To whose taste?: assessing public policy to authenticate & - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

To whose taste?:

assessing public policy to authenticate & promote Japanese cuisine abroad

Christopher Pokarier

Waseda University

place: food cultures within Japan

• a dynamic ecology of food enterprises, domestic food practices, supply chains,

food media, culinary training, and consumer expectations

• complex mutual interdependence of all these elements
• in relation to washoku & some other food genres (eg. patisserie) a very

discerning domestic market

• ‘washoku’ (Japanese cuisine) defined only through presence of non-Japanese

cuisines (‘chuka’, ‘yoshoku’) with obvious categorical problems

• definitional issues arise primarily when Japanese cuisine is to be showcased

abroad, or to foreigners visiting Japan

cultures of connoisseurship

• ramen connoisseurship as pop culture phenomenon
• manga/anime embrace of connoisseurship & food mastery as

exemplars of Japanese virtues such as perseverance, precision, deference to experience

• themes of going abroad to learn, refining techniques within &

for Japan, world class attainment

• these virtues of culinary attainment go beyond washoku to

patisserie, yoshoku etc

Japanese food abroad

doesn’t take this domestic ecology with it supply chains lacking like other internationalizing industries food media & customer expectations different new sensitivities & sensibilities to address but low risk for experimenting consumers

private entrepreneurship & internationalisation of Japanese cuisine

• domestic Japanese food enterprises were very slow to pursue international

business opportunities

• left a space for foreign entrepreneurs (often immigrants from 3rd countries)

to offer Japan-themed foods commercially

• many of the small Japanese-owned establishments run by individuals with

limited professional experience of the Japanese food industry

• some ‘entry level’ food offerings - such as pork katsu, yakisoba, ramen etc -

have a relatively short history in Japanese cuisine

• by default, such entrepreneurs define, in some foreign consumers’ minds -

Japanese food.

Nobu Melbourne

certification agenda

• growing consciousness from late 1980s within Japanese agricultural policy

circles of foreign quasi-state certification practices, especially French wine appellation system & evolving EU labelling regime

• increased Japanese travel abroad brought awareness of varied quality of

‘Japanese’ culinary experiences abroad

• model of Michelin rating of restaurants, though private character of that

downplayed

• perceived dividend from UNESCO certification: tourism flows to sites
• export promotion goal as domestic economy stagnated
• UNESCO application re ‘washoku’, in response to UNESCO’s criteria

はじめに 日本食は、四季折々の新鮮で豊富な食の恵みの中で、日本の美意識や季節感、外来の食 事・文化も取り入れながら、形づくられてきた。日本食は、日本の長い歴史の中で培われ てきた 世界に誇れる財産であり、これを世界の多くの人々に共有してもらうことは、日本 のイメージを 向上させるためばかりではなく、世界の食文化や食生活の豊かさに貢献する ものである。 今、この日本食は、健康的で理想的な食生活スタイルとして世界的に注目を集め、日本 食レスト ランが世界各地で急増している。日本食レストランは、海外の人々が日本食や使 われる食材、そ こに内包される日本の文化に接する身近な機会を提供している。

(和泉外食産業室長, 3回海外日本食レストラン推奨有識者会議 議事録,平成19年3月16日(金)15:00~16:30, 農林水産省 第2特別会議室)

projecting official narratives abroad about Japanese foodways: beauty, seasonality, healthiness

Japan’s distinctive ingredient-based signature flavours at once a strength & weakness

washoku involves long-supply chains when the fashionable culinary concept is localism

Japan’s domestic ecology of food supply, for centuries, featured regional specialization, marketization & supply chains eventually reached globally: especially with tuna trade for iconic sushi Fukushima crisis reinforces this & undermines simplistic localism= food security logic

http://futureperfect.se/en/registration-nordic-food-localism/

Government trade promotion for the food industry linked to NPO for certification of Japanese abroad

As in content industries promotion abroad, ‘soft power’ goals are subsumed to export promotion, reflecting METI & MAFF roles

but crowd-sourced certification

defining cuisines by distinctive taste signatures

washoku as flavour principles tied to certain ingredients & techniques

Shizuo Tsuji: essence of washoku is essentially gentle application of ..dashi + o-shoyu = celebration of fresh flavours But we identify a broader palette of flavours that impart distinctively Japanese flavour signatures

photo: Adam Johns’ Facebook post of his fresh seasonal sanma sashimi, September 2013

Japanese mass market food design applies distinctive flavour signatures in myriad creative ways

promote Japanese flavour signatures through potato chip events?

alongside more distant foreign flavours made Japanese foreign ingredients add ‘authenticity’

The full range of distinctive Japanese flavour signatures still not widely known abroad Yet an ethos of seasonality, freshness + healthiness, as promoted officially, is not limited to Japan.

