Kuai and Sheng - The raw fish and meat dishes in Chinese history

In the Book of Rites edited by Dai De and in the chapter "Wang Zhi" of the Book of Rites, "cooked foods" as opposed to "raw foods" were used as a crit erion to distinguish the Chinese from their neighbouring ethnic groups. The Chinese ate cooked foods while other ethnic groups ate raw foods. However, since the invention of 'cooked foods,' have the Chinese had the custom of eating raw fish and meat at all? As this article will show, they certainly have. Then, what have they eaten? How were they prepared? How important wer e these fish and meat dishes in the life of the Chinese in historic times? What was the geographical distribution of this eating custom? Did people ha ve some particular views concerning eating raw fish and meat? Why are the a verage Chinese today no longer aware of this custom? This article will expl ore the questions concerning the custom of kuai and sheng-or catching for i mmediate slaughter and preparing for immediate consumption instead of havin g the raw fish and meat processed by drying in the air, pickling, soaking i n sauce or wine, brewing, etc. It will also try to give tentative answers t o these questions.