The Absurdity of Japanese Determination to Keep Japanese Foods "Authentic" Abroad
At first sight, the program seemed like just another travel-themed variety how all too common on Japanese TV in recent years. A group of entertainers, actors, and comedians alike, watched and commented on a video that showed a Japanese chef traveling around the world, checking out local restaurants, and going through the menus. As it is so often the case, the guests at the TV studio bantered about foreign stereotypes and politely but superficially discussed the exotic nature of countries that they frankly have no wishes to ever step onto in their lifetimes.
However, this particular travel show has taken that regular format and took it to a whole new level. Instead of going to local restaurants at all the exotic locales, the Japanese chef was led to local restaurants serving Japanese foods and was told to comment on the decor of the restaurants and their signature dishes. The audience of the show are treated to sights of the chef grimacing as he puts foods that visually resembles common Japanese dishes, but, if the chef's performances are to be believed, taste absolutely disgusting. The comments on the "disgusting" foods are complemented by shots of "Asian style" interiors that are reminiscent of the Orient but to a Japanese person, looks un-Japanese.
Of course, the show cannot come to a comfortable closure with just lamenting the lack of good Japanese food abroad. At the end of his restaurant visits, the Japanese chef meets the owner of the restaurants he visited and carefully instruct them on the way to properly make Japanese dishes. The episodes invariably end with the restaurant owners following the Japanese chef's instructions carefully, and, often with tears in their eyes, profusely thanking the Japanese chef for coming all the way from Japan to bring the knowledge of how to make true, authentic, great-tasting Japanese dishes.
Watching the show for the very first time, I wonder whether a regular Japanese fan of the show would be aware of the irony behind a Japanese chef going around the world telling foreigners about how to cook Japanese food the "authentic" way. After all, Japan itself is a land of localized foreign cuisines. yoshoku (Japanese style Western food) and Chuka (Japanese style Chinese food) join "Japanese" dishes that had foreign origins like tempura (originally a Portuguese import), chicken Nanban (with tartar sauce), and champon (a noodle soup derived from a Chinese import).
And the Japanese are positively proud of how they can take foreign food and modify it for the local palate. Historical restaurants serving Japanese style foreign foods advertise their ability to garner popularity over decades by studying what their Japanese customers want and continually modifying their recipes to make foreign tastes more accessible for the Japanese. In other words, the story of foreign foods in Japan has been a continued move toward the "inauthentic," regardless of what people in the origin countries of those foreign foods really thought about the process.
In contrast, the TV studio unanimously praised the Japanese chef for going out of his way to show foreigners how Japanese foods are "properly" done. Beneath the praise lies the assumption that Japanese foods modified for the local palates in other countries are fundamentally inferior to the Japanese food in Japan, and more egregiously, for Japanese foods to become more globally well-liked, such inauthentic copies of true Japanese dishes must be destroyed and replaced with the real thing from Japan. Foreigners, in this narrative, ought to be grateful that the Japanese themselves are assisting them with maintaining the authentic.
The Japanese attitude toward Japanese foods abroad and foreign foods in Japan presents a massive contrast. It is difficult to expect the Japanese audience to take kindly to an Indian chef going to a Japanese curry house in Japan and teaching the Japanese chef how to make a "proper" Indian curry. Yet the Japanese audience continues to deny that Japanese foods, like all cuisines that have gone global, can be modified elsewhere to fit the local palate. Belittling the likes of Californian rolls, despite increasing global popularity, continues to be a hobby of the Japanese traveling abroad.
As the number of "authentic" Indian curry houses and Western restaurants continues to grow in Japan, perhaps the Japanese attitude toward the idea of "authenticity" in foods will change. With more chances to compare the authentic and the localized of the same foods in the comfort of their own residential neighborhoods, the average Japanese may have a greater appreciation of the two's relationship, not one of what is better and what is worse, but simply a matter of preference. When enough of such people emerge, then shows that assume Japanese foods from Japan, made by Japanese chefs, are the only "proper" Japanese foods, may soon die out.
However, this particular travel show has taken that regular format and took it to a whole new level. Instead of going to local restaurants at all the exotic locales, the Japanese chef was led to local restaurants serving Japanese foods and was told to comment on the decor of the restaurants and their signature dishes. The audience of the show are treated to sights of the chef grimacing as he puts foods that visually resembles common Japanese dishes, but, if the chef's performances are to be believed, taste absolutely disgusting. The comments on the "disgusting" foods are complemented by shots of "Asian style" interiors that are reminiscent of the Orient but to a Japanese person, looks un-Japanese.
Of course, the show cannot come to a comfortable closure with just lamenting the lack of good Japanese food abroad. At the end of his restaurant visits, the Japanese chef meets the owner of the restaurants he visited and carefully instruct them on the way to properly make Japanese dishes. The episodes invariably end with the restaurant owners following the Japanese chef's instructions carefully, and, often with tears in their eyes, profusely thanking the Japanese chef for coming all the way from Japan to bring the knowledge of how to make true, authentic, great-tasting Japanese dishes.
Watching the show for the very first time, I wonder whether a regular Japanese fan of the show would be aware of the irony behind a Japanese chef going around the world telling foreigners about how to cook Japanese food the "authentic" way. After all, Japan itself is a land of localized foreign cuisines. yoshoku (Japanese style Western food) and Chuka (Japanese style Chinese food) join "Japanese" dishes that had foreign origins like tempura (originally a Portuguese import), chicken Nanban (with tartar sauce), and champon (a noodle soup derived from a Chinese import).
And the Japanese are positively proud of how they can take foreign food and modify it for the local palate. Historical restaurants serving Japanese style foreign foods advertise their ability to garner popularity over decades by studying what their Japanese customers want and continually modifying their recipes to make foreign tastes more accessible for the Japanese. In other words, the story of foreign foods in Japan has been a continued move toward the "inauthentic," regardless of what people in the origin countries of those foreign foods really thought about the process.
In contrast, the TV studio unanimously praised the Japanese chef for going out of his way to show foreigners how Japanese foods are "properly" done. Beneath the praise lies the assumption that Japanese foods modified for the local palates in other countries are fundamentally inferior to the Japanese food in Japan, and more egregiously, for Japanese foods to become more globally well-liked, such inauthentic copies of true Japanese dishes must be destroyed and replaced with the real thing from Japan. Foreigners, in this narrative, ought to be grateful that the Japanese themselves are assisting them with maintaining the authentic.
The Japanese attitude toward Japanese foods abroad and foreign foods in Japan presents a massive contrast. It is difficult to expect the Japanese audience to take kindly to an Indian chef going to a Japanese curry house in Japan and teaching the Japanese chef how to make a "proper" Indian curry. Yet the Japanese audience continues to deny that Japanese foods, like all cuisines that have gone global, can be modified elsewhere to fit the local palate. Belittling the likes of Californian rolls, despite increasing global popularity, continues to be a hobby of the Japanese traveling abroad.
As the number of "authentic" Indian curry houses and Western restaurants continues to grow in Japan, perhaps the Japanese attitude toward the idea of "authenticity" in foods will change. With more chances to compare the authentic and the localized of the same foods in the comfort of their own residential neighborhoods, the average Japanese may have a greater appreciation of the two's relationship, not one of what is better and what is worse, but simply a matter of preference. When enough of such people emerge, then shows that assume Japanese foods from Japan, made by Japanese chefs, are the only "proper" Japanese foods, may soon die out.
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