Negative Stereotyping Taken out of the Social Context Revisited: the Case of Food
The previous post pointed out that foreign cultures that seem "cool" can an enthusiastic following among foreign audience partially because the negative social contexts that the "cool" culture are not transplanted in foreign countries. There is the example of Chicanos, an inner-city Latino culture in the US often associated with gang violence and poverty, scrubbed clean of all the negatives in Japan, where followers, short of trying to become Chicanos themselves, attempt to channel the supposed central values of honor, respect, love, and family.
The reinvention of foreign cultures in ways that can be palatable for a foreign audience, and thus presents certain degree of commercial value, is particularly significant with food. Food, after all, is easy to scrub out the negatives. Unlike cultural norms, food can be presented without any human aspect, devoid of the supposed sociocultural backgrounds that describe their origins, elements that have to exist for cultural norms no matter how hard certain cultural importers attempt to minimize their importance while importing them to another country.
Food, on the other hand, is just products that look and taste good. Sure, one can make the effort to learn about where they come from and how they are made, but even without knowing anything about the background of the food itself, people can enjoy them for their simple culinary value. The ease with which food can be detached from the cultures where they come from make them even easier than a whole set of cultural norms, like those of Chicanos, to be imported to a foreign culture that know little about the culture that produced the food in the first place.
But in the modern business of selling food, atmosphere has become just as important as the food itself. People do not simply demand the food to taste good. For good restaurants to survive, they must also package the exteriors and interiors of their physical locations in a way that attract people to sample the food in the first place. Without creating some level of comfort for patrons while dining, it is perceived that the food still will not sell to an upmarket clientele from whom the biggest profits can be made. In a culinarily competitive city like Tokyo, such principle is especially applicable.
In striving to create that comfortable physical ambiance for patrons to enjoy food, the biggest advantage that foods of foreign origin has is the foreign culture from which the food come from. Eateries peddling foreign foods have no qualms about reminding the cultural origins of the food in decor. Indian restaurants with Taj Mahal posters, Persian ones with carpets, Chinese ones with red lanterns, Italian ones with pictures of Venetian canals are all very obvious examples. Obvious national symbols are culturally benign and easily identifiable, making them safe but not so exciting way of signaling ethnic authenticity to diners.
For foods that come from more specific, and sometimes not so wholeheartedly positive backgrounds, such benign cultural signaling does not work, or might even backfire. A good example is American-style fast food pizza. Unlike authentic Italian pizza, it does not have the label of gourmet food, and instead is often labeled an unhealthy culinary indulgence with too much fat and sodium. Its cheap price in the origin country makes it a staple of poor people and stressed businessman on the run, hardly the kind of foreigners that any respectable restaurant-goers in another cotr would like to emulate.
Yet, because the pizza thrives in low-income neighborhoods that are home to "cool" street cultures, it can use the same strategy followers of Chicano culture used to make itself more popular in entirely foreign lands like Japan. Of course, clientele liking the food is important, but what is more important is to convey the idea that to like the food (or at least pretend to like it) is to become part of a "cool" culture. In other words, to consume the food of a particular culture is interpreted as a entry or a gateway into the culture itself, enabling further exploration and attachment to that culture.
Hence, to provide that image, a place that sells American-style pizza would focus so much on recreating the authentic environment of the American inner-city neighborhood within the restaurant itself, choosing to put in wooden benches, metal stairs, retro-looking counters, and even free newspaper dispensers. Such focus on the physical look provide the ability for clientele to imagine themselves being temporarily placed in a "cool" foreign cultures, and the act of eating authentic American street-style pizza is the central action enabling that temporarily cultural transport.
For foreign foods that seek to tap into burgeoning culinary markets of the countries, the success of the American-style pizza parlor can be a good lesson on marketing. The food itself does not need to be highly refined (American street pizza certainly is not). Better investment is in creating a holistic environment for people to enjoy a foreign setting, of which the food is only one element of the entire experience. By putting in the effort to make the culture seem "cool," then the food that is prominent in the culture would automatically also take on the characteristic of "coolness."
The reinvention of foreign cultures in ways that can be palatable for a foreign audience, and thus presents certain degree of commercial value, is particularly significant with food. Food, after all, is easy to scrub out the negatives. Unlike cultural norms, food can be presented without any human aspect, devoid of the supposed sociocultural backgrounds that describe their origins, elements that have to exist for cultural norms no matter how hard certain cultural importers attempt to minimize their importance while importing them to another country.
Food, on the other hand, is just products that look and taste good. Sure, one can make the effort to learn about where they come from and how they are made, but even without knowing anything about the background of the food itself, people can enjoy them for their simple culinary value. The ease with which food can be detached from the cultures where they come from make them even easier than a whole set of cultural norms, like those of Chicanos, to be imported to a foreign culture that know little about the culture that produced the food in the first place.
But in the modern business of selling food, atmosphere has become just as important as the food itself. People do not simply demand the food to taste good. For good restaurants to survive, they must also package the exteriors and interiors of their physical locations in a way that attract people to sample the food in the first place. Without creating some level of comfort for patrons while dining, it is perceived that the food still will not sell to an upmarket clientele from whom the biggest profits can be made. In a culinarily competitive city like Tokyo, such principle is especially applicable.
In striving to create that comfortable physical ambiance for patrons to enjoy food, the biggest advantage that foods of foreign origin has is the foreign culture from which the food come from. Eateries peddling foreign foods have no qualms about reminding the cultural origins of the food in decor. Indian restaurants with Taj Mahal posters, Persian ones with carpets, Chinese ones with red lanterns, Italian ones with pictures of Venetian canals are all very obvious examples. Obvious national symbols are culturally benign and easily identifiable, making them safe but not so exciting way of signaling ethnic authenticity to diners.
For foods that come from more specific, and sometimes not so wholeheartedly positive backgrounds, such benign cultural signaling does not work, or might even backfire. A good example is American-style fast food pizza. Unlike authentic Italian pizza, it does not have the label of gourmet food, and instead is often labeled an unhealthy culinary indulgence with too much fat and sodium. Its cheap price in the origin country makes it a staple of poor people and stressed businessman on the run, hardly the kind of foreigners that any respectable restaurant-goers in another cotr would like to emulate.
Yet, because the pizza thrives in low-income neighborhoods that are home to "cool" street cultures, it can use the same strategy followers of Chicano culture used to make itself more popular in entirely foreign lands like Japan. Of course, clientele liking the food is important, but what is more important is to convey the idea that to like the food (or at least pretend to like it) is to become part of a "cool" culture. In other words, to consume the food of a particular culture is interpreted as a entry or a gateway into the culture itself, enabling further exploration and attachment to that culture.
Hence, to provide that image, a place that sells American-style pizza would focus so much on recreating the authentic environment of the American inner-city neighborhood within the restaurant itself, choosing to put in wooden benches, metal stairs, retro-looking counters, and even free newspaper dispensers. Such focus on the physical look provide the ability for clientele to imagine themselves being temporarily placed in a "cool" foreign cultures, and the act of eating authentic American street-style pizza is the central action enabling that temporarily cultural transport.
For foreign foods that seek to tap into burgeoning culinary markets of the countries, the success of the American-style pizza parlor can be a good lesson on marketing. The food itself does not need to be highly refined (American street pizza certainly is not). Better investment is in creating a holistic environment for people to enjoy a foreign setting, of which the food is only one element of the entire experience. By putting in the effort to make the culture seem "cool," then the food that is prominent in the culture would automatically also take on the characteristic of "coolness."
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