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Theodore
C. Bestor is Professor of Anthropology and Japanese Studies at Harvard
University, and is past president of the American Anthropological
Association’s East Asian Studies Section and the Society for Urban
Anthropology. His many publications include: “Neighborhood Tokyo” (1989),” Doing
Fieldwork in Japan” (co-editor, 2003), and his most recent, “Tsukiji:
The Fish Market at the Center of the World” (2004). His current research
looks at the development of Japanese food culture and his ongoing project
on “Global Sushi” examines the “global reach” of
Japanese seafood markets, their impact on markets and fish industries,
and the popularity of sushi and other types of Japanese foods..
1.
Background
2.
Neighborhood Tokyo: Miyamoto-cho
3.
Tokyo's Tsukiji: The Fish Market and the Center of
the World
4.
Japanese Food Culture: Looking at Sushi as
a Japanese Food and Icon
- Introduction
5.
Issues of Food Safety and Hygiene
6.
Lessons to be Learned from the Field: Linking Kansas
with Japan
7. Concluding
Thoughts
Japanese
Food Culture: Looking at Sushi as a Japanese Food and
Icon
- Introduction: Food in Japanese Culture L: And then your research on tuna lead to your research
on sushi. For those of us who don’t know much
about Japanese cuisine, why is sushi considered traditional
Japanese cuisine? I thought it was a recent invention.
B: That’s a really good question—I think
it is a relatively recent invention. Sushi as we know
it in the United States—that kind of sushi—was
developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Japanese
had been eating various kinds of sushi for a thousand
years or more. Until the 19th and early 20th century,
almost all sushi was involved in fermentation, pickling,
soaking fish in soy sauce or vinegar. It was a means
of preserving fish. It wasn’t fresh fish [with
sushi].
L: The rice was thrown away.
B: Exactly. The biochemical interaction between
the protein and the carbohydrates in the fish would
create
the fermentation process. So you’d throw away
the rice and eat the fish. The fish would be like fish
jerky. Some kind of preserved fish.
So, the idea of fresh sushi--fresh fish being part
of sushi--is a relatively modern idea. So why is it
considered traditional? I think part of it is through
the interaction with the West. It is a style of cuisine
that is so different from what Western cuisine has
traditionally been.
L: Everybody says sushi is Japanese.
B: Yes—everybody including the Japanese say, “This
is Japanese.” So, the distinction between this
food that’s really special—even though
it’s relatively recent—it’s special
so it must be traditionally Japanese.
L: And seafood itself is an essential part of Japanese
cuisine. Not just tuna, but a range of fish, you had
mentioned the symbolism of fish like the tai [sea bream],
because of its red color and—
B: Well, I think fundamentally that it is
natural that since [Japan] is a small island nation
surrounded
by oceans, people are going to pay a lot of attention
to seafood. So, I think seafood has been a major part
of the Japanese diet all the way back to the Manyôshû [Ten
Thousand Leaves, 8th century anthology of Japanese
poems]. So that’s not surprising. And it’s
not surprising that [seafood] is the kind of food that
is the staple food for a society—one that is
so varied by seasons and climate—that lots of
symbolism is going to be attached to it.
Particularly, Americans in the 21st century
are so accustomed to a standardized national diet.
It doesn’t
matter so much if you go to a supermarket in Dallas,
Texas or Missoula, Montana or Gloucester, Massachusetts—you’re
going to find pretty much the same things. And, throughout
the year, you’re going to find pretty much the
same things. But, I suspect, if we went back two or
three generations, our grandparents or our great-grandparents
would not have expected to find the same things everywhere.
So, the regional associations--the notion that you
eat particular dishes at particular times of the year--are
a part of food culture that in the modern world we
are losing. Japan has held on to that more than the
United States has. And there is, I think, simply an
aesthetic appreciation of food in Japan that Americans
don’t have.
L: How is this obsession with food culture in Japan
manifested in everyday life?
B: I’m sure lots of people have seen the “Iron
Chef” which is almost an extreme version of the
Japanese obsession with food. But, if you go to a typical
convenience store in Japan, you’ll find hundreds
of varieties of almost the same thing. They are competing
for shelf space with very minutely different flavoring,
minutely different coloring, and so forth. There is
a very different sense of the consumer being given
ultimate choice. Every chain that you see in a Japanese
food floor, whether it's a convenience store that’s
selling prepackaged foods, or a fresh food, like a
fishmonger or a vegetable store, or whatever—the
degree of care with which food is displayed and handled
is really—
L: Quite extraordinary—
B: It is—you almost expect everybody
in a food store is going to be wearing white gloves.
L: Some of them do.
B: Exactly.
L: In terms of foodstuffs, certain times of the year,
are important—such as the first of the season
[hatsumono]—first catch of the year.
B: Right, but that is not unknown in other
food cultures as well. But there is a high premium,
a high value
placed in Japan on the first something of the year—the
first harvest. And this gets back to the notion of
seasonality and that there is the perfect season for
every product. But in order to understand that and
appreciate that as a consumer, you have to have an
almost connoisseurship level of understanding. [For
example] in this particular region in Japan, peaches
ripen at this time of year—therefore, May, in
such and such prefecture, is the height of perfection.
L: That, of course, the media and television such
as travelogue programs capitalize on this notion.
B: Right—where they go off in search
of [such things as] the perfect peach.
L: Somehow, everything ends up being oishii [delicious]—
B: And the amount of emotion that goes into saying
those things.
Next: Japanese
Food Culture: Looking at Sushi
as a Japanese Food and Icon, cont: Sushi in
the United States
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