impossible.

6. Chinese Tourists’ Culinary Repertoires in Italy

• Two Repertoires:
  • (i) Hybridized (Pizza Hut model):
    • Older Chinese consumers’ ideas of Italian food shaped by localized, hybrid offerings (e.g., Pizza Hut China, which presents adapted “Italian” food – lots of unique toppings, sit-down service).
  • (ii) Aspiring Authenticity:
    • Wealthier/elite consumers exposed to higher-end Italian restaurants opened in China since 2000s; seek out more “authentic” Italian experiences (imported ingredients, higher standards) when traveling.

    “...for the upper middle Chinese consumers who have the economic capital, and I would say also the cultural capital to appreciate Italian food's authenticity, they would have another type of culinary repertoire...” (36:42–37:53)

7. Transculturality and Hybridization

• Core Message:
  • The transcultural process isn’t about “comparison” to an authentic standard but about recognizing and appreciating the creative hybridizations born of migration and adaptation.

    “They really transform these culinary traditions... It’s good for all of us to kind of appreciate this transformation and to enjoy this hybridized and transcultural phenomenon...” (39:03–39:38) “To appreciate the more transcultural and hybridized food tradition is a challenge for us, especially... from more kind of established communities where foreign food traditions are not present all the time.” (40:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Pizza Hut’s impact:

  “...when you go to a Pizza Hut restaurant in China, you'll notice that first of all, it's a sit down restaurant, unlike those in North America. Second of all, you will see lots of toppings on pizzas that are very Chinese or a combination of Chinese and Western traditions.” (34:07)

• On Chinese entrepreneurship in Italian coffee bars:

  “Coffee bars today owned by Chinese people are so widespread for a reason.” (20:22)

• On why stereotypes persist:

  “The reason why the stereotypes persist has to have a cultural purpose which is inflected by politics and these other things as well.” (32:31)

• On transcultural appreciation:

  “...to appreciate the more transcultural and hybridized food tradition is a challenge for us.” (40:19) “Things can be viewed in different ways and things can be very interesting this way.” (41:16)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:01 – Zhang’s background and why he wrote the book
• 06:00 – Framework of “food mobilities”
• 09:15 – Early history of Chinese restaurants and migratory flows in Italy
• 14:59 – Post-SARS diversification (Pan-Asian, Japanese, coffee bars)
• 20:41 – Influence of Chinese international students on Italian culinary scene
• 27:27 – Role of media and persistent stereotypes (e.g., dog meat)
• 33:11 – Culinary repertoires of Chinese tourists in Italy
• 38:49 – The book’s overarching message on transcultural transformation

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Preview: Zhang’s Next Project

• Investigating architecture and residence between Italy and China, including the proliferation of Venice replicas in China and public memorials to Chinese migrants in Italian cities. (41:42)

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Conclusion

Dr. Zhang’s book and this episode urge listeners to approach food traditions not with a binary “authentic/fake” mindset, but as living, hybrid, transcultural dynamics shaped by migration, media, and everyday adaptation. The story of “Italian dumplings” and “Chinese pizzas” is, ultimately, a story of human creativity, negotiation, and evolving identities.

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Transcript

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[B]

Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Gao Heng Zheng about his book titled Italian Dumplings and Chinese Transcultural Food Mobilities, published by Fordham University Press in 2025, which helps us understand what is going on with these ideas of kind of where food is from, who gets to make what food. Because as the title suggests, Italian dumplings and Chinese pizzas. We might think that those words should be sort of switched around with the national identifier they come with. But actually, as this book helps us explore, like, well, does that really necessarily work? Like, what happens, for instance, as I'm sure we'll discuss, we see dumplings being made in Italy by by Chinese migrants, or pizzas made in China by Italian migrants. Like, what happens when foods move around, when people move around? What does that sort of mean for a lot of these ideas of identity, of place, of people, of food? All sorts of things are interestingly entangled here. So, Gao Hang, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast to tell us about it.

[A]

Hi, Miranda, thank you for having me and for this brief introduction to my book.

[B]

Well, speaking of introductions, can you please introduce yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book?

