Japanese Cuisine

Author(s) Nguyen, Duyen Tran, Phuong Type of publication Bachelor’s thesis Published Autumn 2019 Number of pages 57 pages Title of publication Understanding Customer Demands for Asian Cuisine Buffet Restaurants in Finland Possible subtitle(s): Case: Konnichiwa Lahti – RJ Group Oy Name of Degree Bachelor of Business Administration Abstract The migration of numerous of foreigners in Finland has brought cuisines from countries around the world to Finland. Against the context, sushi has been introduced to Finland and immediately became popular. The rising of Asian cuisine and sushi restaurants is recognized due to the increase in customer demands. That created the authors’ interest and curiosity. The study findings are expected to not only provide information for the case company to improve its customer service strategies but also to contribute insights into parties that concerns about the food industry in Finland. The study applies the consolidation of quantitative and qualitative meth...

The inquiry into whether food can be classified as “art” has long been a subject of debate. From its roots tracing back to Plato, this question has attracted the attention of both artistic movements and philosophers, especially throughout the twentieth century. In this paper, I aim to revisit this contentious issue by exploring the realm of pastry making as a form of art. Within the broader discourse on this topic, pastry emerges as a distinctive medium. Since sweets have historically transcended their mere nutritive functions, pastry may establish an immediate connection between art and food. Simultaneously, it reiterates the persistent challenges of encompassing the edible domain within conventional aesthetic theories. Throughout various contexts and periods, confectionery has evolved through the reproduction or imitation of visual arts, often reflecting the prevailing artistic climate of its flourishing periods. Moreover, due to its intimate association with rituals and celebrato...

The trend of “-ko” names, i.e. female names consisting of one or two Chinese characters to which 子 (ko), meaning “child/girl,” is attached, is one of the most striking phenomena in the history of modern Japanese names. This article traces the popularity of the “-ko” name pattern over time, discusses the situation in the last decades of the nineteenth century that gave rise to this phenomenon as well as the circumstances behind its decline a hundred years later, while also considering the position of this once-prominent name pattern among recently bestowed names

This paper proposes a recommendation method of alternative-ingredients based on co-occurrence relation on recipe database. Currently, dishes are often cooked with reference to recipes on Website. Convenience to access so many and varied recipes encourages beginners to cook. Recipe on Website list ingredients used for a dish. However, for some reason, some of the listed ingredients cannot be used for the cooking; this paper defines such ingredient as "exchange-ingredient." To cook a dish, it should alternate exchange-ingredient and another one (i.e., alternative-ingredient). This paper proposes two algorithms to recommend alternative-ingredient. Through the cooking and tasting experiments, it was confirmed that the each of the proposed methods were effective for each intended purpose.

Domestic animal usage remains a key problem in understanding Japan's premodern economy. Assumptions that religious and other cultural proscriptions limited the use of domesticated animals, and the consumption of meat in particular, from Late Antiquity until Westernisation in the nineteenth century remain widespread. However, the zooarchaeological record from historic Japan is patchy and the scholarly literature often uncritically reproduces state-centred ideas about agriculture and the economy. In this essay we critically review the ways in which historical and zooarchaeological studies of animal usage in premodern Japan have been impacted by broader cultural discourses. We examine animal usage from the Bronze Age to the eve of modernisation, broadly 1000 BC to AD 1850, in terms of a tension or dialectic between promotion and restriction by the state and other authorities. While the utilisation of animals for warfare and official transport was more closely controlled, other uses reflected a complex and often international political ecology that requires further analysis by zooarchaeologists.

The trend of “-ko” names, i.e. female names consisting of one or two Chinese characters to which 子 (ko), meaning “child/girl,” is attached, is one of the most striking phenomena in the history of modern Japanese names. This article traces the popularity of the “-ko” name pattern over time, discusses the situation in the last decades of the nineteenth century that gave rise to this phenomenon as well as the circumstances behind its decline a hundred years later, while also considering the position of this once-prominent name pattern among recently bestowed names

Built in 1827 to commemorate the marriage of the daimyō Maeda Nariyasu to a daughter of the shogun Tokugawa Ienari, the Akamon or 'Red Gateway' of the University of Tokyo, is generally claimed to be a unique gateway because of its distinctive colour and architectural style. This article uses an inter-disciplinary methodology, drawing on architectural history, law and art history, to refute this view of the Akamon. It analyses and accounts for the architectural form of the gateway and its ancillary guard houses (bansho) by examining Tokugawa bakufu architectural regulations (oboegaki) and the depiction of daimyō gateways in doro-e and ukiyo-e. It concludes that there were close similarities between the Akamon and the gateways of high ranking daimyō in Edo. This similarity includes the red paint, which, it turns out, was not limited to shogunal bridal gateways but was in more general use by daimyō for their own gateways by the end of the Edo period. Indeed, the Akamon was call...

