Devouring Japan: Global Perspectives on Japanese Culinary Identity

369 Pages·2018·40.239 MB·English

by  Nancy K. Stalker

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Devouring Japan
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Devouring Japan
Global Perspectives on
Japanese Culinary Identity
Edited by
Nancy K. Stalker
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
Chronology: Japan’s Historical Eras xvii
Introduction: Japanese Culinary Capital 1
Nancy K. Stalker
PART I. JAPAN’S CULINARY
BRANDS AND IDENTITIES
Historical culinary i dentities 33
1. Japanese Food in the Early Modern European Imagination 35
Ken Albala
2. Gifting Melons to the Shining Prince: Food in the Late
Heian Court Imagination 48
Takeshi Watanabe
3. Soba, Edo Style: Food, Aesthetics, and Cultural Identity 65
Lorie Brau
4. The Three Waves (and Ways) of Sake Appreciation in the
West 81
Dick Stegewerns
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culinary n ationalism and Branding 97
5. Washoku, Far and Near: UNESCO, Gastrodiplomacy, and the Cultural
Politics of Traditional Japanese Cuisine 99
Theodore C. Bestor
6. “We Can Taste but Others Cannot”: Umami as an Exclusively
Japanese Concept 118
Yoshimi Osawa
7. Rosanjin: The Roots of Japanese Gourmet Nationalism 133
Nancy K. Stalker
regional and i nternational Variations 151
8. Savoring the Kyoto Brand 153
Greg de St. Maurice
9. Love! Spam: Food, Military, and Empire in Post– World War II
Okinawa 171
Mire Koikari
10. Nikkei Cuisine: How Japanese Food Travels and Adapts Abroad 187
Ayumi Takenaka
PART II. JAPAN’S FOOD- RELATED VALUES
Food and indiVidual i dentity 205
11. Miso Mama: How Meals Make the Mother in Contemporary Japan 207
Amanda C. Seaman
12. Better Than Sex? Masaoka Shiki’s Poems on Food 220
J. Keith Vincent
13. The Devouring Empire: Food and Memory in Hayashi Fumiko’s
Wartime Narratives and Naruse Mikio’s Films 242
Noriko J. Horiguchi
Food anxieties 259
14. Eating amid Affluence: Kaikō Takeshi’s Adventures in Food 261
Bruce Suttmeier
15. An Anorexic in Miyazaki’s Land of Cockaigne: Excess
and Abnegation in Spirited Away 273
Susan Napier
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CONTENTS vii
16. Discarding Cultures: Social Critiques of Food Waste in an Affluent
Japan 287
Eiko Maruko Siniawer
17. The Unbearable, Endless Anxiety of Eating: Food Consumption in
Japan after 3/ 11 302
Faye Yuan Kleeman
Afterword: Foods of Japan, Not Japanese Food 312
Eric C. Rath
Glossary 329
Index 339
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Acknowledgments
In 2013, UNESCO recognized Japanese cuisine (washoku) on its List
of Intangible Cultural Heritage. To commemorate this award, my UT
Austin Japanese Studies colleagues Patricia Machlachlan, Kirsten
Cather, and I decided to host a year-l ong program on Japanese foodways
featuring guest lectures, films, and a conference entitled Devouring
Japan: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Japanese Cuisine and Foodways,
held in February 2014. All of these events were made possible though
a generous grant from the Japan Foundation’s Small Grant Program.
We are also grateful for additional support received from other
sponsors, including the Northeast Asia Council of the Association
for Asian Studies and the Mitsubishi Caterpillar Heavy Industries
Endowment. Papers by many of the scholars who participated in the
conference became the basis for this volume. We also gratefully ac-
knowledge the contributions of scholars who made presentations at
the conference that are not part of the final volume, including Victoria
Lyon Bestor, Robert Hellyer, Barak Kushner, Patricia Maclachlan, Amy
Bliss Marshall, Robyn Metcalfe, Yoneyuki Sugita, R. Kenji Tierney, and
Merry White. Their thoughtful and critical participation helped make
the conference a success. We also wish to thank Mark Metzler, Kirsten
Cather, Robert Oppenheim, Madeline Hsu, Heather Hindman, and
Robyn Metcalfe for chairing panels and offering vital comments and
questions for participants. Staff members from UT’s Department of
Asian Studies, especially Jeannie Cortez and Saleha Parvaiz, provided