Global Sushi. part 2 Ted Bestor Department of Anthropology Harvard University May 3, 2004
Flying Tuna from a children s book about the market
on the loading docks at Tsukiji Tuna coffins
World Systems sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein historian Ferdinand Braudel Core and peripheries of an expanding world system of economic Core and peripheries are linked with increasingly complexit into a form of political/social/cultural mutual dependence or integration integration that is inherently unequal
Global flows -- Appadurai In contrast to static core-periphery models of global hierarchy, Arjun Appadurai proposes multi-dimensional flows of influence simultaneously emanating and rebounding from various places operating along different dimensions or scapes
Global flows -- Appadurai Ethnoscapes people Financescapes capital Ideoscapes ideas and ideologies Technoscapes technologies and material culture Mediascapes images, information, representations
and, of course, I might add: sushi-scapes
Origins of imports, 2001 Value in billion yen Weight in million kilograms People s Republic of China Thailand 130.2 240.9 Indonesia 116.4 127.2 Chile 87.6 332.4 Taiwan 82.0 159.7 Norway 71.8 283.7 Australia 58.7 26.8 Vietnam 58.3 80.0 India 54.2 67.9 282.1 682.5 United States of America 175.0 421.2 Russia 126.6 204.0 Republic of Korea 116.4 183.0 European Union 46.3 127.6
Conditions of Globalization Today increasing velocity of economic and cultural capital (Pierre Bourdieu) accelerating transportation & communications more people living outside their cultures of origin, so more people are cross-cultural agents and brokers (for example, sushi chefs in London and LA)
Conditions of Globalization Today larger, more fluid arenas for exchanges across multiple dimensions and affecting wider spectrums of daily life rapid cross-fertilization and arbitrage of cultural capital across many realms of consumption, media, values, political action, economic organization, etc., often in unintended or unanticipated ways.
Conditions of Globalization From a perspective of politics and international relations, global inter-connectedness: is increasingly outside the state sphere, and diminishes the nation-state as primary framing principle or conduit for transactions across societal or cultural boundaries.
Conditions of Globalization But from a cultural perspective, these connections reframe the meanings of boundaries boundary crossings do not simply homogenize people s lives; they also create new opportunities for cultural distinctions to be significant in more and more people s daily lives
Conditions of Globalization and distinctions among cultures, societies, or lifestyles themselves become the basis for people to make new local and idiosyncratic identities for themselves using material from global culture
Circuits of cultural capital
Circuits of cultural capital Sushi enters the global stream of consciousness
There s Something About Mary Ben Stiller asking Matt Damon about Cameron Diaz who has supposedly gained weight and gone to Japan Japan? What s happening in Japan? Why is she going to Japan? Oh, you ve heard of mail-order brides, haven t you? Well, they go the other way, too. Mary s a? What are they, desperate? She s a whale! Don t forget, it s a sumo culture. They pay by the pound there. It s sorta like sorta like tuna.
Flows of culinary influence The Raj model colonial power brings back new tastes The Union Pacific model immigrant labor brings new cuisine to distant place The Most Favored nation model high status of country translates into culinary interest
Isabella Bird on the food question the fishy and vegetable abominations known as Japanese food can only be swallowed and digested by a few, and that after long practice Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, 1878, pg. 19
nothing short of actual starvation would induce a European to face the forbidding native food Major Henry Knollys, visitor to Japan in the 1880s, quoted by Cortazzi, Victorians in Japan
Good Thing He Can t Read My Mind by Christine Lavin I am eating sushi When I do not like sushi, But he loves sushi And I love him! I m poking with a chopstick At a living breathing fishstick. Oh my God! I think it s trying to swim!
Some say eating sushi Is like chewing on your own cheek, Or sucking down a bucketful Of tentacled slime. I do not like sushi But, look, I m eating sushi! It s a good thing He can t read my mind. (Yes, this is a very interesting texture What is it? Ohhhhh )
Tiny Fish for Japan by Stan Rogers Where Patterson Creek s muddy waters run down Past the penny arcades, by the harbour downtown, All the Turtleback boats rust in the rain Like they never will leave there again. But leave there they will in the hours before dawn, Slip out in the darkness without a word or a song. For a few more years yet they will work while they can,
Tiny Fish for Japan The plant runs three shifts now, there s plenty of pay. We ship seventeen tons of this garbage each day. If we want to eat fish, then we ll open a can, And catch tiny fish for Japan. So the days run together. Each one is the same. And it s good that the smelt have no lovelier name. It s all just a job now, we ll work while we can, To catch tiny fish for Japan.
Iron Chef Morimoto for Millstone coffee
Bestor s Ebay Index: number of items advertised for sale in the following categories, April 22, 2003 Sushi 962
Bestor s Ebay Index: number of items advertised for sale in the following categories, April 22, 2003 Sushi 962 Tempura 135 Sukiyaki 121
Bestor s Ebay Index: number of items advertised for sale in the following categories, April 22, 2003 Sushi 962 Tempura 135 Sukiyaki 121 Sashimi 98 Miso 86 Yakitori 65
Bestor s Ebay Index: number of items advertised for sale in the following categories, April 22, 2003 Ramen 58 Soba 27 Udon 24
Bestor s Ebay Index: number of items advertised for sale in the following categories, April 22, 2003 Ramen 58 Soba 27 Udon 24 Natto 2
Sushi Bar Song by Shōnen Knife Sushi, sushi, sushi bar! I wanna go to a sushi bar! I wanna go with you! Hamachi, ika, ebi, tako, maguro, kaibashira. How about this Friday night! Ooo, let s eat a healthy menu. It s a famous Japanese meal. Original English lyrics by Shōnen Knife