ABSTRACT
Traveling, food, and eating form a nexus that is inextricably bound up with telling and writing, regardless whether the ‘Other(’s) Food’ is experienced as being exotic, palatable, or disgusting. Such ‘responses’ of the body to food might be perceived as being natural, but they are deeply interwoven with, e.g., cultural, ethical, religious, medical, and economic discourses, rules, and norms, as well as aesthetic considerations. In that respect, discourses on the Other(s’) food and eating in travel texts are not merely articulations of a more or less ‘authentic’ (un)pleasant bodily experience. They often exhibit a significant function in order to defame and denigrate a culture or nation while at the same time underlining one's ‘own’ culture or nation as superior. Based on the reflection of the ineluctable necessity and corporeality of eating, Uta Schaffers explores some of the intricate connections between traveling (bodies), food, eating, and the perception of the Other by focusing mainly on texts of Westerners traveling in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her analysis centers around two exemplary aspects that might reveal the relevance of food and eating for traveling bodies: national politics and disgust.
