Over the past two decades, the popularity of Japanese food in the West has increased immeasurably a major contribution to the evolution of Western eating habits. But Japanese cuisine itself has changed significantly since pre-modern times, and the food we eat at trendy Japanese restaurants, from tempura to sashimi, is vastly different from earlier Japanese fare. Modern Japanese Cuisine examines the origins of Japanese food from the late nineteenth century to unabashedly adulterated American favorites like today s California roll.
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka demonstrates that key shifts...

Food in East Asia presents a collection of articles that treat a wide variety of aspects related to food in contemporary East Asia. Cuisine is a very persuasive tool for delineating East Asia as a region. Food and foodways of Greater China, Japan and Korea obviously differ from one another, but they all rest upon the foundations of ancient Chinese civilization that once dominated this part of the world. The use of chopsticks and a widespread consumption of processed soybeans rank among the most vivid indicators of the common heritage of the Chinese, Japanese and Korean cuisines. Yet,...