[A]

For sure. So my name is Gao Hen, and I am an associate professor of Italian studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in Canada. And I have been specializing in China, Italy, cultural exchanges over the last decade or so. Specifically, I write about Chinese immigrations into Italy in its various disguises. And I'm particularly interested in the cultural dynamics involving these migratory flows. And more recently, I have started to look at the other way around, which is the Italian migrations in China, and again, from a cultural studies perspective and the reason why I have decided to write this book. There are two reasons for this specific book. One is more related to the pragmatics, because previously I was writing a larger manuscript and which included not only food, but also fashion and other topics which I believe have been important to Italy and China from a cultural perspective. And then the publisher suggested that I divided the various topics into different books. Right. So, in fact, that helped me enrich the contents of the food book, and that's the pragmatic reason. But the more important reason, I think, is that over the years, I have been hearing from my friends, my colleagues and strangers who were very excited about Chinese food and Italian food whenever they get to understand me, you know, or to get to know me and my scholarship. So I realized that there is a research opportunity there combining food, Italian food and Chinese food in one book, and help the reader understand that, in fact, you know, two of the world's most popular food traditions have intersecting stories to tell, very interesting stories to tell. So these are, you know, two of the reasons that I can think of.

[B]

And it definitely gives some sense as well, of kind of what readers might take from this, given the conversations you're already having that prompted you to investigate these questions. So can you tell us more, a little bit about how you go about illuminating these connections and the arguments you're making? I mean, you've got a framework in the book. You've got some key terms like food mobilities. Can you introduce us to those?

[A]

Yes, for sure. So at the very beginning, since I have studied Chinese migration to Italy, the most natural starting point for me was to look at Chinese migrant cuisine, its history, its industrial makeup, its cultural representations, its media debates in Italy. So that's where I began probing deeper into the dynamic and then I started to recall that when I was a undergraduate students studying in Beijing, in fact, I, you know, I belong to that generation born in the 1980s. And then in the 1990s, I was introduced to Western cuisine through Pizza Hut, the American food chain, and later on to the more, you know, fine dining version of Italian cuisine. I realized, oh, you know, my personal experience while still living in China matched very well the period when Italian and Italian American cuisines made inroads in China. So I decided that I'm going to combine these two stories in one book. And eventually I came up with a framework which is the food mobilities in popular culture. And food mobilities essentially means that, well, the term as I use it in the book has several layers of meaning. One is the physical movement of food items such as, I don't know, the Italian pizzas, Neapolitan pizzas that, you know, are served and made in China. And another layer of meaning of food mobilities refers to the fact that these are also human movements, movement, immigrations, and sometimes migrations between these two countries. And for me, most importantly in this book, the level of meaning of food mobilities is that it's a media and cultural mobility. It is, let's say, virtual travel of, you know, Italian pizzas in China because people, yes, they eat it in the restaurant, but they also talk about it in the food blog or, you know, in, on social media. So, yeah, so that eventually has become the kind of the core of this book in terms of theoretical and theoretical framework.

[B]

Okay, that's helpful to have laid out. I want to get into some of the sort of practical examples I suppose you investigate within this theoretical framework. So if we're looking, for instance, at Chinese migrants who manage food entrepreneurship in Italy, when do we see that develop? How and why is that happening?