Preface xi context: the historical and geographical factors that have shaped Japanese food. Chapter 2 shifts to a closer examination if the various major components of this cuisine. We discuss the primary foods: the rice, soybean paste, and stock that appear at virtually every meal, and the other major food items used. Chapter 3 covers who prepares food and how it is prepared: the various cooking methods that make up the repertoire of the Japanese cook. Chapter 4 presents the different types of Japanese meals. Japanese eat out a great deal, and chapter 5 concentrates on the various types of restaurants, some of which serve food that is difficult or complex to make even for a Japanese housewife and is, therefore, rarely encountered, even in the Japanese home. Chapter 6 examines foods served for festive occasions and on special days and continues to explore the dynamic area of aesthetics in Japanese food. Finally, chapter 7 looks at the modern Japanese diet and nutrition. Throughout the book, the reader will find recipes that complement the narrative. These are not intended to compete with the many fine cook-xii Preface Preface xiii It's always a pleasure to work on a subject that one is passionate about. Besides our own love of Japanese food and cooking, preparing this book has taught us a great deal. The book, however, would not have been possible without the help of many people. Ken Albala, the series editor, first proposed that we tackle this subject during a meeting of the annual Oxford Food Symposium, and we are grateful to him for the opportunity. Thanks are also due Wendi Schnaufer at Greenwood Press for encouragement and reading the manuscript before its completion. We are also grateful to the members of the Oxford Food Symposium for informal advice and criticism (often otherwise unacknowledged) during the writing of the book. We are grateful to the many members of the H-Japan and H-Asia Internet discussion lists, who came through with suggestions and obscure bits of data we were unable to track down. Oren Ashkenazi deserves thanks for helping translate and select items for inclusion, as do Erez and Maayan Ashkenazi for judgmental and informed tasting of the recipes and dishes mentioned here. Chef Rob Shipman, who afforded us a glimpse behind the scenes of a modern Japanese kitchen and who proves every day that Japanese food has become international, gave encouragement to the idea that we can all learn from Japanese cuisine. The Japan Foundation provided money, over a period of some years, for research in Japan, and we are, as always, in their debt. The Ajinomoto Food Institute in Tokyo gave us free run of their wonderful library, for which we thank them again. We are also grateful to the libraries and librarians of the School of Oriental Studies in London, and Gyosei College in Reading, UK, who were as helpful as always. A great deal of thanks is owed to the many chefs, researchers, and friends in Japan who, over many years of research, have offered us guidance and encouragement as we explored the world of Japanese food. Many of these are anonymous, some we only met fleetingly. We are obliged to all. Our greatest debt, inevitably, is owed Okuyama Shunzô. For more than 25 years, he was a close friend and mentor. He loved good food and good company and had a fine discernment of the aesthetic and sensory dimensions of Japanese food and art. A wonderful human being, we have been privileged to know him. Sadly, he passed away during the writing of this book. xvi Acknowledgments Timeline 7000 B.C.E.-Prearistocratic period (for historians, the Jômon, Yayoi, Yamato, 710 C.E. and Kofun eras). Japanese culture gradually moves from a farming/hunting-gathering economy to an agriculture-based state. Pottery and metallurgy are learned, possibly from Korean origins. Staple foods are bulbs, roots, and various types of millet. Rituals related to purity and food offerings to the deities are established and practiced. 531-580 Buddhism is introduced from Korea, along with Korean artisans in ceramics. The King of Paekche in Korea sends an image of the Buddha to Emperor Kimmei. In consequence, the path is set for a cuisine that uses little meat. Buddhist monasteries, in particular, develop their own meatless cuisine, and their cooks exert a great deal of influence on Japanese cooking. 607 First Japanese embassy is sent to China to learn Chinese ways. New forms of food and luxuries are imported from China. 710 onward Start of the aristocratic period with the establishment of a permanent capital at Nara. Rice cultivation based on mainland models commences, and rice meals become a feature of court life. 774-835 Life of Kôbô Daishi, founder of the Shingon Buddhist sect, which helped codify Japanese aesthetic ideas, and who is credited with many miracles, including reviving a dried fish at the site of Mackerel Temple on the island of Shikoku. 794-1185 Historical Heian era. The imperial capital is established at Heiankyô (modern Kyoto). A rich court life develops as the aristocracy in Heian-kyô refines its tastes. Lavish ritual feasts are performed at temples and recorded in novels, diaries, and paintings. 838 Twelfth and last embassy to China. 1180-85 The Gempei War between the Minamoto and the Taira clans of warriors brings about the end of the aristocratic period; warriors establish a political capital at Kamakura, near modern Tokyo. The start of the samurai period brings with it a more austere aesthetic in art as well as in food. 1480-1568 The Sengoku (Civil War) era. 1542 or 1543 Portuguese arrive at Tanegashima and introduce Western firearms. Subsequently, as more Europeans arrive, the namban (sweets using lots of egg yolks and sugar, such as kasutera; meat cookery; and tempura deep frying) cooking styles are popularized; these styles gradually spread to the capital. New vegetables such as sweet potatoes and peppers are introduced to the Japanese, probably by Spanish visitors from the Americas. 1585? The tea ceremony rules are codified by Sen-no-Rikkyu (1522-91). Sen also lays the foundation for kaiseki-style cuisine, based partly on Buddhist temple cooking styles. 1600-1868 Historical Tokugawa (or Edo) era. Power is assumed by the Tokugawa clan. The political capital is moved to Edo. During this period, Japan is secluded and no foreigners are allowed to live in the country, nor are Japanese allowed to leave it. As a consequence, Japanese food customs develop and mature with minimal influence from other cuisines. 1868-1912 Historical Meiji era. The emperor returns as ruler, and the imperial capital is moved to Edo, which is renamed Tokyo. Start of the modern period as Japanese society introduces industrial and other forms of technology. First beef stew restaurant is opened in Tokyo. A brewery is established in Yokohama by Americans, which becomes the forerunner of the Kirin beer company. Bread becomes common and is even requisitioned by a rebel army in the first years of the era. 1870 Bread is publicly sold by the many bakeshops that now open in Yokohama and Tokyo. Ice cream is first sold in Yokohama, and the first Western food restaurant opened in Yokohama. 1873 The first railway in Japan between Shimbashi and Yokohama opens, and Emperor Meiji tries beef, giving a boost to meat con-xviii Timeline sumption and the opening of the first Western-cooking restaurant in Tokyo. The first Japanese winery opens and Western wine is sold to the public. The first "station box lunch" (ekiben) is sold at Utsunomiya Station, starting a culinary tradition that continues today. A coffee specialist shop opens in Tokyo, influenced in part by the popularity of coffee as a hot drink among Japanese soldiers stationed in northern Hokkaido. 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. First defeat of a European power by a non-European one as the Japanese fleet sinks the Russian Far-East Fleet in Tsushima Straits. Women's magazines start publication and introduce to the public menus, recipes, and new ways of cooking. Calpis fermented milk drink manufacturing and sale creates serious popular interest in milk products. The ministry of education starts a school lunch program to combat child malnutrition. Outbreak of war with China. Hinomaru (Rising Sun) lunch box becomes a fad to display patriotism and support the war effort. Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor starts the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, rice shortages and rationing become common. Potatoes are introduced as a substitute for rice for many people.

