Week 13: Japanese Culture
This week we read Oishinbo a la carte by Tetsu Kariya, a manga about the cultural cuisine of Japan. This manga was well written, I always wanted to continue reading. I found myself enjoying this manga, due to my love for Japanese food. I learned some really amazing stuff about Japanese cooking and cuisine. As I read the manga, I would get hungry seeing the amazing foods they were making in the manga. It made me long for some good Japanese food.
This manga got the cultural aspect of Japan right on the head, or at least what a westerner's idea of Japan's culture. The story features a young apprentice Yamaoka, Shiruo and Kaibara, Yuuzan (Shioruo's father and rival cook). It kind of relates to how apprentices and masters interact in typical Japanese fashion. It seems Yamaoka has been giving 110% since we was in the 5th grade. His father never accepted him, and so Yamaoka has grown a very non-nonchalant attitude towards his father and cooking. So Kaibara thinks Yamaoka doesn't appreciate cooking and why he gives Yamaoka a hard time.
My favorite was chapter 8, the rice ball cook off. In college my favorite snack to make in the last year has been rice balls. However my rice balls are very basic compared to the ones that were made in the cook off. The rice balls Yamaoka made for the cook off, went through the history of Japan, going back to the ultimate basic rice ball. Yamaoka, shows through the line up of his food, the beauty of the basics, going back to the culture of Japan. He showed that rice balls are so intertwine with culture that everyone has had a beautiful memory with rice balls.
While Kaibara displayed his rice balls with the evolution of rice balls over the year. His was unique in a way to show how a basic one could be transformed to a delicacy. At the end of his service, he made a fantastic point, that can be seen all over the world in many different countries. That the ways of the past are going to be lost with the progression of the future, and we should look back and take care of what made the future what it is. He made that point over the giant clams, and the point of that food, won him the cooking contest in the end.
Oishinbo a la carte really does make you think, about culture a little. It makes me wonder how our culture here in the states have developed since our founding.
This manga got the cultural aspect of Japan right on the head, or at least what a westerner's idea of Japan's culture. The story features a young apprentice Yamaoka, Shiruo and Kaibara, Yuuzan (Shioruo's father and rival cook). It kind of relates to how apprentices and masters interact in typical Japanese fashion. It seems Yamaoka has been giving 110% since we was in the 5th grade. His father never accepted him, and so Yamaoka has grown a very non-nonchalant attitude towards his father and cooking. So Kaibara thinks Yamaoka doesn't appreciate cooking and why he gives Yamaoka a hard time.
My favorite was chapter 8, the rice ball cook off. In college my favorite snack to make in the last year has been rice balls. However my rice balls are very basic compared to the ones that were made in the cook off. The rice balls Yamaoka made for the cook off, went through the history of Japan, going back to the ultimate basic rice ball. Yamaoka, shows through the line up of his food, the beauty of the basics, going back to the culture of Japan. He showed that rice balls are so intertwine with culture that everyone has had a beautiful memory with rice balls.
While Kaibara displayed his rice balls with the evolution of rice balls over the year. His was unique in a way to show how a basic one could be transformed to a delicacy. At the end of his service, he made a fantastic point, that can be seen all over the world in many different countries. That the ways of the past are going to be lost with the progression of the future, and we should look back and take care of what made the future what it is. He made that point over the giant clams, and the point of that food, won him the cooking contest in the end.
Oishinbo a la carte really does make you think, about culture a little. It makes me wonder how our culture here in the states have developed since our founding.
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