[A]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, you know, judging from the conversations that I had had with my colleagues and friends and strangers about Chinese migrants in Italy and their food entrepreneurship, I understand that people, for the most part have been very interested in the empirical phenomenon that is the migrant cuisine. Right. That's why I decided to begin the book. I start the book by telling the reader about the empirical details of this food phenomena. And essentially, and for that, because I say this because that's not my specialization, I'm not a historian, I'm not a anthropologist. Right. I started to study this quite late, let's say. So I had to read up on the very, I was a slain social scientific literature on Chinese migrant cuisine in Italy. And there are lots of gaps in knowledge about this food phenomenon. So what I'm going to tell the reader, tell the listener right now is something that I have read up and other social scientists have investigated. So essentially, according to their narratives, the first Chinese restaurant, the first formal Chinese restaurant was, was opened in 1949 in Rome. So 1949 was also the year when the People's Republic of China was founded. Right. And although I would speculate that in the first half of the 20th century in Italy, there must have been informal Chinese eateries, and I say this because the very beginning, a very small scale migratory flow of Chinese people into Italy actually occurred in the 1920s and 30s. And these Chinese migrants moved from France and the Netherlands and the UK into Italy looking for essentially opportunities to grow their small businesses. So there must have been some informal Chinese eateries. But we don't have a scholarly investigation into this phenomena. So the official history is that everything started in 1949. And then in 1960s, more Chinese restaurants opened in larger cities in the country, like in Milano, Fiorente, Bologna. And that perhaps coincided with the onset of the Chinese cultural revolution in 1966. Right, because before that, some Chinese migrants were still able to leave the country, China, to go to, let's say, Italy, because they already had a kind of a family network there. Now, the most significant migratory flow from China to Italy, and it's the phenomenon that we still live with today, happened in 1980s. In the 1980s, as many of the listeners would know, at the end of the 1970s, China opened its door. Deng had that policy about open door policy. So many more Chinese people were able to leave the country. So again, through family connections in Europe, in continental Europe, most of the time they ended up in France and in Italy. Now, in the decade of 1980s was really the very first significant decade when the Chinese restaurant sector blossomed in Italy. They opened a lot of eateries of various qualities. According to the social scientists that I mentioned earlier, the diversification of Chinese restaurants also happened during that decade because you would have restaurants specializing in seafood, as many Chinese migrants in Italy are from a coastal city, Wenzhou, in Zhejiang Province. And some restaurants would specialize in simple Chinese food, catering to the very busy Chinese workers in the area where they live and work. And yeah, so 1980s and 1990s was considered kind of the first period. And then as I wrote in the book, when SARS, the SARS crisis began in 2003, many of these Chinese food businesses had to close because of biases and discriminations, imagined discriminations based on imagined contaminations of Chinese food. And then that kind of closed the first two decades or so of prosperity of Chinese migrant food entrepreneurship in Italy.

[B]

That's helpful to understand that sort of trajectory over time. What then about from after SARS until Covid, what did that look like?

[A]

Yeah. So according to the social scientists, and here I can also say something about my own observations, because I began visiting Italy, you know, after the SARS period, around early 2000s. Right. So our observations and critical analysis of the situation is that, well, the Chinese businesses that were impacted by SARS began to diversify further. One route for them to diversify was to branch into Pan Asian cuisines and in particular, Japanese cuisine. So today, when you go to a Japanese sushi bar in Italy, most of the time they are managed by Chinese people. Sometimes the chef too. Right. Was a Chinese migrant. And that's because at the time, the Chinese food entrepreneurs decided that, well, you know, Chinese food was considered inferior in quality, oily and hard to digest. Now, what about Japanese food, which was considered in Italy as a more refined food tradition? And also price wise, you are able to charge more on Japanese food than on Chinese food because of perceived hierarchy in these two East Asian food traditions. So that's how they went for the Japanese route. Sometimes they also open Korean restaurants. In fact, nowadays in Italy, you see more and more restaurants, Korean restaurants. But at the beginning, it was Japanese sushi bars that were essentially their first alternative. The all you can eat version of Japanese and Pan Asian food restaurants are the most talked about example of Chinese food entrepreneurs diversification, another route during the period, and it became more obvious today because for any visitors to Italy, you want to taste Italian espresso. Right. And many of the Italian espresso coffee bars in Italy now are managed by Chinese migrants. And that is a heritage from the SARS crisis at the time, you know? Well, first of all, managing a coffee bar, if you put yourself right to imagine that is a very hard business to maintain because you have to get up very early every morning. Yeah. And then you have to basically work throughout the day. And as you know, coffee bars in Italy stay open very late because in the evening they can become a, you know, a bar where they serve alcohol and wines. Right. And therefore the generation of Italian, native Italian, white Italian coffee bar owners were, let's say, retiring. Right. And they would love their offspring, Right. To take over the bars. But Italy has been experiencing this dilemma that the younger generations are no longer interested in trades and businesses that they perceive to be hard work. Because I'm saying This because it happens to another important Italian industrial sector, which is the garment industry. And the fast fashion industry in Prado near Florence, is experiencing exactly the same thing, which is the younger generations of white Italians no longer are interested in that sector, which, you know, employs labor, intense activities. So with the coffee bars, with Italians, you know, having this perception and reality involving the coffee bars, they then, Chinese migrants then purchased, right. From these Italian owners. And often, you know, through anecdotes. Right. Often they. The Chinese migrants purchase them with cash, which is very good for Italian owners because they can have the profit right away and avoid certain taxes. In fact, in the mid-2000s or so, when I was visiting a northern Italian city called Brescia in Lombardia near Milano, I was on the main square and I went into a coffee shop to have an espresso. And the owner asked me a question that I didn't immediately understand. And she said, mi vendo. So mi vendo in English, that means I sell myself. Right. So that means essentially she was suggesting that she would sell the coffee shop to me. So I didn't understand that kind of. I don't know if she was serious or was simply joking. But that is just one anecdote about how, you know, coffee bars today owned by Chinese people are so widespread for a reason.

