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The mold kōji (Aspergillus oryzae) contributes to the sweetness of sake and plays a vital role in alcoholic fermentation and in the creation of Japanese foodstuffs like miso and soy sauce. While scientists are uncovering kōji’s genetic past, the mold’s history is also told in the records of early modern (1600–1868) sake brewers, who may not have understood they were using microorganisms but managed to develop sophisticated means of cultivating the filamentous fungus and comprehended well its impact on the taste of their beverages. A section from The Idiot’s Guide to Sake Brewing (Dōmō shuzōki), completed in 1688 and translated here, offers the oldest discussion of how brewers worked with kōji in Japan. When viewed in the context of earlier references, it shows that kōji’s role as a sweetener was historically secondary to its primary function to facilitate alcoholic fermentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a focus on the role of social media, this article examines the ways in which Japanese food is authenticated and popularized as everyday food in Perth, Australia. Preceding the 2000s, Japanese food was scarcely available in Perth; the city with a small Japanese population was relatively far from Japan. In the 2010s, Japanese food, once mainly known as raw fish (sushi, sashimi) and high-end food, has transformed into everyday food, available at eateries, grocery stores, and farmers markets. I argue that the ever-growing popularity of social media allows consumers to exchange their experiences and knowledge of Japanese food and to create their versions of authenticity of the food. Authenticity is subjective and depends on people's perceptions, and people share these perceptions on social media. Based on my fieldwork at Japanese eateries and one of the local farmers markets, as well as analysis of social media, this article illustrates consumers' stories, authenticity, and their impact on Perth's foodscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s, Japanese cooks began to appear in the kitchens of nouvelle cuisine chefs in France for further training, with scores more arriving in the next decades. Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Joël Robuchon, and other leading French chefs started visiting Japan to teach, cook, and sample Japanese cuisine, and ten of them eventually opened restaurants there. In the 1980s and 1990s, these chefs' frequent visits to Japan and the steady flow of Japanese stagiaires to French restaurants in Europe and the United States encouraged a series of changes that I am calling the "Japanese turn," which found chefs at fine-dining establishments in Los Angeles, New York City, and later the San Francisco Bay Area using an ever-widening array of Japanese ingredients, employing Japanese culinary techniques, and adding Japanese dishes to their menus. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the wide acceptance of not only Japanese ingredients and techniques but also concepts like umami (savory tastiness) and shun (seasonality) suggest that Japanese cuisine is now well known to many American chefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In southwestern Okinawa, local residents are reinvigorating their culinary heritage through a clam restoration project that began in 2009. The clams--giant clams, locally known as geera--have declined recently due to overharvesting on the reef. This article examines intersecting notions of heritage and community by contrasting the clam mariculture project with other heritage foods. The clams do not fit within prevalent images of Okinawan foods as nutritious and multicultural, and they are not among the Okinawan tastes that are celebrated outside of Okinawa. For islanders, the clams encapsulate place through their actual taste, the way they are acquired, and the social landscape of their consumption. Amidst the increasing influx of mainlanders in Okinawa, the clams become symbols that distinguish native islanders from newcomers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of globalization, chefs in Kyoto, Japan have worked to protect local food culture and revive the local food economy. Their actions do not constitute "resistance," nor are they simply signs of the persistence of local difference in the context of large-scale changes. Drawing primarily on interviews I conducted with prominent chefs of "traditional" Kyoto cuisine and participant observation at events related to Kyoto cuisine, this article examines chefs' approaches to outside influence and promotion efforts abroad. I pay specific attention to the incorporation of new foreign ingredients into Kyoto cuisine and new efforts to share culinary knowledge with foreign chefs, namely the establishment of a work visa system and the creation of a cookbook series targeted at professional chefs abroad. Kyoto's chefs, this article demonstrates, have been strategically engaging with globalization, actively refashioning the local to try to control it at a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, the Basic Law of Food Education (shokuiku kihon-hō) was enacted in Japan in response to a rise of lifestylerelated conditions and a high dependency on food imports. The enactment of this law was followed by a nationwide food education campaign--referred to as the shokuiku campaign--in collaboration with the ministerial bureaucracy and a number of food-related NGOs. In this article I assess how the Japanese state has revived the historical concept of food education (shokuiku) in the wider context of food governance. Shokuiku originated in the Meiji period (1868-1912) when food education provided nutritional guidelines that sought to enable Japanese citizens to cope with the demands of modernity. These objectives have shifted. The current revival of shokuiku is an anti-globalization force that seeks to improve the nation's eating habits and support ailing rural economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese gastronomy is celebrated justifiably for its harmony with nature and seasonality. Neglected in this celebration are the ideological values and the environmental impact of the gastronomy. Lack of sustainability, degradation of the soil, and industrial practices in agriculture are fundamental to creating Japanese cuisine. In addition, the idea of Japanese food as superior to other nations' cultural practices is rooted in political and historical approaches. How does the culture psychologically balance the idea of harmony with the harmfulness of degradation and ideology?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese gastronomy relies upon seasonality and centuriesold Zen Buddhist principles in methods of cooking, types of ingredients, and colors of food on the plate. But its practitioners and proponents have also mythologized its high-end cuisine. At the same time as Japan was undergoing the most rapid industrialization in history, fantasies about nature, and its role in cooking, developed. These fantasies exist within Japan as well as when its gastronomy is discussed with outsiders to the culture. Long ago, the fantasies served Japan's expansionist goals, and nowadays they contribute to the creation of a global brand--the idea that Japanese food has a native superiority. In addition, the fantasies distract consumers from environmental insult; the talk of Japanese love and respect of nature is at odds with the reality of its industrialization and urban sprawl. When Japanese chefs discuss the ideas behind the food they cook, they can resort to fables, and the psychology of what the food is said to be about has little to do with the pragmatic demands of what goes on in the kitchen. In fact, Japanese gastronomy, as is true of any other national cuisine, has examples of food that represent the nation, but are not rooted in myth. Such food has more to do with cooking than myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several photographs of traditional Japanese houses and home-cooked meals are presented.

This article explains that chef Toshio Tanahashi is a specialist in "shōjin ryōri," vegetarian cookery introduced by Zen Buddhists from China to Japan in the sixth century. It took Tanahashi two years to develop the appropriate reverence for vegetables under the tutelage of shōjin ryōri practitioner, abbess Myodoni Murase.

An interview with kaiseki chef Yoshinori Ishi is presented. She mentions that her look for making things with her hands and love for fishing made her to be involved with food. She states that she became the Japanese Embassy chef in Geneva, who cooks different foods for different countries as well as an omakase cef at Morimoto Restaurant in New York City. She says that a goodness of a restaurants come from the people who work their and the service they provide for their customers.

An interview with restaurateur Catherine de Zagon Louy is presented. When asked how much of the food served at the Brooklyn, New York restaurant Locanda Vini e Olii is Tuscan, she replies that sometimes the meals are reinterpretations of traditional foods. Louy states that simplicity in Italian cooking is important and a dish shouldn't contain more than four main ingredients. If Louy didn't have to work, she would like to go to Japan and learn Japanese cooking.

Recalls the author's experience in cooking a Japanese meal for her neighbor, Julia Child, a celebrity cook. Details of how the author came to befriend Child; Explanation of the history of American cooking by Child; Realization felt by the author of how precious their chance acquaintance had become.