For over 7000 years, cooking and eating in China has contributed to shaping the country's civilization. However, this tradition cannot merely be reduced to daily habits organised around a set of objects. With the passage of time, fascinating and in-depth discoveries have been made regarding the various implications of these tableware traditions. To illustrate this, one needs only to evoke the evolution of tableware throughout the ages. Neolithic pottery tableware soon metamorphosed into bronze during the first three royal dynasties (2nd and 1st millennia B.C.) and was then replaced by lacquerware (from the 3rd century B.C. ) and then by gold and silver for the Tang palaces (618-907), before the definitive triumph of delicate porcelain under the Songs (960-1278).