「Food and Drink at a Japanese Standing Bar: An Appetizing Production – Extended Media Mix」@ AJJ (Anthropology of Japan in Japan) 2021 Annual Meeting, Dec. 4

Abstract:

In Japan, food is prominent in documentaries, cooking shows, travel shows, variety shows, dramas, manga, anime, books, magazines, blogs, Facebook and Instagram. This food, not eaten but consumed, provides gratification and knowledge. Many of these media descriptions are set in izakaya (Japanese-style pubs) and tachinomiya (Japanese standing bars) that serve B-kyu gurume (B-rank food)—comfort food and/or local food. These are fascinating shops and sites to explore the production (cooking) and consumption (eating) of food. Media portrayals are another form of production, that of information and recreation, that is “good to think” (Levi-Strauss 1962), “communicated” (Barthes 1966; Dusselier 2009) and “shared among people” (Cheung 2002).

This presentation is a multimodal visual ethnography of a 40-year-old tachinomiya in Osaka called Tenbun. Tenbun features many kinds of food and drink, a lively and relaxed atmosphere and plenty of colorful characters including the owner, employees and regular customers. Based upon long-term patronage, focused participant-observation and photography, a photo exhibition and other post-fieldwork encounters, my analysis positions the research within the intersection of food anthropology and the popular Japanese “foodie” media. Matthew Longcore discusses how Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsey and other Western food experts feature “ethnographic culinary adventures [that] bring food and film together for the enjoyment, entertainment, and enlightenment of foodies and anthropologists alike” (2019). Nancy Stalker provides an excellent and detailed history of popular Japanese media that influences and reflects the so-called modern “gurume boom” beginning in the 1980s and 90s (2016). I build upon this history through explorations of current documentaries, TV dramas and social media, gaining different perspectives to re-position my tachinomiya research in wider social and academic contexts.

Virtual talk on Zoom.

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Special presentation: 1:00 - 2:00 PM Japan time

AJJ takes place December 3-5. Participation is free, but you must register to get the Zoom link. Lots of good people and scholarship at the AJJ! Check it out!

For the link and full meeting program, go to https://www.ajj-online.net/2021/11/10/2021-annual-meeting-program/

「Food and Drink at a Japanese Standing Bar: An Appetizing Production」@ ICAS 12 - August 28, 2021 (and video on-demand)

I will be presenting at the 12th International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS), held August 24-28, 2021. The host is Kyoto Seika University but it will be a virtual event. The presentations have two parts. The first part is a pre-recorded 15-minute lecture available on-demand at the ICAS website (you must be registered for the conference to view the lectures). The second part is a live discussion session. While my paper has changed a bit since I submitted my proposal, here is the original abstract:

In Japan, food is prominent in documentaries, cooking shows, travel shows, variety shows, dramas, manga, anime, books, magazines, blogs, Facebook and Instagram. This food, not eaten but consumed, provides gratification and knowledge. Many of these media descriptions are set in izakaya (Japanese-style pub) and tachinomiya (Japanese standing bar) that serve B-kyu gurume (B-rank food)—comfort food and/or local food. These are fascinating shops and sites to explore the production (cooking) and consumption (eating) of food.

This presentation is a multimodal visual ethnography of a 40-year-old tachinomiya in Osaka called Tenbun. Tenbun features many kinds of food and drink, a lively and relaxed atmosphere and plenty of colorful characters including the owner, employees and regular customers. Based upon long-term patronage, focused participant-observation and photography, a photo exhibition and other post-fieldwork encounters, my analysis positions the research within the intersection of food anthropology and the popular Japanese “foodie” media. Matthew Longcore discusses how Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsey and other Western food experts feature “ethnographic culinary adventures [that] bring food and film together for the enjoyment, entertainment, and enlightenment of foodies and anthropologists alike” (2019). Current popular TV series about food and drink including Yoshida Rui’s Sakaba hōrō-ki (“Bar Hopping Report,” BS-TBS) and Kodoku no Gurume (“The Solitary Gourmet,” TV Tokyo), and others, will be described and analyzed to show that media portrayals are another form of production, that of information and recreation, that is “good to think” (Levi-Strauss 1962), “communicated” (Barthes 1966; Dusselier 2009) and “shared among people” (Cheung 2002).

My video: available on demand before, during and after the conference until October 15.

My discussion session: Food, Taste and Memory
Saturday, August 28, 2021, 17:15-18:15 (Japan time).

