Category: Japanese Food

Justin Weinstein To my family’s great disappointment, the Japanese restaurant located a thirty-second walk from our apartment building in New Jersey is closed on Tuesdays. Called Okinawa Sushi and Grill, the sub-thirty-seat restaurant is the place to go for a quick California roll or unagi don, even if the chicken teriyaki is nothing to think twice …

Read more “Takoraisu: A Case Study in Okinawan Hybrid Identity (Justin Weinstein, 2022)”

Maxwell Maveus This past summer, I found myself eating a California Roll in a suburban Minnesotan country club. Standing amongst various men and women dressed in pastel polos, tennis sweaters, and khakis, I recalled the hostility with which Midwestern preppies viewed sushi throughout the latter half of the 2000s. Having always been fond of Japanese …

Read more “Country Club Sushi: An Exploration of the Gentrification of Japanese Cuisine in Minnesota (Maxwell Maveus, 2022)”

Mikoto Nakamura Introduction With increasing health awareness and interest in Japanese culture, Japanese cuisine has grown to become a global phenomenon. From large metropolises to small villages, it is not uncommon to find a Japanese restaurant, dish, or an ingredient influenced by Japanese culture—Kazakhstan is no exception. Since the country gained independence in the 1990s, …

Read more “Japanese Cuisine in Kazakhstan: Non-Japanese Ethnic Networks as Main Facilitators of Culinary Culture (Mikoto Nakamura, 2020)”

Simon van Baaren In our explorations of how Japanese food is represented in modern media, we explored many mediums, but by far the most fascinating to me was its portrayal in mainstream American food television. As someone who grew up with Food Network playing in the background on my family’s television for most hours of …

Read more “Is “Gourmet” Food Writing Exempt?: An Exploration of Japanese Culture in Saveur Magazine (Simon van Baaren, 2020)”