For the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic Australia had restricted national-borders. Tasmania, Australia's island-state, added addition restrictions to its state borders. National and state controls had significant impacts on tourism and hospitality, especially culinary tourism. The state of Tasmania attempt to stimulate the sector with vouchers for Tasmanians to travel within the state. The opening of borders to interstate travelers has been quite disruptive, causing an increase in Covid-19 cases, affecting business and consumers. Additionally, many Tasmanians have limited their activities, although restrictions have been lifted. In this piece I trace our experiences, as a family living in Hobart during the pandemic, alongside those of Tasmania.

Preface xi context: the historical and geographical factors that have shaped Japanese food. Chapter 2 shifts to a closer examination if the various major components of this cuisine. We discuss the primary foods: the rice, soybean paste, and stock that appear at virtually every meal, and the other major food items used. Chapter 3 covers who prepares food and how it is prepared: the various cooking methods that make up the repertoire of the Japanese cook. Chapter 4 presents the different types of Japanese meals. Japanese eat out a great deal, and chapter 5 concentrates on the various types of restaurants, some of which serve food that is difficult or complex to make even for a Japanese housewife and is, therefore, rarely encountered, even in the Japanese home. Chapter 6 examines foods served for festive occasions and on special days and continues to explore the dynamic area of aesthetics in Japanese food. Finally, chapter 7 looks at the modern Japanese diet and nutrition. Throughout the book, the reader will find recipes that complement the narrative. These are not intended to compete with the many fine cook-xii Preface Preface xiii It's always a pleasure to work on a subject that one is passionate about. Besides our own love of Japanese food and cooking, preparing this book has taught us a great deal. The book, however, would not have been possible without the help of many people. Ken Albala, the series editor, first proposed that we tackle this subject during a meeting of the annual Oxford Food Symposium, and we are grateful to him for the opportunity. Thanks are also due Wendi Schnaufer at Greenwood Press for encouragement and reading the manuscript before its completion. We are also grateful to the members of the Oxford Food Symposium for informal advice and criticism (often otherwise unacknowledged) during the writing of the book. We are grateful to the many members of the H-Japan and H-Asia Internet discussion lists, who came through with suggestions and obscure bits of data we were unable to track down. Oren Ashkenazi deserves thanks for helping translate and select items for inclusion, as do Erez and Maayan Ashkenazi for judgmental and informed tasting of the recipes and dishes mentioned here. Chef Rob Shipman, who afforded us a glimpse behind the scenes of a modern Japanese kitchen and who proves every day that Japanese food has become international, gave encouragement to the idea that we can all learn from Japanese cuisine. The Japan Foundation provided money, over a period of some years, for research in Japan, and we are, as always, in their debt. The Ajinomoto Food Institute in Tokyo gave us free run of their wonderful library, for which we thank them again. We are also grateful to the libraries and librarians of the School of Oriental Studies in London, and Gyosei College in Reading, UK, who were as helpful as always. A great deal of thanks is owed to the many chefs, researchers, and friends in Japan who, over many years of research, have offered us guidance and encouragement as we explored the world of Japanese food. Many of these are anonymous, some we only met fleetingly. We are obliged to all. Our greatest debt, inevitably, is owed Okuyama Shunzô. For more than 25 years, he was a close friend and mentor. He loved good food and good company and had a fine discernment of the aesthetic and sensory dimensions of Japanese food and art. A wonderful human being, we have been privileged to know him. Sadly, he passed away during the writing of this book. xvi Acknowledgments Timeline 7000 B.C.E.-Prearistocratic period (for historians, the Jômon, Yayoi, Yamato, 710 C.E. and Kofun eras). Japanese culture gradually moves from a farming/hunting-gathering economy to an agriculture-based state. Pottery and metallurgy are learned, possibly from Korean origins. Staple foods are bulbs, roots, and various types of millet. Rituals related to purity and food offerings to the deities are established and practiced. 