Food Education (Shokuiku) and Dr. Hattori

[Hiroyuki]

from http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/scene...218TDY13006.htm

Hattori, who has long advocated greater food education, said that although Japan has been importing many aspects of food culture, it was time Japan exported its own. The panelists agreed with Hattori's comment that the word shokuiku itself could also be a useful export. "Then we could hold an international shokuiku summit in the future," he said.

In June 10, 2005, the Shokuiku Kihon Hou (Basic Law for Food Education) was enacted.

Dr. Hattori is a long-time proponent of shokuiku (food education) and is a member of the Shokuiku Suishin Kaigi (Food Education Promotion Conference).

[Culinista]

Fascinating article, thanks. I wish I had been there.

By weird coincidence, I was at a Barcelona conference this weekend discussing the need to educate outsiders about "authentic" Catalan cuisine in the wake of the El Bulli tsunami. A lot of what is called the "modern Spanish cooking" is deemed to have had heavy influence from Japan--the use of kanten (agar-agar), highly decorated multi-course meals taking after kaiseki, etc., etc.

From my perspective as a Japanese living in the West, despite the skyrocketing interest in Japanese food lately, very few non-Japanese have more than the most superficial understanding of the foundations of Japanese cuisine. When I was a kid in the US, my classmates were utterly grossed out by my mom's lovingly made bento. Now affluent American schools in California have sushi in the cafeteria. But even after 30 years of eating in Japanese restaurants all over America and Europe, I can count on one hand the number of places that know how to cook rice, make dashi, or cut fish.

Except in CA and NY, possibly London, few dishes are well known besides the ubiquitous sushi/tempura/teriyaki, etc--all of which are of relatively modern origin. Even this past weekend in Barcelona, the president of a highly respected Spanish gastronomy association said to me, "There is no such as Japanese cooking, since the Japanese don't cook anything." I should sign him up to the "Daily Nihongo" thread

Here are the barriers I see that stand in the way of greater understanding of the full range of Japanese cuisine outside Japan:

--Few people travel to Japan. Even fewer chefs train in Japan. They think a few months or a couple of years is fine. Any serious Japanese chef would not spend fewer than 10 years in training. I know of only a couple of foreigners who have done that. You would not believe the number of Japanese restaurants run by people who have never been to Japan, patronized by the same.

-Japanese cuisine demands ingredients of a quality rare to find. Either the local fish must be excellent (more and more rare these days everywhere), or you have to import. The good American sushi places fly all their fish from Tsukiji, but even that causes an inevitable deterioration in quality. Most ironic is the case of the excellent CA sea urchin, which is almost 100% exported to Japan, then bought back by CA chefs. Urasawa in LA and Masa in NY each cost more than $500 per person. Few people can afford that. The best non-elite Japanese food I've had in Europe is in Spain, where they are serious about seafood quality even at a popular level. However, on the whole they are not importing good soy sauce and other products that must be bought in Japan. I was surprised by the low seafood quality in Paris, although Parisians would never believe me. I had better sushi in Helsinki than Paris.

-Few people understand the internal logic of Japanese cuisine, particularly the importance of rice and seasonality. Japanese restaurants in the west serve the same menu all the time.

-Very few people--and I include Japanese on this list-make their own dashi. I found it interesting that Ajinomoto was a sponsor of this "Shokuiku" conference, since they are largely responsible for the fast fooding of Japan.

-Japanese food is hard to cook at home for those who aren't used to it. Almost all classes on Japanese cooking are sushi making classes, not home cooking. Therefore, Japanese food abroad is found exclusively in restaurants. Japanese do not eat sushi every day. The health benefits of the Japanese diets lie in home cooking, which is unknown abroad.

"Mogi said interest in Japanese food was clearly rising abroad as shown by an increasing number of Japanese restaurants overseas and the adoption of Japanese food items by various cuisines around the world. "But we now urgently need to establish a system for diffusing correct ideas about Japanese food since there is a lot of misunderstanding about it and misuse of Japanese food ingredients," he said."

However, it's important to remember that it takes time for the nuances of a cuisine to be known abroad. When talking about disseminating cuisine, we have to realize that it's a lot like disseminating language. When it crosses borders to a non-native speaker, it begins with a few random words here and there. Then we graduate to more complex topics. Real fluency is rare.

Sushi/tempura/teriyaki now represent "Japanese" cuisine to Westerners just as spaghetti and meatballs and lasagna represented "Italian" cuisine to Americans in the 1950s. Now we have Tuscan restaurants, Piemonte restaurants--a much more nuanced sensitivity to regional Italian cuisines. But every time I go to say a Tuscan restaurant outside Tuscany, I still get the impression I'm eating in Disney Epcot Center. Any reproduction feels a bit fake or forced.

I disagree with Mogi's idea that it is possible to "correct" the misuse of Japanese ingredients. I think once people like Ferran get hold of an ingredient, there's no stopping them--nor should there be. Look at all the odd uses Japanese have found for mayonnaise. "Sushi" is no longer Japanese--it has passed into the global culinary lingua franca, along with "pizza" and "tapas," inevitably getting bastardized in the process. It also is getting enriched--look at the creation of the California roll or spider roll--now very popular in Japan. Contact always creates both confusion and new ideas.

Incidentally, I don't think many outsiders know just how much commercial, pre-prepared food is consumed in Japan. Or in France, for that matter.

Edited March 11, 2006 by Culinista (log)

[Hiroyuki]

Thank you for your anecdotes. I found them most interesting.