[B]

Yeah, please keep going.

[A]

Okay. Yes. So now they have. The Chinese migrants have branched out into, you know, the Pian Asian cuisine and Italian coffee bars and then began. I think the most significant phenomena that we have to consider in terms of the food entrepreneurship is because of the influx of Chinese international students from mainland China into major cities like Milano, Roma, Firenze, Torino, Napoli. Previously in the 2000s. Yes. This was when, you know, these programs, one is called Marco Polo program, the other one is called Durando program, were institutionalized between the two governments of China and Italy to promote student movement. First began in the 2000s, but by 2010s, there was a sizable number of international Chinese international students in major cities. And these people would want to eat Chinese food which would be, let's say, palpable, not palatable to their taste. In other words, in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, many food journalists, including Chinese migrant and Italian food journalists in Italy, often said that the Chinese food food in Italy was not as good as food food back in China for sure, but not even of the same quality to China's food in more established countries with more established communities of Chinese migrants, like in the UK or in New York, let's say. But in the 2010s, this is when I even I myself, you know, I, I visited the country from time to time and each year can see there are so such a vibrant variety of Chinese eateries. And all of them are, I would say, of the same kind of quality as in mainland China. And I think a very important push was from these Chinese international students. And also because of, well, first, right. Chinese international students needed to eat right. And good Chinese food. And then many of them, after that they graduated, they also opened their own food businesses. And that's why today when you go to a Chinese restaurant in Milano, a lot of times you will see very young Chinese people in their 30s basically making food and you know, bubble teas and teas in general, right. These things, I think it's because of that. And, and I think that's, you know, obviously at universities they didn't study food entrepreneurship. I don't think so. Right. Because most of them specialize in, you know, opera singing, technological STEM disciplines. Right. The open food business is partially, I think was because Italy still doesn't offer international students an easy pathway to become permanent residents in order to be able to work in the sectors where they're trained for. Right. So food businesses have become a very, I would say, easy sector to tap into. Right. So that is a very familiar story with many immigrant communities worldwide, Right. Italian migrants too, open food businesses because of the whole society's certain way of rejecting them. Right.

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Yeah, and this is, as you said, a familiar sort of story. So I wonder if we can talk about kind of some of the other elements we've seen in other cases and the extent to which they show up here, which is of course the people, for example, as you mentioned, right, selling Chinese people to coffee bars, right? Like they have. Those are Italian people with very direct interactions with Chinese people in these food mobilities. But it's not like the sort of awareness of this happening is only the people who have literally sold a business to someone from China, right? This is something that is more widely known and talked about and you talk about in the book that this even shows up in films or graphic novels, you know, popular media. So can we talk a little bit about what sorts of discourse and conceptualizations about Chinese migrants and Chinese food in Italy shows up in those sorts of places?