531-580 Buddhism is introduced from Korea, along with Korean artisans in ceramics. The King of Paekche in Korea sends an image of the Buddha to Emperor Kimmei. In consequence, the path is set for a cuisine that uses little meat. Buddhist monasteries, in particular, develop their own meatless cuisine, and their cooks exert a great deal of influence on Japanese cooking. 607 First Japanese embassy is sent to China to learn Chinese ways. New forms of food and luxuries are imported from China. 710 onward Start of the aristocratic period with the establishment of a permanent capital at Nara. Rice cultivation based on mainland models commences, and rice meals become a feature of court life. 774-835 Life of Kôbô Daishi, founder of the Shingon Buddhist sect, which helped codify Japanese aesthetic ideas, and who is credited with many miracles, including reviving a dried fish at the site of Mackerel Temple on the island of Shikoku. 794-1185 Historical Heian era. The imperial capital is established at Heiankyô (modern Kyoto). A rich court life develops as the aristocracy in Heian-kyô refines its tastes. Lavish ritual feasts are performed at temples and recorded in novels, diaries, and paintings. 838 Twelfth and last embassy to China. 1180-85 The Gempei War between the Minamoto and the Taira clans of warriors brings about the end of the aristocratic period; warriors establish a political capital at Kamakura, near modern Tokyo. The start of the samurai period brings with it a more austere aesthetic in art as well as in food. 1480-1568 The Sengoku (Civil War) era. 1542 or 1543 Portuguese arrive at Tanegashima and introduce Western firearms. Subsequently, as more Europeans arrive, the namban (sweets using lots of egg yolks and sugar, such as kasutera; meat cookery; and tempura deep frying) cooking styles are popularized; these styles gradually spread to the capital. New vegetables such as sweet potatoes and peppers are introduced to the Japanese, probably by Spanish visitors from the Americas. 1585? The tea ceremony rules are codified by Sen-no-Rikkyu (1522-91). Sen also lays the foundation for kaiseki-style cuisine, based partly on Buddhist temple cooking styles. 1600-1868 Historical Tokugawa (or Edo) era. Power is assumed by the Tokugawa clan. The political capital is moved to Edo. During this period, Japan is secluded and no foreigners are allowed to live in the country, nor are Japanese allowed to leave it. As a consequence, Japanese food customs develop and mature with minimal influence from other cuisines. 1868-1912 Historical Meiji era. The emperor returns as ruler, and the imperial capital is moved to Edo, which is renamed Tokyo. Start of the modern period as Japanese society introduces industrial and other forms of technology. First beef stew restaurant is opened in Tokyo. A brewery is established in Yokohama by Americans, which becomes the forerunner of the Kirin beer company. Bread becomes common and is even requisitioned by a rebel army in the first years of the era. 1870 Bread is publicly sold by the many bakeshops that now open in Yokohama and Tokyo. Ice cream is first sold in Yokohama, and the first Western food restaurant opened in Yokohama. 1873 The first railway in Japan between Shimbashi and Yokohama opens, and Emperor Meiji tries beef, giving a boost to meat con-xviii Timeline sumption and the opening of the first Western-cooking restaurant in Tokyo. The first Japanese winery opens and Western wine is sold to the public. The first "station box lunch" (ekiben) is sold at Utsunomiya Station, starting a culinary tradition that continues today. A coffee specialist shop opens in Tokyo, influenced in part by the popularity of coffee as a hot drink among Japanese soldiers stationed in northern Hokkaido. 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. First defeat of a European power by a non-European one as the Japanese fleet sinks the Russian Far-East Fleet in Tsushima Straits. Women's magazines start publication and introduce to the public menus, recipes, and new ways of cooking. Calpis fermented milk drink manufacturing and sale creates serious popular interest in milk products. The ministry of education starts a school lunch program to combat child malnutrition. Outbreak of war with China. Hinomaru (Rising Sun) lunch box becomes a fad to display patriotism and support the war effort. Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor starts the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, rice shortages and rationing become common. Potatoes are introduced as a substitute for rice for many people.

