ABSTRACT

When the repas gastronomique des Français was deemed worthy of a place on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010, the decision was hailed as a triumph for cultural diversity. Yet, culinary traditions in France remain persistently rooted in legacies of colonialism that are invisible to many. With this in mind, this article examines the enduring symbolic power of French cuisine alongside colonial notions of race through an analysis of the tropes and procedures of a 1932 board game doubling as an advertisement for ‘Indochinese Rice’ in France. I argue that just as French citizens learned from the game to incorporate rice into their daily eating habits, they also learned how to integrate visibly racialized Vietnamese people into the national body politic. For not only are citizens ‘buying into’ the colonial project with the help of this piece of publicity, the board game actively teaches racist colonial ideologies. Building on extant analyses of colonial ephemera, this article considers how notions of ‘race’ and racism against the Vietnamese were learned by French citizens through food, and how that racialized understanding would influence the reception and assimilation of the Vietnamese in France in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

摘要

当repas gastronomique des Français2010 年被认为值得在联合国教科文组织的非物质文化遗产代表作名录中占有一席之地，这一决定被誉为文化多样性的胜利。然而，法国的烹饪传统仍然根植于许多人看不到的殖民主义遗产。考虑到这一点，本文通过分析 1932 年在法国兼作“印度支那大米”广告的棋盘游戏的比喻和程序，研究了法国美食的持久象征力量以及种族的殖民观念。我认为，正如法国公民从游戏中学会将米饭融入日常饮食习惯一样，他们也学会了如何将明显种族化的越南人融入国家政治体系。因为市民不仅在这张宣传片的帮助下“购买”了殖民项目，棋盘游戏积极教授种族主义殖民意识形态。基于对殖民时期的现存分析，本文考虑了法国公民如何通过食物学习“种族”和针对越南人的种族主义概念，以及这种种族化的理解将如何影响 20 世纪越南人在法国的接受和同化。^日和21^日世纪。