1　Introduction

Discussing food discourse in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and The Canterbury Tales, analyzing food as a medium of Oriental imagination, where The Travels presents exotic curiosity and self-examination straightforwardly, while The Tales conveys moral and political implications implicitly, exploring how 14th-century English literature uses food to represent East-West civilizational conflict and European identity construction.

2　Civilization and Barbarism: Moralized Food from the Perspective of Humoral Theory

Discussing how food was moralized to distinguish civilization from barbarism within the framework of medieval humoral theory. Based on the four humors theory of Hippocrates and Galen, the nutritional and moral values of food interacted with each other; consuming food compatible with human constitution was regarded as a mark of civilization, while diets such as eating raw meat that disrupted humoral balance were assigned barbarian attributes, becoming physiological-moral standards defining the boundary between humans and animals. Through analyzing descriptions in The Travels of Eastern inhabitants feeding on wild beasts and drinking animal milk, the chapter reveals how the West animalized the Other and constructed the East as a barbaric land violating human nature and lacking civilization. Meanwhile, using the example of old January in The Tales, the chapter explains how his blindness resulted from gluttony of hot foods (such as spices) causing humoral imbalance (dry-cold constitution encountering hot stimulation), implying his spiritual transformation into a "spiritual Oriental" pursuing sensual pleasure under Arabic dietary influence, thus deviating from Christian faith. In contrast stands Arcite in The Knight's Tale, who fasts due to longing for Emily; though suffering from melancholy caused by excess black bile, he demonstrates chivalric spirit and Christian virtue through conquering carnal desire by will. Through comparing these two types of humoral imbalance cases—the former becoming secular through indulgence, the latter becoming sacred through asceticism—the chapter reveals how food discourse serves as a cultural symbol distinguishing animality from humanity, Oriental barbarism from Western civilization.

3　Justice and Evil: Politicized Food under Environmental Determinism

Discussing how food was politicized in late medieval English literature, becoming a cultural symbol distinguishing Eastern and Western civilization and barbarism. Based on environmental determinism, the author analyzes how "dietary determinism" constructs national identity: European grain-based diet represented by bread was regarded as the embodiment of civilization, wisdom, and Christian agricultural tradition, with "bread-eaters" (companion) becoming the symbol of European national community identity; while the meat-based diet of Eastern Arab and Mongol nomadic peoples was constructed as representations of barbarism, lack of restraint, and untamability, reflecting Western fear and anxiety toward Muslim expansion. Furthermore, the chapter reveals the evil qualities assigned to Eastern food in Western imagination, such as narratives of the Old Man of the Mountain controlling knights with narcotic beverages and Eastern rulers murdering Christians through banquets, depicting food as a political tool of the East for manipulating human nature and maintaining pagan rule. Finally, the chapter analyzes the cultural metaphor of apple as a Western symbol of kingship, demonstrating through the symbolic meaning of the apple in Justinian's hand how Christian Europe attempted to establish imperial authority over world domination through food discourse, thereby dissolving anxiety about Eastern threats.

4　Sacred and Secular: Spiritualized Food in the Christian Context

Exploring spiritualized food discourse in the Christian context of late medieval English literature. First analyzing the theological significance of the Eucharist ritual, pointing out that bread and wine are not merely symbols commemorating Jesus's sacrifice, but a bidirectional process of human-divine fusion. Through Mandeville's long apples and olive oil in The Travels, the author explains how these foods, as Eucharistic variants, connect the suffering and redemption meanings of Moses and Christ, Old and New Testaments, becoming concretized spiritual nourishment. Second, the chapter discusses fasting as an ascetic tradition, manifested as a means of restraining secular desire and achieving communication with God, and through comparing ascetic women such as Griselda with indulgent women such as Alison in The Tales, reveals the association between food, bodily desire, and moral corruption. Finally, the author projects the secular hedonistic meaning of food onto the Eastern world, describing how abundant spices and wine in Java, India and elsewhere imply a city of desire lacking rational restraint, and through the Sultan's words criticizes Christians indulging in sensual pleasure, emphasizing that food intake concerns the control of will over flesh, warning that immoderate diet leads to spiritual and moral decay.

5　Conclusion

Discussing how medieval Europe constructed Oriental imagination through food discourse, establishing its own cultural superiority by alienating the Other's diet.