Sophia Magazine vol.7 / SUMMER 2018

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It is no exaggeration to use the word “boom” to describe the spread of Japanese restaurants around the world. Out-side Japan the number stood at 24,000 in 2006, which seemed high at the time, but with the boom in recent years, they now number 118,000 according to Japanese govern-ment estimates. Recognizing the potential for soft power influence and boosting the already exponential growth in international tourism, the government has sought to harness the power of Japanese food with initiatives ranging from at-taining UNESCO status for washoku (Japanese cuisine) to introducing a restaurant certification program.Professor Farrer has first-hand experience witnessing the journey of Japanese food. He grew up in the rural south of the United States, where little Appalachian towns are now the unlikely homes of Japanese restaurants. In 1993, he moved to Shanghai to pursue research on the city’s global-ization, nightlife, and urban culture. At the time, Shanghai was a far cry from the decidedly cosmopolitan city of today, with just a handful of Japanese restaurants. Over the years, Shanghai has dramatically transformed into a global food city that boasts 3,000 Japanese restaurants, perhaps more than any other city in Asia outside of Japan. Professor Farrer recalls, “It was Shanghai’s transformation that got me interested in food and globalization, and Japa-nese food caught my attention because of how admired it is in Shanghai. Western chefs in Shanghai pointed me to Tokyo for the world’s best food scene, and I was even more inter-ested when Tokyo became the city with the most Michelin stars.” Professor Farrer’s research developed as the Japanese food boom unfolded. In one paper, he teamed up with David Wank, also an American Sophia professor, to study the spread of Japanese food in the small towns of America like their own. This is a story of non-Japanese immigrants, many of them Chinese, landing in the “culinary contact zone” of New York, learning Japanese food, and then moving further afield to open their own restaurants. In 2016, Professor Farrer was awarded a Sophia Univer-sity Special Grant for Academic Research for his project “Culinary Globalization from Below: Historical and Socio-logical Approaches to the Japanese Food Boom in China and the USA.” Established in 2014, the grant program raises the profile of Sophia University as a full-fledged research insti-tution by funding innovative, original research at the uni-versity that can reach a wide international audience: making Japanese food a worthy topic. His collaborators at Sophia University are Professors David Wank and Christian Hess, as well as Chuanfei Wang, Mônica R. de Carvalho, and Lenka Vyletalova. Although washoku literally translates to “Japanese food,” Professor Farrer differentiates between the two in English. “The term washoku is being used to separate authentic Japa-nese food from ‘fake’ Japanese food that proliferates abroad. But in my view, washoku indicates high-end fine dining. It is cuisine, such as kaiseki multicourse dining, that the global elite will spend large amounts of money for at top restau-rants in large cities. The Japanese government has been promoting washoku to boost inbound tourism, especially to tourists with money to spend, and I think it is a smart move.” However, Professor Farrer points out that washoku can be a “fuzzy” term. “Top restaurants need to appeal to gourmet travelers, so it has to be Japanese but also suit their tastes and expectations. This doesn’t necessarily mean changing what you cook, but rather how you present and market it.” Professor Farrer gives as an example Narisawa, a restaurant in Tokyo with two Michelin stars that always ranks highly on the prestigious “Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list”. Nari-sawa satisfies the global elite’s appetite for unusual local ingredients with innovative Satoyama cuisine that focuses on Japan’s relationship with the natural environment. Ad-ditionally, while washoku is more often associated with sake than wine, Narisawa offers wine pairings with exclusively Japanese selections, thus meeting a foreign fine dining stan-dard while keeping it Japanese. Standing in contrast to elite restaurants is the multitude of Japanese restaurants outside of Japan run by entrepreneur-ial non-Japanese owners who far outnumber their Japanese counterparts. “The reality of the globalization of Japanese food is that it is a very stratified business. Can we really use the word washoku to describe teppanyaki made by Chinese immigrants at a little restaurant in North Carolina? So when we look at the majority of Japanese restaurants, it is a story of migration.” According to Professor Farrer, “One place where we can Researching the Ongoing Japanese Food Story The Globalization and Mobility of Japanese Food12Research