[A]

Yes, for sure. I would be very happy to. In fact, the bulk of the book is about cultural representations and media depictions of Chinese migrant food entrepreneurship and Italian migrant food entrepreneurship in China. I think the most important reason why I focus on this aspect in the book is, as you said, relatively limited numbers of people have been in direct contact with Chinese migrants or Italians. And most of the time their knowledge construction about Italian food or Chinese food comes from their consumption of cultural products, Right? And that's why I decided to focus on cultural products such as menus, such as popular films, graphic novels, things that many people use on a daily basis. Social media, for example. And one big example case study from my investigation is about the Chinese people who eat dog meat. You know, it's funny because, you know, my personal understanding of this stereotype has also evolved as I was writing the book right at the very beginning, I did not even know this stereotype. The first time I heard about it, I thought to myself, this was extremely bizarre. As a Chinese born person, because I have never ever even thought about eating dark meat in the area that I have been living. I'm from eastern part of China. I'm from Hangzhou. Right. Hangzhou is the capital of the province where the absolute majority of Chinese migrants come from in Italy and in France. So, you know, I had to really study and understand where this stereotype comes from. What's the real situation? Right. And as I studied more and more, I realized that the Italian stereotype, and let's say performance of this stereotype derives energy, rhetorical energy from the American context. It was the American popular culture that taught Italian culture to introduce and then, you know, reinforce this stereotype for the Italians. Because at the beginning of the 1980s, when Chinese influx into Italy began, the Italian media looked to the American media and popular culture for understanding the Chinese diaspora. And so in that chapter about the Chinese huge duck meat, I built in this component about the American popular culture. And essentially I argued that it's not that Italians really believe that, you know, many Chinese people eat duck meat. It's really difficult to believe that. Right. If you think about the very strict EU regulations on food exports and imports, if you think about the hygienic inspections that are conducted in Italian cities, it's difficult actually. Right. To have dog meat consumption. And I realized that then this stereotype must have served a cultural purpose. And I tried to argue that the cultural purpose is essentially to distinguish the European towns from the ethnic Chinese. Whereas the European Italians regard dogs as their pets, white men's best friend. The Chinese are the aliens who will not hesitate to eat duck meat for their culinary pleasure. Right. So this distinction, which can be conceived in racial terms, is much easier to understand when it's articulated through the duck meat, through food. In other words, because everybody, we all need to eat. Right. And that's the most kind of. That's the closest thing that we can understand easily, I think. Yeah. So that's one reason we need to look at the cultural representations. Because in the empirical world, it's really, really difficult for anybody to think that a large portion of Chinese people eat dark meat. It's clearly not true. So the reason why the stereotypes to persist has to have a cultural purpose which is inflected by politics and these other things as well.

[B]

Yeah, that's definitely interesting to kind of investigate that sort of myth and trope and figure out what is actually happening with it. And thinking about the perceptions of Italians on Chinese migrants, what about the perceptions, the other way, of Chinese tourists, for instance, who come to Italy? How do they sort of engage with food when they come to Italy? And how does that work with sort of other modes of culinary repertoire that already exist when they come to visit?

[A]