Students of kabuki are inevitably faced with the conundrum of how best to handle the vast corpus of woodblock-printed materials devoted to the early-modern theater. While one might begin with the rare playscript (when available), what such scripts inevitably present is an idealized performance. By contrast, woodblock-printed theatrical texts-particularly illustrated ones-would seem to provide a better collective glimpse, however kaleidoscopically mediated, of actual performances: an ephemeral world that now exists as much in the imagination, or in shards of performance traditions, as it does in the texts themselves. Be they one-off pictures or lengthy illustrated booklets, such theatrical texts may not provide anything approaching verisimilitude (let alone aim for it). Yet aside from this obvious complication, another issue resides in the assumption that kabuki, as the center of popular culture, is what is being reflected. To be sure, kabuki represents a major popular cultural center, and an extremely vital one at that. Yet to claim that only one such center existed during Japan's Edo period (1600-1868), when cultural hybridity was the rule rather than the exception, and the various literary, poetical, pictorial, and performative arts routinely crossed generic lines to a vertiginous degree, is to risk over-determination. This obtains particularly to that grand hall of mirrors that was the floating world of popular culture, where not only kabuki theaters, but also pleasure quarters, and the often disregarded commercial street spectacle (misemono 見世物), are all reflected in each other. Indeed, it may be impossible to fully isolate any one of these from the other two in the triad. This imbrication is evident in the very origins of kabuki itself, in which, on the dawn of the seventeenth-century riverbanks of Kyoto, the dancer Izumo no Okuni 出雲の阿国 combined outrageously sensual,

As Nancy K. Stalker (2018) points out, in recent years food in Japan has established itself as a fundamental feature of national and local identity and became one of Japan's most influential cultural brands. An intriguing example is the B-kyū gurume boom, the celebration of creative versions of typical comfort food, intertwined with the obsession for local traditions. Such processes are reflected in representations of food in media and arts: contemporary culture plays a fundamental role in shaping but also in connoting food culture with new meanings. The aim of this paper is to analyze the construction and narration of contemporary Japanese food culture in one of the most recent and successful franchises, Shin’ya Shokudō, the popular manga by Abe Yarō, which inspired the Netflix series that enjoyed unexpected international success in 2017.

Psychological effects can be greatly influential for the foodservice industry, especially in menu design. Presenting dish pictures is a common practice on menus, but because of the psychological contagion effect, this practice could decrease consumers’ evaluations of dishes, sometimes without the awareness of consumers, let alone restaurant managers. This research aims to explore the potential threats of a psychological contagion by considering how dishes that make consumers feel uncomfortable can affect their evaluations of dishes located nearby. It further examines how a psychological contagion can be attenuated when a visual boundary is placed between a discomfiting dish and a target dish. The results demonstrate the occurrence of psychological contagion in menu design. The interaction between psychological contagions and visual boundaries suggest that the psychological contagion can be attenuated through visual boundaries.

Food culture and dining patterns can, in any society, be read with regard to the history of food, social structures, economic choices, culinary techniques, food knowledge and even identities, habits and perception of comfortableness of its members and time. How then do migrants and diaspora communities translate the culinary practice into which they were socialized in their home communities into their new lifestyles and ways of eating? This article starts from the idea that autonomy over food is a major issue for migrants and their integration into new contexts. It is argued that through looking at the materially and culturally shaped body, at bodily practices of dining as well as at their becoming entangled in a new social and technical space, the preservation andlor transformation of habits may be studied and literally read as expressions of migrants' search for new identities and orientation. Food knowledge and culinary practice is revealed as the repertoire of migrants in th...

The aim of the paper is to explore the emergence of new women’s domestic narratives of cooking and modern family life which accompanied the growth of consumer culture in Japan. Japanese haute cuisine had been largely produced by professional chiefs who via the patriarchal apprentice system, but began to be democratized in the late nineteenth century. The first Japanese cooking school started in 1882 attracted the higher class women. Cooking began to be seen as a prestigious form of knowledge and status symbol. Around 1887, the influential Meiji reformers and other intellectuals presented the modern family as a sanctuary based on greater intimacy between the couple with the emphasis on the home (houmu or Katei) as opposed to the patriarchal conservative family system (ie). Women became seen as the domestic managers of modern family life with the key duty to produce and maintain healthy citizens, which fitted into the national project. In this sense, cooking become designated as scien...

The aim of the paper is to explore the emergence of new women's domestic narratives of cooking and modern family life which accompanied the growth of consumer culture in Japan. Japanese haute cuisine had been largely produced by professional chiefs who via the patriarchal apprentice system, but began to be democratized in the late nineteenth century. The first Japanese cooking school started in 1882 attracted the higher class women. Cooking began to be seen as a prestigious form of knowledge and status symbol. Around 1887, the influential Meiji reformers and other intellectuals presented the modern family as a sanctuary based on greater intimacy between the couple with the emphasis on the home (houmu or Katei) as opposed to the patriarchal conservative family system (ie). Women became seen as the domestic managers of modern family life with the key duty to produce and maintain healthy citizens, which fitted into the national project. In this sense, cooking become designated as scientific and rational, a part of women's domestic practice. With the growth of urbanization and industrialization in the 1900s, the new middle class modern family become presented as the ideal consumption unit. At the same time, the expanding commercial women's magazines started to provide, not only new recipes, but also new knowledge about aspects of food culture and lifestyle. Cooking became commercialised and popularized as systematised domestic knowledge as well as being seen as a form of home entertainment as part of a new consumer lifestyle. I will explore the relationship between wider social and cultural change and the configuration of cooking discourses in order to illustrate how cooking as a domestic banal practice and set of experiences was re-and de-contexualised in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, and the development of consumer culture and the emergence of domestic and vernacular aesthetic sensitivities late 19 th century Japan.

