10.4

BESTOR   Tsukiji  Chapter 4
The Raw and the Cooked

• Seafood is next in line after rice as a dependent in food culture of Japan
  
• things as simple as it’s colors/shapes/myths around prepping 
  
• Tsukiji traders have come about as experts due to the changes of seafood in Japanese cuisine 
  
• Seafood has so many details and attachments (quality, region, holidays, identity etc...)
  
• Tsukiji Market is a reflection of the broader view of distribution/consumption that happens in Japan
  
• Tsukiji Market is controlled by “social institutions and values of capitalism as a cultural system” (effects of cultural, social, political, technological, environmental influence)
  
• Two sides of commidification (economic and cultural)
  
• material circumstances/food are part of  the flow in changing social, political, economic situations (they control production and consumption)
  
• cuisine is tsukiji’s product
  

In Media

• mass media helps pull the development of cuisine along
  
• Japanese consider food origin/agriculture a topic of great interest
  
• as entertainment as well as the political and economic aspects
  
• Travel shows (cuisine shows with celebrities) exposing thin lines between
  
• different cuisines by geography 
  
• culinary nationalism
  

Identity:

• food symbolism have connections to cultural history of Japan 
  
• therefore “defined by what they eat”
  

Authentic:

• “raw seafoods” while that really is just normal food (natural)
  
• as “Japanese” has moved further, increase in imports
  
• govt has to blend imported/domestic rice
  
• food dependency, inferior items (kata)
  
• mass imports: questioning cleanliness in rawness
  
• Aquaculture is increasing because it is stable and more uniform
  
• Japanese agriculture/fisheries are tied to identity in order to protect economic importance
  
• Japan’s demand of seafood and “methods of catching it” are major
  
• environmental criticism (whales) is attacking Japan as a whole 
  
• insecurity of dependence on other countries
  
• Technological advancements ( Industrialization) : “homogenized national fare has gradually replaced regional varied ones” that were only based on whatever was available in that region/and with certain preparation = “westernization”
  
• Freshness still trumps brand name though in other areas supers are taking over
  

Gourmet Boom: 

• “industrial food” is a part of class structure (shifting away from local) 
  
• Edo-mae - nigiri sushi from seafood from Tokyo Bay (“authentic”)
  
• Shift to more seasonal, natural etc... “authentic”
  

Domesticity and Cuisine:

• even “American” chains are so grounded in Japan, it has become a part of the “mass-market taste”
  
• many new appliances - drastic difference between now and 1950s
  
• family culture has shifted as well -
  
• which then shifts the food consumption practices of the “nuclear family”
  
• gender role change 
  
• 7/11 and dept. offer osechi as well house cleaning 
  
• this change separates people from Tsukiji where kata and other knowledge is so key

The impersonal touch:

• relationship between home and food is changing
  
• more “car culture” (eating out)
  
• “eating out boom”
  
• kaitenzushi - tasteless, impersonal, easy (parallel to consumer spending habits)
  
•        now they have better ones
  
• mom and pop shops are disappearing - only single category (fish/sake)
  
• conbinis- has become “local food store” for some
  
• generation/age - has a lot to do with where you will shop, probably depend on your values
  

Time to Eat

• “time defines buyers’ tastes and preferences”
  
• weekends=better food, different hosting situations are a guide to where to eat
  
• seasons and rituals conduct food consumption (rokuyo, calendrical cycle for lucky/unlucky days)
  
• Advertising over actual cultural tradition is what has propelled the ritual food culture
  

Fish Fight Back

•  “ritual memorials” for lives taken for food (even fish)
  
• cruel cuisine” zankoku ryori (serving still living fish)
  
• “horyu” releasing animals back into the wild
  
• “kuyo” apologizing and thanks to fish (memorials appear)
  

Webs of Cuisine
Tsukiji traders: must be knowledgeable, sensitive to holidays/rituals as well as international food dependency situation
 they think only of what the consumers think of the fish (the customer is always right)
“man is an animal suspended in weds of significance he himself ha spun” Clifford Geertz