Washoku, as a commercially provided dining experience developed over the last century, situates in a broader aesthetics of living. This manifests, at its best, in the design of an entire dining experience; in which seasonality, modesty, & warmth of handworked natural materials are embodied in architectural space, utensils & cuisine.

assessment: policy

• from early 2000s ‘Japan branding’ policy was arguably too narrowly tied to

‘content industries’ & ‘Akiba culture’: focus on food is a good corrective

• Japan had already strong aesthetic ‘brand equity’ & ‘soft power’ in architecture

(of all eras), gardens & religious sites & cuisine

• Japan needs more ‘public goods’ cultural projection, less sectoral export

promotion + perhaps to re-concentrate responsibility in MOFA

• while encouraging domestic Japanese food enterprises to look abroad
• open up Japanese professional kitchens to more foreigners
• to promote a distinctively Japanese ethos, sensibility, & mastery of the full gamut
• f Japanese flavour signatures (a confluence of ingredients, techniques &

acquired ‘sense’)

promoting a food ethos

“Each year we see a number of new people; they are young, fresh-faced, filled with passion and an unbridled sense of curiosity that brings them to our restaurant, eager for a new experience. Here they work alongside our kitchen’s regular staff of twenty-four as part of a three month internship – they get a glimpse into our way of life and we give them an opportunity to become an integral part of our restaurants’ daily

• perations; the foraging, harvesting from our farms, and the opportunity to see ingredients through to the guests. They participate in creating

dishes during our Saturday Night Projects, attend lectures by the Nordic Food Lab and hopefully a seed is planted for understanding seasonality. These dear interns, or stagiers as they are called in the industry nomenclature, are a fundamental part of our trade, and we would certainly not be where we are today without this group of eager students and young chefs volunteering their time. But amidst this cycle of interns that flow in and out of the restaurant every few months, we also sometimes say goodbye to members of our

• staff. So we want to highlight some of them here and show our support in their endeavours. These are people that have dedicated a significant

amount of time (sometimes as much as nine years) to our restaurant. It is also a tribute to a small group of people that have made a special impact here. The noma alumni…” NOMA, COPENHAGEN

food as design?

A Y A K O S U W A ／ 諏 訪 綾 子

‘found design’?

Hoshi gaki (Yamagata)
 Peeled persimmons dried in the sun. (Akita) White radish smoked before pickling.

No one knows the names of the great inventors. We know the names of a few latter-day chefs, but food history - unlike the history of war and violence - is generally a history without names. Whoever developed bread wheat - a complicated, difficult hybrid - benefited humanity more than any named hero; yet we have no clue as to his or her name or language, though we know every detail of arch-villains like Stalin and Hitler. Millions and millions of humble, gentle, caring human beings - farmers and homemakers, innkeepers and famine relief workers, lovers and helpers - gave us the benefit of their insight, brilliance, creativity, and labor. To the familiar record of oppression and exploitation, they counterpose a hidden record of generosity, concern and responsibility. We do not know who they were. (Anderson, 2005: 2)

conclusions

• Japan needs more celebrity chefs, backed by innovative culinary media and

effective communication design

• eg. like Tetsuya Wakuda, to achieve the ‘Yotam Ottelinghi effect’
• more private entrepreneurship abroad, like Ippudo
• state action to facilitate young foreign aspirant chefs working in Japan, for

foreign food certifiers to better known Japanese cuisine, & to share the anonymous ‘food design’ of Japanese food ways abroad.

• with time then, the ‘authentic’ will out the ‘inauthentic’ as foreigners develop

their cultural consumption capital (Caves, 2000).