ABSTRACT
The object of this chapter is to attempt to draw together the disparate threads of what has been said about Japanese food into a coherent comprehensible cultural whole. To do this, it is necessary to reiterate some of the points that have been made previously. Discussing Japanese food culture must be done, effectively in parallel, at a number of levels. Analytically we can separate these levels, but in practice they coexist and impinge on one another. First, at the most basic level is the level of the foodstuffs that are consumed. These foodstuffs are best viewed at a nexus – the Japanese meal – where consumption of food is bound most noticeably by rules of presentation and preparation that produce a cuisine. The presentation and preparation of foods in meals (and other food events) is meaningful in that it is related to events that occur within Japanese society and within the experiences of its members. This relates to a spectrum of behaviours in Japanese society, from the niceties of domestic life and the family and household, to the proprieties of Japanese public life and the individual’s place in it. There is also a dynamic dimension: Japanese society is one undergoing constant change, and it has the reputation of being able to absorb and “domesticate” that change. This is as visible in food as in other aspects of culture. In the changes in the food of Japan in the past century we can find echoes of the changes that have overtaken Japanese society, as well as of the detailed mechanisms by which many of these cultural changes have happened.
