【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 ious step, is enjoying the main courses, including steak, pork chops, toasted beef, vegetables, ham and even grilled lobster. The third step is eating some dessert. An American banquet will serve various desserts, such as cakes, pies, icecream and some fresh fruit. Compared with Chinese ostentation, the Americanstyle banquet is much simpler. Furthermore, American daily food is also monotonous, especially American fastfood. American party is typical representative of American food culture. In a party, the host just provides guests with beverage and some simple food. The main course will not be served. Actually, in American concept, the party is a meeting for munication rather than a gettogether for eating. Americans take the party as an opportunity to municate with each other, cement relationship and make new friends with people of different classes and circumstance. Under this atmosphere, eating is inevitable, but it bees a kind of medium but not the main point. So what should be attached importance is to how to construct a free, fortable, harmonious environment for the guests, and make sure that everyone will enjoy pleasant time and leave with a happy mood. United States is a typical immigration country. The . developed from original 13 British colonies. Apart from the minority of landed aristocracies and privileged businessmen, the majority of people were born of lower classes. The reasons for the Europeans’ ing are multifarious. Among them, some escaped from persecution or natural disaster, some pursued religious freedom and better lives, there were also many people holing a gold rush dream of making fortune. In pursuit of ideal life in every pathfinder’s heart, Christian culture became their food of the spirit and also a criterion to instruct people’s ideology and action. As opposed to Chinese Rite which characterized by social estate system, that everyone is equal is one of the main spirits of Christianity. Americans do not take a luxurious feast as a demonstration of the host’s hospitableness and showing off. They prefer to treat guests with simple but exquisite dishes in a relaxed and equal atmosphere without restraining of discrepancy between the host’s and the gusts’ status. In America, aiming at making guests feel unconstraint, people always serve simply and say: “be my guest.”. Emotionalism vs. RationalismChina is a country attaching great importance to food culture. It makes Chinese understanding to eating has gone beyond the basic concept that eating food is in order to provide necessary energy for the survival of living things. For Chinese who own cultural heritage for 5 thousand years have sufficient time to give eating more abundant connotation. Chinese put the taste of food in an important position very early. They eat mainly for tastes but not nutrition. Chinese think that a course with high quality must meets 5 essential elements, including color, smell, taste, appearance and mouth feel.（蔣艷, 2007） First, color is color matching of ingredients. Next, smell can stimulate people’s olfactory feeling, thereby affecting eating behavior. Following is the beauty of flavor that is the core of Chinese food. The forth, beauty of appearance needs art to decorate. The last, mouth feel means feelings of one’s mouth when chewing dishes, like soft, crisp, smooth and so on. Chinese advocate philosophical theory that man is an integral part of nature. In layman’s terms, human can municates with nature and feel emotions of nature. Under instruction of this philosophy, Chinese pay more attention to tastes and the spiritual enjoyment of eating. Therefore, in Chinese eating concept, the emotional pursuit of food obviously overwhelms the rational pursuit. In addition, Chinese traditional mode of thinking manifests early subject consciousness and strong emotional factors. It is good at intuitive thinking and inner experience but poor at logical thinking in abstract form. As a result, Chinese understanding of objective things is oriented by emotion. Chinese take eating as a medium of emotional munication. In China, weddings, giving birth, celebrating festivals, memorating, holding weling and farewell party and funeral can not do without eating. In the occasions, eating is no longer to satisfy the appetite, but it is looked on as a downlead to promote expression and exchange of mutual emotions. It can be said, eating runs throughout all areas of life. It is not only an necessary aspect of human existing, it also impact on people’s psychology, emotion and behavior in varying degrees, thereby constituting interesting phenomenon of food culture. Consequently, the Chinese diet focuses on emotions.As opposed to Chinese food concept, American food culture is rational. In the diet, Americans lay stress on food nutritive value and as far as possible to keep the original flavor and inartificial nutrition. They do not care too much about the color, smell, taste and beauty of appearance. Even if the tastes are stereotyped, they can also eat with keen pleasure. Americans always adhere to practicality of meals. They eat for nutrition, seldom linking eating with spiritual enjoyment. No matter what the mouth feel like, rich nutrition must be guaranteed.Most early American immigrants came from Europe. So, it was deeply influenced by western culture. Western culture originated from the Aegean Sea located in northeast of the Mediterranean. Because the natural means of livelihood provided by the birth land were deficient, people must strive to explore the mysteries of nature, and to get the wealth from the natural world as much as possible. From then on, exploiting and utilizing natural resources for the sake of human benefits had bee the mainstream of the European spirit. The desire to explore and conquer the natural world promoted the birth of the natural sciences. In the process of conquering nature and cultivating a scientific consciousness, westerners emphasized the development of ra