First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Cuisines in Japan have an ideological dimension that cannot be ignored. In 2013, ‘traditional Japanese dietary cultures’ (washoku) was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Washoku’s predecessor was “national people’s cuisine,” an attempt during World War II to create a uniform diet for all citizens. Japan’s Cuisines reveals the great diversity of Japanese cuisine and explains how Japan’s modern food culture arose through the direction of private and public institutions. Readers discover how tea came to be portrayed as the origin of Japanese cuisine, how lunch became a gourmet meal, and how regions on Japan’s periphery are reasserting their distinct food cultures. From wartime foodstuffs to modern diets, this fascinating book shows how the cuisine from the land of the rising sun shapes national, local, and personal identity.

First published in 2001. The history of Japan is usually divided into ages and periods corresponding to changes in government. The ancient age, marked by the central authority of the imperial court and its bureaucracy, gave way in the twelfth century to the medieval age of warrior governments. The early modern age began in the sixteenth century with reunification and the emergence of the Tokugawa shogunate, and the modern age dates from the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Rather than the periodization used by historians, this book adopts an original system conceived by the author as a practical framework for investigating the dietary history of the Japanese.

"Katarzyna Cwiertka shows that key shifts in the Japanese diet were, in many cases, a consequence of modern imperialism. Exploring reforms in home cooking and military catering, wartime food management and the rise of urban gastronomy, she reveals how Japan's pre-modern culinary diversity was eventually replaced by a truly 'national' cuisine - a set of foods and practices with which the majority of Japanese today ardently identify." "The result of more than a decade of research, Modern Japanese Cuisine is a look at the historical roots of one of the world's best cuisines. It includes additional information on the influx of Japanese food and restaurants in Western countries, and how in turn these developments have informed our view of Japanese cuisine. This book is appetizing reading for all those interested in Japanese culture and its influences."--BOOK JACKET.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Introduction: What is Sushi? -- One: Searching for the Origins of Sushi -- Two: Sushi in the Medieval Age -- Three: Cookbooks and Street Food: Sushi in the Early Modern Era -- Four: Sushi in Modern Japan, from Snack to Delicacy -- Five: the Global Spread of Sushi -- Six: Sushi Tomorrow? -- Glossary -- References -- Select Bibliography -- Acknowledgements -- Photo Acknowledgements -- Index.

Tabemasho! Let's Eat! is a tasty look at how Japanese food has evolved in America from an exotic and mysterious--even "gross"--cuisine to the peak of culinary popularity, with sushi sold in supermarkets across the country and ramen available in hipster restaurants everywhere. The author was born in Japan and raised in the U.S. and has eaten his way through this amazing food revolution.

Spanning nearly six hundred years of Japanese food culture, Japanese Foodways, Past and Present considers the production, consumption, and circulation of Japanese foods from the mid-fifteenth century to the present day in contexts that are political, economic, cultural, social, and religious. Diverse contributors--including anthropologists, historians, sociologists, a tea master, and a chef--address a range of issues such as medieval banquet cuisine, the tea ceremony, table manners, cookbooks in modern times, food during the U.S. occupation period, eating and dining out during wartimes, the role of heirloom vegetables in the revitalization of rural areas, children's lunches, and the gentrification of blue-collar foods. Framed by two reoccurring themes--food in relation to place and food in relation to status--the collection considers the complicated relationships between the globalization of foodways and the integrity of national identity through eating habits. Focusing on the consumption of Western foods, heirloom foods, once-taboo foods, and contemporary Japanese cuisines, Japanese Foodways, Past and Present shows how Japanese concerns for and consumption of food has relevance and resonance with other foodways around the world. Contributors are Stephanie Assmann, Gary Soka Cadwallader, Katarzyna Cwiertka, Satomi Fukutomi, Shoko Higashiyotsuyanagi, Joseph R. Justice, Michael Kinski, Barak Kushner, Bridget Love, Joji Nozawa, Tomoko Onabe, Eric C. Rath, Akira Shimizu, George Solt, David E. Wells, and Miho Yasuhara.