ABOUT

Exploring the Buddhist Vegetarian Landscape in Taiwan

I am a junior at Carleton College traveling around Taiwan for a month on the Roy Grow Fellowship. My research focuses on religious vegetarian food culture in the northern Taiwan region as it manifests in homes, restaurants, monasteries, university kitchens, markets, and agriculture sites. Through interviews, informal conversation, and observation I intend to explore the question, How do Buddhist values and ideas come to be reflected in the production, preparation, selection and consumption of food? I am also interested in questions of community, sacredness, environmentalism, and gender as they relate to religious vegetarian food culture.