>Few people understand the internal logic of Japanese cuisine, particularly the importance of rice and seasonality.

I couldn't agree with you more.

>Very few people--and I include Japanese on this list-make their own dashi. I found it interesting that Ajinomoto was a sponsor of this "Shokuiku" conference, since they are largely responsible for the fast fooding of Japan.

Like it or not, we live in a world of commercialism, and I must admit I'm a regular user of instant dashi powder.

>Japanese food is hard to cook at home for those who aren't used to it. Almost all classes on Japanese cooking are sushi making classes, not home cooking. Therefore, Japanese food abroad is found exclusively in restaurants. Japanese do not eat sushi every day. The health benefits of the Japanese diets lie in home cooking, which is unknown abroad.

Good point.

>I disagree with Mogi's idea that it is possible to "correct" the misuse of Japanese ingredients. I think once people like Ferran get hold of an ingredient, there's no stopping them--nor should there be. Look at all the odd uses Japanese have found for mayonnaise. "Sushi" is no longer Japanese--it has passed into the global culinary lingua franca, along with "pizza" and "tapas," inevitably getting bastardized in the process. It also is getting enriched--look at the creation of the California roll or spider roll--now very popular in Japan. Contact always creates both confusion and new ideas.

I agree with you. I don't know why some Japanese people suddently turn nationalistic about Japanese ingredients when they use foreign ingredients the way they want.

>Incidentally, I don't think many outsiders know just how much commercial, pre-prepared food is consumed in Japan. Or in France, for that matter.

That is the problem, and that's one of the reasons why many people consider shokuiku necessary. The eating habits of the Japanese have changed so drastically over the past fifty years that many people think that they need to be corrected.

[Hiroyuki]

I think shokuiku is going to be huge in Japan, and food-related companies are trying hard to cash in on shokuiku, as evidenced by this video, the Japan Food Education Fair (third one from the top).

[Culinista]

So what will the shokuiku food education curriculum be? And how will it be tought outside Japan?

I plead guilty to being nationalistic sometimes about Japanese cuisine. I can be very open-minded about contemporary experiments and fusion food with any other cuisine, but I am very hard to win over with Japanese fusion. With very few exceptions, it always seems like confusion food to me. However, I will always recognize at the intellectual level that there is no "correct" way to use Japanese ingredients, even if my gut level refuses to do the same.

Edited March 13, 2006 by Culinista (log)

[Hiroyuki]

So what will the shokuiku food education curriculum be? And how will it be tought outside Japan?

On February 20, the basic plan for food education promotion was proposed,

http://www8.cao.go.jp/syokuiku/basic_plan060221.pdf

(39-page long pdf file, and of course in Japanese)

and the promotion conference, whose members include Dr. Hattori, will determine the direction of food education by the end of March.

it always seems like confusion food to me.

:laugh:

[torakris]

From about 2 years ago I noticed the start of a "Let's rediscover our Japanese roots" campaign at our local schools. It wasn't just food, it is is everything. My son's preschool even changed the way the kid's were written on their name tags. Up until then the names were written western style, horizontally left to right. They have now changed it to the traditional way of horizontal and right to left. The lunch menu has also changed to include more traditional Japanese foods, especially dried foods like dried daikon strips (kiriboshi daikon), freeze dried tofu (koya-dofu), etc.

Around the same time the elementary school also started a similar campaign to serve more traditional foods in their lunch program as well.

Many Japanese women my age and younger, especially those in urban areas, grew up at a time when western food was very fashionable and often prepared in the homes. I have met Japanese who have no idea how to prepare dishes like simmered hijiki (type of seaweed) and have no idea what to do with dried daizu (soybeans).

I think this new program is great and I really applaud the schools for becoming so involved in teaching the kids about their culture and food.

[Hiroyuki]

Kris, you showed Japan's equivalent of Food Pyramid

here (second photo in this post), but do you know the Shokuji (Dietary) Balance Guide?

In June 21, 2005, the Food Guide Kenkyu Kai (Study Panel) released the guide. Among the panel members was Dr. Hattori, and it was his idea to turn the pyramid upside down. He said, "In everything, what counts most is on top, so let's turn it upside down." Finally, the guide was shaped into a spinning top.

Here is the original Japanese version of the guide:

http://www.myfood.jp/Education/hattori/001_01_balance.pdf

And here is an English version:

http://www.maff.go.jp/food_guide/eng_reiari.pdf

Both are pdf files.

Here is a link to a GAIN Report on food education in Japan and the guide (also a pdf file), if anyone is interested.

[Hiroyuki]

From the March 13 editorial of the Yomiuri Shimbun

We must pay more attention to the food we eat. It may be a good idea for the government to encourage people to be more aware of the need to learn more about food and nutrition, provided such efforts do not become obtrusive.

I do hope that the efforts do not become obtrusive.

The draft plan also sounds the alarm over the rising number of people who do not eat breakfast--4 percent of primary school children, 30 percent of males in their 20s and 23 percent of males in their 30s.

The draft sets a target of bringing down these figures to zero among primary school children and to less than 15 percent among males in their 20s and 30s by fiscal 2010.

Is that what the government should do?

[Hiroyuki]

Dr. Hattori talks about Japan's food education here.

THERE HAS BEEN A TREMENDOUS GROWTH in interest overseas in Japan's culinary culture over the last few years. It wasn't always this way-during the 1970s, three-star chefs from France, Italy or Spain were frequently invited to Japan to hold cooking courses, but it was most unusual for a Japanese chef to be invited abroad in the same way.

To learn more about shokuiku in general, click here (pdf format).