“Eating Japan” Annual Lecture Series: Nutrition, Politics, and Profit: The Making of Japanese National Cuisine

February 3, 2005

“Eating Japan” Annual Lecture Series
Nutrition, Politics, and Profit: The Making of Japanese National Cuisine
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka (Centre for Japanese and Korean Studies, Leiden University)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. and Amsterdam Ave.)
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM

This lecture explores the transformation in the food habits of Japanese people that took place from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s, illuminating the way in which it intertwined with the rise of Japanese national identity. It traces the emergence of a nationally uniform diet that replaced localized and diverse practices of pre-modern times. Japanese national cuisine was assembled on a hybrid foundation of pre-modern urban culinary patterns integrated with dietary models selectively imported from European countries and the United States. However, it was by no means a seamless, top-down project. Rather, a national cuisine was given shape by both state initiatives and various independent forces of industrialization, urbanization, and modernization.