Yeah, for sure. I'd like to talk this aspect of the dynamic as well by highlighting, you know, what I call culinary repertoires. Because I believe the contemporary Chinese tourists from the 2000 and from 2000 onward have two culinary repertoires at their disposal when approaching Italian cuisine in China and in Italy. And one cultural culinary repertoire that I argue is more long standing is actually about the hybridized, the Chinese, Italian, American hybridized cuisine that was promoted by Pizza Hut China. Because the story of the introduction of Western food into China is a very long standing one, you know, going back to at least 17th century, 16th century, when the Italian Jesuits went to China. But the contemporary iteration that we know today came from basically the late 1980s and early 1990s. And Pizza Hut was together with, you know, McDonald's and KFC was the first to introduce a more Italian like cuisine to a large base of Chinese consumers. So I believe that Chinese consumers from the 1990s and 2000s in particular have really been shaped by Pizza Hut's way of, you know, presenting Italian food. Right. And that's very hybridizing in the sense that when you go to a Pizza Hut restaurant in China, you'll notice that first of all, it's a sit down restaurant, unlike those in North America. Second of all, you will see lots of toppings on pizzas that are very Chinese or a combination of Chinese and Western traditions. So Chinese re tourists to Italy, when they order an episa, they don't necessarily would appreciate, let's say, authentic, right. Quote, unquote, authentic Italian pizza toppings because they have been used to, you know, toppings that basically with composter ingredients that they like. Right. So that's one type of culinary repertoire that we need to consider. And the other one, the other culinary repertoire is, was shaped in China at a much later period. I, I would say around Mid, starting in mid 2000, mid 2000s was an important period for China because, you know, China entered the WTO in the early 2000s and half a decade later, right. The Chinese economy really picked up. And you know, it was really the kind of economic miracle almost. Right. And that was when many more European investors, including Italian food entrepreneurs, went to China to open all these fancier Italian restaurants. Right. And these restaurants, clearly they too needed to adapt to and accommodate to Chinese palates. Right. They, they can't. You know, most of them don't maintain the same kind of Italian foods as they do in Italy. However, compared to things like Pizza Hut and there are many more American chains that offer Italian food compared to those types of restaurants. Clearly the Italian migrant managed restaurants and the transnational Italian companies, restaurants are much more authentic, authentically Italian. Right. So they use imported prosciutto, cotto, prosciutto, you know, crudo, and where on their pizzas where they use mozzarella. Real mozzarella. Right. Authentic mozzarella di buffalo, that kind of thing. So for the upper middle Chinese consumers who have the economic capital, and I would say also the cultural capital to appreciate Italian food's authenticity, they would have another type of culinary repertoire. So when they go to Italy, they're also the people who tend to go to Italy because of, you know, the. The purchase power. Right. They would look for. Right. Or a variety of so called authentic Italian foods. Right, A variety. Because you would want to go for fine dining. Yes. But also you would like to go for the more kind of rustic Italian restaurants hoping to kind of apply their knowledge of authentic Italian food to their culinary tourism in Italy.

[B]

Really interesting to hear about those sorts of interactions. Obviously, I can't ask you to tell us about every single detail in the book. Right. In the amount of time that we have, but is there anything else in it that we've not mentioned yet that you want to make sure we include?

[A]

I think I want to send a final message to our listeners about the book, which is the transcultural aspect of it. Yes. In this book I have talked a lot about stereotyping based on food. Yes. I talked a lot about very kind of tunnel vision ways of conceiving food traditions and authenticity, foods authenticity. But on the other hand, this book also talks a lot about the transcultural aspect of food mobilities and transculturality in this case is really about how Chinese migrants, in making Chinese food in a certain way and making sometimes Italian food in a certain way, Japanese food in a certain way, they really transform these culinary traditions. And this aspect can be usefully interpreted as transcultural because they are the people who can access, let's say, Chinese and Japanese food traditions. And in Italy, they made. They managed to make these two food traditions into something else. Right. And I think it's. It's good for all of us to kind of appreciate this transformation and to enjoy this hybridized and transcultural phenomenon rather than our urge, and you know, me included. Right. This urge to judge whether the taste of this Chinese dish is. How is it compared to the one that I know from China. I think to appreciate the more transcultural and hybridized food tradition is a challenge for us, especially from those of us who are from more kind of established communities where foreign food traditions are not present all the time. So, yeah, so that's something that I also want the reader of my book to understand, how things can be viewed in different ways and things can be very interesting this way.

[B]

Yeah, that's definitely worth adding on and I think a good place to end our discussion as well. Leaving me just to ask if there's anything you're currently working on that you want to give readers a sneak preview of.

[A]

Oh, yeah, for sure. So I am working on a book manuscript which is about architecture and residence and the living between Italy and China. So one chapter is going to be focused on the many imitations of Venice in Chinese cities. I would claim that all major Chinese cities now have a replica of Venice, Italy, and it's a very interesting phenomenon that I want to focus on. And another interesting thing is about how Italy, some Italian cities have erected public memorials to Chinese migrants. Not many people know about it. It's not as famous as, let's say, the Chinese archways in London or in Liverpool, but there are public memorials to the Chinese diaspora in Italy nonetheless. So I want to investigate these aspects as well.

[B]

Well, that certainly sounds like you'll have plenty to be getting on with. So while you are investigating that, listeners can read the book we've been discussing titled Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas, Trans Cultural Food Mob, published by Fordham University Press in 2025. Gauhang, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

[A]

Thank you so much for having me, Miranda.

[B]

It was a pleasure.