Special Theme: Food Culture National Food is an essential requirement for all creatures, and has many special meanings for humans. It is a source of pleasure, mediates Museum of social relationships, and is a key component in modern industrial economies. Civilization is impossible without food. Thinking about food Ethnology is essential for understanding human existence. In this issue, five staff and visitors introduce some general views, specific cases, and Osaka current directions in food studies. (A. Nobayashi, special theme editor). Number 47 December 2018 The Human and Natural History A n in Food Production MI Atsushi Nobayashi t National Museum of Ethnology h Minpaku has a long tradition of food culture research. Naomichi Ishige led this research from the beginning. He was also the museum’s third director. r Ishige’s work did not just lead Minpaku’s food culture research, but food culture research in Japan as a whole. One of the chief characteristics of his o work has been to promote food culture research with a global perspective. He has conducted field research in more than 80 countries and regions, publishing p books such as “Cultural Noodlogy (Bunka Menruigaku)”, “Field Work of the Palate (Shita no field work)”, and “Thinking Stomach (Kangaeru Ibukuro)”. With N two statements, Ishige summarized the relationship between humans and o their food: ‘Man is an animal that cooks’, and ‘Human beings are animals that share and eat food together’. These statements inspired me to think about food l culture research in terms of the human and natural history together. The idea of the human as o an animal that cooks has been around for a long time, but has P Contents g been extended by Ishige. We might paraphrase his words Special Theme: Food Culture as follows: human beings y The Human and Natural History in Food are animals who plan to eat. Production Human beings have selected A Atsushi Nobayashi ...................................1 ecological resources that are useful to them from the natural N The Significance of National Cuisine in Today’s Globalized Society environment and have added the processing, cooking, and Taeko Udagawa .......................................3 combining of these resources e Authenticity, Soft Power and the Japanese to their feeding behavior. The Food Boom K important point is that humans w Yoshimi OSAWA .......................................5 practice this in a systematic manner. Most wild animals in Taste, Authenticity, and Cultural Politics of Heritage Food the natural environment exist in a state of equilibrium, in s Shingo Hamada .......................................7 which they themselves are a Tsampa Eating, Tibetan Sign Language and part of the environment. Their le U Tibetanness food consumption activities Theresia Hofer .........................................9 are carried out within the environmental system they Column ...................................................11 occupy, and they rarely alter tt Exhibition ................................................13 the environment by making an Information..............................................14 unbalanced use of its ecological New Staff .................................................14 resources. One of the key e Overseas Visiting Fellows .........................15 characteristics of human use of Publications .............................................16 ecological resources lies in the r Forthcoming Exhibition ...........................16 imbalance between selectivity and quantity of consumption. http://www.minpaku.ac.jp/ 2 MINPAKU Anthropology Newsletter No 47 December 2018 Figure 1. Humans have actively made selective in the project. First we looked at the Food and foodways use of ecological resources and strategies of hunter gatherer societies, consumed in mass quantities in the diversity of cultivated plants in such a way as to maximize individual agricultural societies, and a broad profit. Over time, this has caused spectrum of ecological resource- the extinction of certain animals and utilization under different ‘food’ plants. Furthermore, one of humanity’s systems. Based on the research and adaptive strategies has been to switch discussion, we proposed an overview to selective use and mass consumption of humanity’s eating behavior and its of ecological resources through the impact on the environment (Figure 1). inventions of domestication and Recently, the present author has cultivation. The result has been an also been engaged with the idea that explosive increase in the populations ‘Human beings are animals who of livestock and agricultural species, as share and eat food together’, with a well as in the human population itself. particular focus on meat-eating as one Such imbalances in the utilization of the key elements in human food of ecological resources cannot be consumption. In this project, I consider explained solely in physical terms. the relationship between ecological It is also necessary to consider the adaptation and cultural status, and social and cultural factors that lead explore the changing nature of meat- to imbalance. With this problem eating in today’s consumer culture, in mind, the author organized an including possible future trends. interdisciplinary project called “Food In the course of evolution, humanity and Foodways in Cultural and has adapted ecologically to both Environmental History” at the Graduate carnivorous and vegetarian diets, and University for Advanced Studies. has also established social relations Anthropologists, archaeologists, and through the distribution and communal informatics researchers all participated eating of meat, the use of meat in sacrifice, and the 2050 (expected) avoidance and regulation of meat- eating. With the industrialization of meat production 2017 and distribution 2000 in the latter half of the 20th century, eating 1977 meat became an everyday 1950 occurrence in developed societies. Conversely it became very rare 125,000 years ago 10～8,000 years ago B.C./A.D. 15th C. 20th C. for people to gather Age of fire Age of domestication Age of Great Voyages Age of instruments: Hominization Subsistence conversion Movement of food refrigerator, microwave for a communal resources meal of meat eaten 21st C. Age of information directly from the Figure 2. World population and foodways timeline Internet recipe sites animal. Against December 2018 MINPAKU Anthropology Newsletter No 47 3 this social backdrop, discussions on Minpaku Special Research Project Atsushi Nobayashi, the rights of animals, including the entitled “Systems of food production a professor at Minpaku, has pros and cons of meat-eating, have in human and natural history” to look carried out flourished. This is seen particularly at four aspects of food and foodways: ethnoarchaeological in the ethical approach advocated by ecology, eating, society and civilization. research in Taiwan, “Animal Liberation Theory” in Western Originally, food was a source of focusing on hunting and farming of the society. While these ethical arguments individual sustenance, all within the indigenous peoples, have also flourished in Japan, there ecological cycle of the planet. However, and the significance have been few opportunities for an the treatment of food resources in this of artifacts and integrated discussion of the complex modern era of mass production and objects made and used by them. and diverse problems behind meat- mass disposal can be said to constitute He curates the eating and related practices. At a new, dark side of civilization that Taiwan Collection Minpaku, therefore, we organized an human society has never experienced of Minpaku and has Interdisciplinary Research Project before (Figure 2). The purpose of managed exhibitions on the ethnography entitled “A study of meat-eating”, and this research is to examine, within of indigenous culture compiled the results in a book of the political and economic contexts, the and history. He also same name. Besides clarifying the mechanisms behind the current state studies the social tangled web of issues related to meat- of food production in modern society, functions of food and eating, we considered the proper role which has deviated from ecological foodways and edited, The study of meat- of meat in today’s global consumer adaptation. The problem of food will eating (in Japanese, society. The project also aimed to bring be addressed using anthropological 2018). a fresh perspective on the relationship and socio-ecological perspectives. between human and animals. Through interdisciplinary approaches, Building on the previous research, the author hopes to further advance the author is currently planning a new Minpanku’s research into food culture. The Significance of National Cuisine in Today’s Globalized Society Taeko Udagawa National Museum of Ethnology In December 2017, the “Technique nationalism over food. Taeko Udagawa of Italy’s Neapolitan Pizzaiuolo” was Cuisines named after their is Professor at Minpaku. She registered as Intangible Cultural countries, such as Italian cuisine specializes in family Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. and French cuisine, are commonly and gender studies, This was the second food registration referred to as “national cuisine” or conducting fieldwork in Italy, following the “Mediterranean “national food”. National cuisine in Italy. Recently she has developed diet”. is deeply connected to the identity an interest in food In response, President Macron and image of a country and is often movements. She said that France should immediately