Kibyōshi is a literary genre representing a comic style, published between 1775 and 1806 in Edo. The genre offered social caricature which was wrapped in a black-and-white picture book. The main reader strata were the members of Edo’s chōnin and bushi society. The theme of this dissertation is the kibyōshi on the topic of Kansei reforms. This type of kibyōshi were published between 1788 and 1790, and contained topics referring to political tendency and the social insecurity of the era, beside depictions of political leader, Matsudaira Sadanobu. The dissertation examines the genre in a complex research and places the reform era’s kibyōshi in a historical, literary, and social context while using the specifically cited 18 publications and other related sources from the Kansei and later eras. The secondary goal of this dissertation is the examination of the possibilities of Hungarian translation through a translation of a complete kibyōshi.
The research problem of the doctoral dissertation based on the review of the research history is as follows. Previous research accept, more or less, that these types of the so-called Reform-period’s kibyōshi had an intent to criticize the Kansei reforms and its leader, Matsudaira Sadanobu, and that was the reason why they were suppressed and the bushi comical fiction writers were forced to retire by their lord from writing additional kibyōshi.
After a thorough examination of the available sources and social history, this dissertation found this picture problematic at three points: First, misunderstood political ‘critique’ in gesaku. Second, the interpretation of Edo-style feudal society according to Western-style feudal society. Third, using Western literary terminology while interpreting Japanese literature. Along these three points, this doctoral dissertation raises the need to re-evaluate the ‘critical’ side of reform related kibyōshi, to negotiate and place the genre according to the values of Edo era’s Japanese society, and to interpret the nature of the genre with Japanese early-modern concepts instead of Western concepts.

As more scholars enter the field of Japanese food history, we are all becoming aware of how much more there is to learn. Our progress rests on the availability of primary sources which are plentiful for some topics but nonexistent for others, especially for premodern Japan (before1868). This essay explores several “known unknowns,” instances when my own research on sake, recipes, and restaurants faced unanswered questions due to a lack of sources. I also touch briefly on meat eating in premodern Japan, which is another longstanding issue of debate in food history.

Culinary borrowings are so common as to seem trivial, and yet they are consequential for many of the actors concerned. People’s livelihoods, professional status, and social identity may be tied to their stake in the defining boundaries of culinary cultures. When dominant groups or powerful actors such as multinational corporate chains adopt or reinvent the cuisine of weaker and marginal groups, it may be regarded as cultural appropriation. However, the definition of the situation becomes more complicated when multiple weak and marginal actors compete over ownership of a cuisine. This article discusses how Japanese and other Asian migrant actors participate in grassroots culinary politics surrounding definitions and uses of Japanese cuisine in the context of a Japanese food boom in Europe. It shows how the “borrowed power” of one migrant group may threaten the status and even livelihoods of the foundational stakeholders in a culinary field.

Free download link https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ABAQZUCZHUXDHEJANQDY/full?target=10.1080/1683478X.2020.1774960

Sweet potato consumption was high in Japan during the food shortage following World War II. What was once a substitute for rice, the staple food, has now come to be used as a vegetable or snack food. Though consumption of sweet potato is today relatively low, and most people eat sweet potato a limited number of ways, there is available a large repertoire of sweet potato products both traditional and modern. This versatile food, which has had a stigma attached to it, continues to make its presence felt in a variety of ways in the Japanese diet.

Part 2 of two parts of a paper which discusses some anthropological problems concerned with the introduction of the sweet potato into Japan, how it was first used, how its use spread, and the influence it had upon the culture. Even though the sweet potato was introduced into Japan relatively late in the country's history and constituted only a minor part of the national diet during normal times, this paper can only scratch the surface of the evolving role of sweet potatoes in the culture of the Japanese. The attempt has been made here to introduce just a few of the historical anthropological problems involving the sweet potato since its probable introduction into Japan at the beginning of the seventeenth century until roughly the end of the nineteenth century, a time spanning the Edo period.

Perhaps in the 1850s, a physician named Harada (pseudonym Banraido Kiyufuku) from Kii Province (Wakayama Prefecture) was sent to Edo on a turn of duty. During his stay in the shogun’s capital Harada composed what may be counted as an example of early modern urban ethnography. The author begins with a summary of the physical and built environment of the city and then moves to descriptions of the social world, commodities (especially foodstuffs), language, and customs and habits of the populace. Although it does not present a systematic treatment of the metropolis, his writing supplies an unusually discerning and detailed account of life in early modern urban Japan.

Taking the documentary film 'A Bite of China' as the subject, this paper reviews the major contents of the film and probe the cultural phenomenon behind it as an anthropological film by the methodology of content-based analysis. The documentary introduces a variety of Chinese culinary cultures in seven episodes mainly including the acquisition of various kinds of food and the culinary techniques of food. The anthropological significance of the Chinese culinary culture is explained. It in-depth discusses why 'A Bite of China' became the most popular documentary film in China at that time from the perspective of film and television shooting technology and post-production.

