My PhD tracks vanishing Chinese dishes, foods, or food-processing methods in Tyneside and Greater Glasgow. I will investigate food practices in Chinese restaurants and delivery services in two settings in those two areas: metropolis and suburb. Through this investigation, I aim to identify the contexts and reasons why some groups within the Chinese diaspora ignore or even give up preparing certain food when having their daily meals, making food menus, or treating friends. Furthermore, I intend to disentangle the correlation between food and diasporic identities to understand the evolution of food cultures and food-related immigration issues. Using an ethnographic approach, I mean to map the strategies and dynamics of diasporic identities and answer the question: in what ways do vanishing foods act as either an avenue for Chinese diasporas to enrich their identity or as a symptom of losing platforms to re-form their identity?
