Book contents
- Frontmatter
- ‘Japanese culture’: An overview
- 1 Concepts of Japan, Japanese culture and the Japanese
- 2 Japan’s emic conceptions
- 3 Language
- 4 Family culture
- 5 School culture
- 6 Work culture
- 7 Technological culture
- 8 Religious culture
- 9 Political culture
- 10 Buraku culture
- 11 Literary culture
- 12 Popular leisure
- 13 Manga, anime and visual art culture
- 14 Music culture
- 15 Housing culture
- 16 Food culture
- 17 Sports culture
- 18 Globalisation and cultural nationalism
- 19 Exporting Japan’s culture: From management style to manga
- Consolidated list of references
- Index
16 - Food culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- ‘Japanese culture’: An overview
- 1 Concepts of Japan, Japanese culture and the Japanese
- 2 Japan’s emic conceptions
- 3 Language
- 4 Family culture
- 5 School culture
- 6 Work culture
- 7 Technological culture
- 8 Religious culture
- 9 Political culture
- 10 Buraku culture
- 11 Literary culture
- 12 Popular leisure
- 13 Manga, anime and visual art culture
- 14 Music culture
- 15 Housing culture
- 16 Food culture
- 17 Sports culture
- 18 Globalisation and cultural nationalism
- 19 Exporting Japan’s culture: From management style to manga
- Consolidated list of references
- Index
Summary
The conventional meal of Japan comprises four types of food: rice, the staple diet; okazu, secondary components like fish or vegetables; soup called shiru; and tsukemono, vegetables pickled in salt or rice bran. The traditional practice in Japan is for all food to be served on individual plates and bowls at individual, low tables. Unlike typical meals in the West today, where dishes are served chronologically, in Japan it has been common for all dishes to be placed together on a serving tray at the beginning of the meal. This chapter first deals with rice as a significant part of Japanese cultural life and fish as the most important okazu, the two key components of Japan's food culture for both pre-modern and modern Japan. Changing patterns of food culture in and after the Meiji period are then examined, with the concomitant transformation of the dining table. Finally, the chapter presents a model that shows the way in which the Japanese today mix different styles of food, and concludes by discussing issues faced by contemporary Japanese food culture.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture , pp. 300 - 316Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
- 1
- Cited by