Given the globalized mass food system, gastronomy today has naturally turned in the direction of anti-industrialization and anti-globalization in search of both nutritionally and gustatorily rich food. Related to this concern with food are also concerns over the local economy, envi- ronment, labor problems, healthy and safe living, and many other issues. At the same time, however, questions on what and how to eat can be easily trivialized into a matter of individual consumption choice. Specifically, food activism in a neo-liberalist economy is always at odds with the need for collective action to reform the food system and the self-responsibility-based logic of consumerism. Whether it is a right or a responsibility to eat well is, therefore, an in- evitable question when considering the nature of food activism today. Through analysis of the shokuiku (Food and Diet Education) campaign launched by the Japanese government, this paper will strive to reveal problems in food activism with an emphasis on the responsibility to eat well. This case will illustrate that when the emphasis is on a person’s responsibility rather than his or her right, food activism fails to recognize existing social inequalities in class and gender that underlie the current food system. Traditionalism, nationalism, and society’s ideas of what constitutes motherly love distract people from the pursuit of true gastronomy.

Taking the documentary film 'A Bite of China' as the subject, this paper reviews the major contents of the film and probe the cultural phenomenon behind it as an anthropological film by the methodology of content-based analysis. The documentary introduces a variety of Chinese culinary cultures in seven episodes mainly including the acquisition of various kinds of food and the culinary techniques of food. The anthropological significance of the Chinese culinary culture is explained. It in-depth discusses why 'A Bite of China' became the most popular documentary film in China at that time from the perspective of film and television shooting technology and post-production.

In 2013, UNESCO added “traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese” (washoku) to its list of intangible cultural heritage. Washoku enshrines the dietary lifestyle of the 1960s, and so fails to acknowledge the challenges of our times in which the world has been so
fundamentally changed by global warming, pollution, and other man-made effects on the environment that some scientists argue we have left the comfortable Holocene era for the Anthropocene age. This article critiques the UNESCO definition of washoku and then draws on precedents in the Japanese food history and in the author’s personal
experience at a Zen temple to imagine how a traditional cuisine might be defined to be more sustainable, environmentally friendly, and inclusive.
Keywords: Japan, washoku, traditional cuisine, Anthropocene, sustainability

Wie empfehlenswert ist die japanische Küche (Washoku)? – Überlegungen zur “traditionellen japanischen Esskultur”, wie die UNESCO sie zertifiziert hat Im Jahre 2013 nahm die UNESCO washoku, die “traditionellen Küchen der Japaner”, in ihre Liste des immateriellen Weltkulturerbes auf. Washoku wird auf die Ernährungskultur der 1960er Jahre festgelegt und verfehlt damit die enormen Herausforderungen unserer Zeit, welche durch globale Erwärmung, Umweltverschmutzung und andere durch den Menschen verursachte, nicht rückgängig zu machende Veränderungen dazu führen, dass man bereits von einem Übergang vom Holozän zum Anthropozän spricht. Der Artikel setzt sich kritisch mit der UNESCODefinition von washoku auseinander und greift sodann auf frühere Phasen der japanischen Ernährungsgeschichte sowie eigene Erfahrungen des Autors, der in einem Zen-Tempel lebt, zurück, um zu erkunden, wie eine traditionelle japanische Küche konzipiert werden könnte, die auf mehr Nachhaltigkeit, Umweltfreundlichkeit
und Zugänglichkeit baut.
Schlagwörter: Japan, washoku, traditionelle Küche, Anthropozän, Nachhaltigkeit

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Urban American dining habits underwent extraordinary transformation in the antebellum period. Most importantly, the new trend of dining out in restaurants steadily infringed upon the domestic circle as more and more Americans from all socioeconomic backgrounds began to rely on restaurants to feed them. This paper examines the anxieties this new trend inspired among urban middle-class Americans, who had begun to champion the domestic ritual of the family meal as a salve for the ills of a consumer-oriented society. While mid-century domestic advisors ultimately failed to halt the trend of dining out the effects of their jeremiads against restaurants can still be seen today in the romanticized, therapeutic image the family meal continues to hold in America and the often-repeated disparagements against the modern commercial food industry.

Japanese restaurant cuisine is now prevalent in markets around the world, from large cities to small towns. Our research project develops a mobilities perspective to represent the transnational spread of Japanese cuisine. We emphasize that the organization of the Japanese culinary field is centered in global cities which are the hubs of the local networks through which ideas, producers and products flow. Non-Japanese ethnic networks are especially important in spreading Japanese cuisine in low-cost forms away from urban centers. Migrant Japanese entrepreneurs remain significant innovators, especially in global food cities such as New York.

James Farrer, Chuanfei Wang, David Wank, Mônica R. de Carvalho, Christian Hess, Lenka Vyletalova. 2017. “Japanese Culinary Mobilities Research: The Globalization of the
Japanese Restaurant.” Foods & Food Ingredients Journal Japan, Vol. 222, No. 3, 257-66.

