I come from a country where culinary sophistication amounts to adding chives to your potatoes and where a jam sandwich is considered a perfectly acceptable lunch. And I don’t mean a jam sandwich like Fukuoka’s elementary school students have after their main meal: I mean a jam sandwich on its own with maybe a packet of crisps afterwards if you are still hungry or feeling particularly plush.
The longer I spend in Japan though the more I realize the importance of, nay, obsession with food in this country. What is it with the Japanese and food? In the UK foodies are a minority group, like train spotters or football hooligans, while in Japan it seems everyone borders on food fanaticism.
Last month I sent home a magazine for my sister: I wanted to provide her vicariously with a flavor of Fukuoka (she’ll not make it to Japan what with a British pound being worth about as much as a dozen pachinko balls at present), so plumped for a locally published title. The publication in question had 12 pages, yes 12 pages, of photos of people sitting down to eat their dinner alone. No recipes, nothing useful (to my mind), just them and their food. For 12 pages. In these “home cooking files”, as they were called, the attention to detail was striking. Most people had four beautifully presented dishes neatly laid out on a place mat in front of them and one fella, bless him, obviously couldn’t wait for the photographer to line up the perfect shot and had already started wolfing down his rice. And this was supposed to inform, or maybe to entertain us. A man eating his dinner… That’s it.
As a teacher (and I use the word in the loosest possible way) I like to try and broaden the vistas of my students and find out where they would like to visit and what they’d like to do if they went there. The same answers every time: I want to go to Italy to eat pizza, I want to go to New York and eat an American hamburger. Never mind taking in the view from the Empire State Building! When you ask me about NY I imagine museums, world class galleries, neighborhoods filled with character, Central Park, but these students of mine seemed to picture nothing but one Big Apple! And what do they do with the rest of the day, in between mealtimes? I picture them sat slouched, glumly glancing at their watches every few seconds and impatiently awaiting their next opportunity to eat.
Conversely, if I ask any Japanese for advice about traveling within their country the recommendations are always food centric. Osaka? You should eat takoyaki. Sapporo? You have to eat the crab? But what if I don’t want to? You have to eat the crab! If you take a look at these same people’s holiday snaps I’ll wager at least a third will show them grinning with expectation behind their lunch/dinner, or they’ll be almost pornographic close-ups of the local cuisine. I once asked my Japanese tutor where in Japan had the least oishii food. She looked at me with a combination of scorn and pity that made it instantly clear that I was being ridiculous: you idiot, don’t you know that the food is delicious everywhere in Japan? So her eyes seemed to say.
Recently I had some stickers with food pictures to give as prizes to students. A fellow teacher noticed them on my desk and squealed oisshii with such delight that soon half a dozen other teachers were swarming around my desk, all just to get a glimpse of a bowel of ramen! Admittedly it was well-photographed ramen but it was still a picture nonetheless. I genuinely thought for an uncomfortable moment that the science teacher, middle aged, disheveled and looking like he lives off cup noodles was going to peel off a sticker and put it in his mouth. Uma-so they cooed as I sat bewildered.
And yet for all the rich heritage, traditions and variety in Japanese cuisine it is woefully under-served in terms of language to describe it. Only two words, umai and oishii, run the gamut from Asahi to wasabi. For a nation with such a pathological desire for food this seems like a strange dichotomy. Is this abnormal interest healthy? Surely there’s much more to life than this obsession with what you are going to eat. I can’t understand how people can get so excited about something that will happen again in just a few hours’ time! Why waste the energy getting so worked up about it?
I wonder if that magazine would consider featuring me, a broad grin on my face and a large white plate in front of me, upon which lies a beautifully presented raspberry jam sandwich.
By Chris Woodward UK / Teacher
