Abstract

Complexity of taste has been addressed by different scholars to highlight the social and spiritual meanings of food. The taste of food has also recently been studied in relation to its symbolic meaning from the cognitive perspective. This paper further suggests that moral taste explains the meanings of food at festivals. It takes the case of food offered to ghosts by the Chaozhou community in Hong Kong during the Chinese Hungry Ghosts Festival to examine how people’s tastes in relation to ritualized food change over time. The rejection and subsequent reclamation of ritualized food in different contexts and at various times will be analyzed as a reflection of changing moralities. I argue that changes in taste are closely related to changing morality in various socio-economic and political contexts.