After the March 11, 2011 earthquake which triggered a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Chinese consumers began avoiding Japanese food products, and the PRC banned all agricultural imports from 10 prefectures near the disaster area. However, rather than a meltdown of the market for Japanese cuisine in China, we see a subsequent boom. The focus of this chapter is on this culinary boom, but the story of the burgeoning Japanese culinary field must also include a consideration of how food safety – along with culinary politics and questions of culinary authenticity – has been framed by domestic narratives and narrators within China. A culinary field comprises a social field of tasters, things tasted, producers of tastes, and other actors with a stake in determining these tastes. While a Japanese culinary field has indeed developed in China, it is one now dominated by Chinese actors, who increasingly determine the direction of its development. In other words, the argument in this chapter will focus on the indigenization of this culinary field, which partly insulates it from geopolitical frictions, serving to frame issues such as food safety within Chinese narratives. These narratives will be discussed more generally in the concluding discussion. The main body of this chapter traces the development of this transnational Japanese culinary field. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Shanghai over the past five years, part of a larger project on international cuisine in that city.

[Japanese cuisine] has basic common characteristics but has great diversity from Hokkaido in northern Japan, to Okinawa in southern Japan, responding to the wide range of geographical conditions and the differences of historical background (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage nomination file). The nomination of washoku, or Japanese cuisine, as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage did much more than safeguard a central part of Japanese traditions, it helped solidify the idea of a common national cuisine in a land with tremendous regional and historical diversity. In Japan's cuisines: Food, Place and Identity, Eric Rath an historian of pre-modern Japan and expert on the construction of traditions makes the case for the many cuisines of Japan. His main goal is to question homogenous representations of Japanese cuisine introducing the reader to a country with cuisines that differ throughout time and geographical areas. In truth, the book's subtitle could have very well be called: Foods, Places and Identities as it aims to uncover the multiplicity of foods, places and identities upon which Japanese cuisine is constructed. For the author, Japanese cuisine is an ideological tool of control and belonging shaped by a specific agenda. In this process, representations of culinary traditions are carefully selected or omitted to produce an idealized picture of traditional cuisine. However, it might be limiting to attribute a unique diet to an entire population as eating practices are far different from ideal representations. For example, rural cuisine is considered an unchanging representation of the past, yet habitants of these peripheral regions take an active role in shaping and reaffirming claim over their culinary repertoire. In this manner, Rath's approach resonates with past studies that seek to uncover the invention of traditions (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992; Vlastos 1998). The chapters of the book all contribute to the author's main argument but they address separate culinary elements and should therefore be briefly presented in this review. In the first chapter, Rath makes the case that although washoku is presented as Japanese cuisine, it is in fact a nationalist ideology. In this chapter, he sets the stage for his book dispelling the monolithic dimension of Japanese cuisine and presenting the regional and historical heterogeneity of the Japanese diet. In chapter two, Rath introduces the reader to cha kaiseki, the course meal served in conjuncture with the Japanese tea ceremony and an essential part of the so-called traditional culinary esthetic. The author presents compelling evidence that this heavily formalized meal has been mistakenly attributed to a single tea master−in part to empower the descendants of his legacy−when it is in fact the product of broader historical developments. In the third chapter, Rath tackles the prominence of rice consumption widely considered a cornerstone of Japanese culture. Using historical data, he unveils a much more diffuse image of daily diet where few people outside of urban dwellers consumed much rice in its polish form opting instead for porridges made of small amounts of rice mixed with other easier to grow staples in ways that are out of use today. The fourth chapter presents

Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan demonstrates that rice’s significance as a foodstuff and as a cultural symbol has been vastly overestimated in the history of premodern Japan. Due to its presumed importance to Japanese civilization, rice and the irrigated agriculture that produced it dominated the attention of historians and archaeologists up to the 1990s.  Scholars since the 1990s have looked to linguistic, archaeological, textual and ethnographic evidence, and Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan refers to these sources and the secondary literature based on them to contextualize rice in the larger subsistence economy.

This paper explores some of the dimensions of a popular Japanese phenomenon: the purchase, presentation, and use of omiyage. Omiyage is a general term for gifts brought by travellers to their stay-at-home neighbours and relatives. These items are most often gifts of food. As a consequence of the demand for these items, a series of industries, both cottage and industrial have emerged in Japan. Here I want to explore the nature of these gifts, and the agents that bring them about and popularise them. In particular, I am interested in exploring the sorts of 'reconstructed memories' that these foods evoke, and how they do so. Omiyage, traditionally, had been composed of long-lasting foodstuffs: pickled, dried, and salted foods. With the advent of modern forms of communication, the foods in omiyage have turned to fresh produce, fruit, and even raw fish. This in turn, has spawned an industry worth millions of pounds. Moreover, because this is an industry, much of the 'uniqueness' elements, both for the producer and for the consumer have vanished. Travellers, notwithstanding the decline of uniqueness, are recreating and reaffirming their unique relationship to the stay-at-homes, as well as to the places they have travelled, by sharing in the consumption of the local items. The sharing of these special foods by those who receives them connects the consumers via the donor to the wider world, and also reaffirms and strengthens the wholeness of Japanese taste, culture, and cuisine. What is, in effect, being memorialised is an imagined Japan which people insist existed in their memories: either their personal memories, or the collective memories of their families, group, or Japan as a whole. Ashkenazi / Omiyage 1