Chair: Floper Gershwin Manuel, Assistant Professor, Central Luzon State University, Philippines

Food and Drink at a Japanese Standing Bar: An Appetizing Production
Presenter: Steven C. Fedorowicz – Kansai Gaidai University

White Rice vs. Dark Bread: Inheriting and Crafting Rural Identity, Local Heritage and Sustainable Future in China and Estonia
Presenter: Siyun Wu – Leiden University - Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology

Farming Conditions of Draught Cattle in Western Japan During 19th Century
Presenter: Akiyo HERLEDANT-KUBO – INALCO

Conference information and a complete program schedule can be found at the ICAS website.

url: https://www.eventscribe.net/2021/ICAS12/

For more information about the Tenbun/tachinomiya project:

url: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2016/01/photo-exhibition-and-visual-ethnography.html

Even more on the project: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2020/12/behind-scenestenbun-closingpresentation.html

"Disability activists push for more inclusive Pride celebrations"

Story by Zoe Christen Jones, June 30, 2021, (CBS News via msn)

Read the whole story: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/disability-activists-push-for-more-inclusive-pride-celebrations/ar-AALAVxG?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnb7Kz

Not Japan related, but it is an intersection between my recent projects dealing with disability and gastronomy. This is the part I like:

© Provided by CBS News Alexis Hillyard / Credit: Kevin Tuong

Alexis Hillyard, a YouTuber who was born without her left hand, said it's freeing when she's in a space where she and her disability are accepted.

"Accessibility means that people are able to move through and exist in spaces they deserve to be a part of without feeling like they need to change who they are, make themselves smaller and make sacrifices to be able to be in that space," the 39-year-old said. "It's like being able to be and exist in your full self, as you are, without having to change or adapt to the world around you."

On her cooking channel, StumpKitchen, Hillyard explains how her disability is an important tool she uses every day and an integral aspect of her life. She's also deliberate in making her videos as accessible to her viewers as possible.

"I didn't realize before how much I would subconsciously hide my arm or wonder if people were staring or wondering what they were thinking about me or feeling sorry for me," Hillyard said. "It was a beautiful surprise and just an awareness and release of tension you were feeling that you didn't realize that you had."

"Japanese Food - Better Than Sex?"

Is Japanese cuisine good? Many in Japan say it's better than anything else in the world. Yes, including THAT. Watch our video for the details!

Source: https://unseenjapan.com/video-japanese-food-better-than-sex/

"Japanese Artist Has Drawn Every Meal He’s Eaten for 32 Years: Behold the Delicious Illustrations of Itsuo Kobayashi"

Image and text from Open Culture, 3/24/2020.

Since the 1980s, Itsuo Kobayashi has drawn a picture of every single meal he eats. However notable we find this practice now, it would surely have struck us as downright eccentric back then. Kobayashi began drawing his food before the arrival of inexpensive digital cameras and cellphones, and well before the smartphone combined the two into the single package we now keep close at hand. We all know people who take camera-phone pictures of their meals, some of them with the regularity and solemnity of prayer, but how many of them could produce lifelike renderings of the food placed before them with only pen and paper?

"The Japanese outsider artist and professional cook, born in 1962, first began keeping food diaries as a teenager," Artnet's Sarah Cascone writes of Kobayashi. "In his 20s, he began adding illustrations of the dishes he made at work, and those he ate while dining out." When, at the age of 46, a "debilitating neurological disorder made it difficult for him to walk, leaving him largely confined to his home," Kobayashi began to focus on his food diaries even more intensely.

His subjects are now mostly "food deliveries — sometimes from restaurants, sometimes from his mother. And though his day-to-day existence rarely varies, he’s been pushing his practice in a new direction, creating a new series of pop-up paintings."

After 32 years of making increasingly detailed and realistic overhead drawings of his every meal — including such information as names, prices, flavor notes, and faithfully replicated restaurant logos — Kobayashi's work has caught the attention of the American art world. The Fukuyama-based gallery Kushino Terrace "gave Kobayashi his US debut in January, at New York’s Outsider Art Fair," Cascone writes. "His works sell for between $500 and $3,000." That makes for quite a step up in prestige from his old job cooking at a soba restaurant, though his copious experience with that dish shows whenever it appears in his diary.

But then, after decade upon decade of daily practice, everything Kobayashi draws looks good enough to eat, from bowls of ramen to plates of curry to bento boxes filled with all manner of delights from land and sea. Though hardly fancy, especially by the advanced standards of Japanese food culture, these are the kind of meals you want to savor, the ones to which you feel you should pay appreciative attention rather than just scarfing down. Or at least they look that way under Kobayashi's gaze, which even the most ardent 21st-century food-photographing hobbyist must envy. Many of us wish to eat more consciously, and the work of this cook-turned-artist shows us how: put down the phone, and pick up the sketchbook.

Read the story and see more images at the source.

Source: http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/japanese-artist-has-drawn-every-meal-hes-eaten-for-32-years.html