KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S24

1EXPLORING THE WORLD OF JAPANESE (KYOTO) CUISINE

Instructor: Cody Poulton
Email: mcp2156@columbia.edu
Class Times: Mondays & Thursdays, 2:55-4:25 PM
Course Description:
Japanese food has gone global. Sushi and ramen have become international fast foods, whichis to say they are now almost as common to us as pizza or doughnuts. Still, one of the greatest
appeals of Japanese cuisine is its promise of a healthier diet. This is increasingly a concern inan overfed and undernourished society where many of us have forgotten the pleasures, as wellas the hard work, of cultivation and food preparation, not to mention dining as a form ofcommunion, with both family and our larger communities. Despite its “exoticism,” Japanesecuisine can have much to teach us about eating locally, seasonally, and ethically.
Along with French and Mexican cuisine, Japanese cooking (washoku) has been
designated world heritage status by UNESCO. Japan’s highly refined cuisine, based on thefreshest ingredients, light and simple seasonings, and exquisite presentation, has been an
overwhelming influence over many of the world’s greatest chefs. Several have studied underJapanese masters like Murata Yoshihiro of Kyoto’s Kikunoi restaurant. Today, Japan is aleader, not just in Japanese cuisine, but also in fine international dining, and Japanese chefs
and sommeliers travel the world to train. There are more restaurants with Michelin stars (themark of culinary excellence) in Tokyo today than in Paris and London combined! And manyof those Michelin stars are for French, Italian, and Chinese, etc. restaurants, run for the mostpart by Japanese.

KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S242This course will look at the history of Japanese cuisine and show how the country’sobsession with eating well anticipated the global slow food movement and our age of celebrity
chefs. Last but not least, Kyoto has been the mecca for Japanese cuisine for over a thousand
years, and we are perfectly situated to explore its mysteries and delights.
A few topics we will cover include:
••
•
•
•
•
•
•

Food as sustenance: The production, nutrition and economy of eating
Food and the environment: The ecology of eating
Food and class: The relationship between wealth and culinary tastes and habits
Food, region and nation: Culinary culture as identity
Food and ethics: Related to the environment, but not exclusively; the religious andmoral practices of consumption
Food and aesthetics: Gastronomy as art, both to be seen and eaten
Food fads: cooking, competition, and the popular culture of consumerism
Food and conviviality: The sociality of food as a symbol of what brings us together.

Exploring the World of Japanese Cuisine is laid out roughly in a number of culinary courses:
each week we will address a certain ingredient and/or method of preparation—such as rice,soy beans, fish, and tea—and their significance to the Japanese people. Films, images, andreadings will provide the basis for our exploration of Japanese food, but as much as possible I
hope to engage all our senses, especially taste and smell, as we encounter new ingredients,
scents, and flavours. We don’t have the resources to prepare food in class—this is not
America’s Test Kitchen, and certainly not Chairman Kaga’s Kitchen Stadium!—but somedemonstrations will be provided, such as chanoyu, the classic “tea ceremony.” We will also
take advantage of being situated in Kyoto, the mecca for Japanese cuisine. We will take field
trips to places where food is made, sold, and served. Homework will include having you eachtry making some simple Japanese dishes, such as miso soup, tsukemono (pickles), andtakikomi gohan (seasoned mixed rice. There will be something to enjoy for all tastes and diets!
Texts:
Kariya Tetsu, Hanasaki Akira, Miyaki Tetsuichiro, and others. Oishinbo, a la Carte. SanFrancisco: VIZ Media, 2009 [2007].
Other texts will be made available online, as e-books, web links, and PDF files.

KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S24

3

Technological Requirements:
Everyone should have a secure internet connection for access to the entire course content(including syllabus, links to streaming content, readings, etc.). I would request that you do not,however, use any electronic devices in class.
Course Delivery and weekly assignments:
The course will consist of a mixture of lectures, screenings, presentations, and outings each
Monday and Thursday.
Evaluation:
Weekly assignments: (10 X 2%)
Midterm:
Final Essay:
Outline and bibliography (due Feb. 15)Class presentation (April 8-18)
Final Essay (due April 22)
Attendance, Participation and Progress:

20%
15%
10%
15%
30%
10%

Percentage grades will be assigned to all work submitted.
Weekly recipes (20%): Eat your way through this course. 10 assignments over 10 weeks ofclass, each recipe counting for 2% of your total mark. These are a mixture of short reflection
papers on outings we have made, memorial meals you have tasted, or special dinners you
yourself have prepared at home. I am aware that not everyone will have a chance to cook forthemselves while living here, but I hope eventually that you will be adventurous enough to try
to make some of the delicious dishes you have eaten while you were here.
If you cook something and want to write about it, post your recipe on the course website;
provide ingredients, proportions, preparation style and cooking method. Post a photo of it andtell us how it tasted! Also provide a source for your recipe. If the recipe is missing any ofthese essential items (ingredients, preparation, results, photo, source) you will be docked
1%; more than one of these essential items and you will not be graded on the work.
Midterm test (15%): The midterm will be held in class and will test you on factual matter
raised in the lectures and readings for the first part of the course. This will be held on
February 29.
Essay (55%): A research essay (min. 1.500 words, max. 3,000 words) on issues and themes
raised in the course materials. Essay questions will be supplied in advance, but you are free tosuggest your own topic if there is sufficient research material available to write on it.
Due dates are as follows:
Outline and bibliography (due Feb. 15)
Class presentation (April 8-18)
Final Essay (due April 22)

10%
15%
30%

Class attendance, participation and progress (10%):KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S24

4Daily attendance is mandatory. NO make-up classes will be given. In the event of illness orother absence, please notify your instructor, the Resident Director or the office staff as soon as
possible by telephone or via e-mail.
Attendance is mandatory and your participation and progress will also be taken into account.
Grading: Letter Grades are calculated on the following percentage scale:

A+ = 95-100%

B+ = 80-84%

C+ = 65-69%

A = 90-94%
A- = 85-89%

B = 75-79%
B- = 70-74%

C = 60-64%
D = 50-59%

F = less than50%

Academic Integrity:
As members of an academic community, each one of us bears the responsibility to participate
in scholarly discourse and research in a manner characterized by intellectual honesty andscholarly integrity. Collaborative scholarship requires the study of other scholars' work, thefree discussion of such work, and the explicit acknowledgement of those ideas in any workthat inform our own. This exchange of ideas relies upon a mutual trust that sources, opinions,facts, and insights will be properly noted and carefully credited. In practical terms, this means
that, as students, all work submitted in this course, whether in draft or final form, must be yourown. You must be responsible for the full citations of others' ideas in all of your research
papers and projects; you must be scrupulously honest when taking your examinations; youmust always submit your own work and not that of another student, scholar, or internet agent.
Any breach of this intellectual responsibility is a breach of faith with the rest of our academic
community. It undermines our shared intellectual culture, and it cannot be tolerated.
The use of ChatGPT or any other AI tools for course assignments (with theexception of artificial neural networks like DeepL for machine translations, duly cited) is
tantamount to plagiarism. Any cases of plagiarism or cheating will be reported toColumbia Undergraduate Global Engagement and the academic advisor at your homeinstitution and are subject to the code of academic conduct there. In such cases, yourfinal grade will be determined by your home institution and not by KCJS.
Student Accommodations:If you are a student with a disability and have a Disability Services-certified‘Accommodation Letter’ from your home institution, please send me this letter before thefirst day of class to confirm your accommodation needs. If you believe that you might have adisability that requires accommodation and do not have an accommodations letter, you
should contact the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement at Columbia University(uge@columbia.edu).

KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S245A Few Tips:
All written assignments should be typed, double-spaced, on single-sided paper. Always proofread your work before submitting it, and keep an extra copy of anything you have submitted
in case the original is somehow "lost in transit."* All work must be submitted on the scheduled dates. Unless prior permission has been
given, students who fail to submit their outline and essay at the time it is due will be deducted
5% from the total mark for that assignment for every day it is late. Written assignments
submitted more than one week past deadline without prior approval will receive a mark ofzero.
** Plagiarism and cheating are not permitted and if you are caught you will fail! Cite all
your sources judiciously.
I'll assess your written work on the basis of the following (percentages are rough benchmarks
for weighting of my evaluations):
CONTENT ( /40%): Are all the points you raised relevant to your argument? Have you
backed up your information with factually accurate and relevant data, with reference toprimary sources and secondary criticism, and (if necessary) material covered in class lecturesand readings? Have you covered all the relevant points? Are your ideas original and wellthought out?
STRUCTURE ( /20%): Do you state clearly and explicitly your topic and thesis in yourintroduction? Is there a coherent and logical progression of your ideas, which are reviewed
and summarized in your conclusion?
GRAMMAR AND STYLE ( /20%): Please note that term essays and examination papers
will be refused a passing grade if they are deficient in English. You are expected todemonstrate that you can express yourself clearly, correctly, and as precisely as possible inwriting. Should you fail to do so, the least you can expect is a letter-grade reduction (i.e., 'A'to 'B'). On the other hand, writing with originality and flair may boost your grade.
SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION ( /10%): Have you used correct spelling andpunctuation?
PHYSICAL PRESENTATION ( /10%): Is the work double-spaced, typed, and legible? Does
it have a title page with your name on it? Are citations identified by page references orfootnotes? Is a complete bibliography provided?
Research Tools:
Many resources, such as journal articles, encyclopedias and dictionaries and even some books
and videos, are available online through your university library on databases like JSTOR.
Style Guide:
Please use italics for words that are not in the English lexicon. Words like sushi and sashimi
can be found in an English dictionary, but less familiar words, like washoku and dashi, should
be in italics. Put academic articles, essays and shorter works into quotation marks (e.g. Mary
Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal”), but longer, book-length works into italics (e.g. MichaelAshkenazi, Food Culture in Japan). Either the MLA or Chicago Style of citation ispermissible. Please refer to the following link on the University of Victoria Library website:
https://www.uvic.ca/library/research/citation/guides/index.php

KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S24

6

Exploring the World of Japanese Cuisine (S2024) Tentative Class Schedule*This schedule is subject to change as I explore opportunities for us to get out andexperience Kyoto cuisine and bring those who make it into the classroom.
食 WEEK I Jan 15: Introduction to course and its methods: What is washoku? Whatdoes the course cover? What doesn’t it cover? A short history of Japanese food.

18: What is washoku? cont’d. The Iron Chef phenomenon: conspicuous
consumption and cuisine as competition.
Readings: Mark Gallagher, “What’s So Funny about IRON CHEF?” Journal of Popular Filmand Television, 31:4, 176-184.
おばんざい Field trip to Masugata shōtengai at Demachi Yanagi to see what’s cooking.
旨味 WEEK II

22: Field trip: Ajiwaikan Museum of Kyoto Cuisine, to learn how tomake dashi.

25: Umami: the fifth flavour. Food for thought
and thinking about food. Readings: Oishinbo, ch. 1.
Rosanjin vs. Brillat-Savarin: How to think about food.
Readings: Brillat-Savarin, “Aphorisms of the Professor,”from The Physiology of Taste: web link:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/part2.html
Roland Barthes, “Reading Brillat-Savarin.”
Kitaōji Rosanjin, “A Fool for Taste: Rosanjin’s aphorisms.”
米 WEEK III

29: Rice: The staff of Japanese life.
Readings: “A Delicious Way to Eat Rice,” Oishinbo
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time, Ch. 1.

February 1: Rice, cont’d.
Readings: Katarzyna Cwiertka, “From Ethnic to Hip: Circuits of Japanese Cuisine in Europe,”
Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment. 13:4,241-272.
魚 WEEK IV 3: Fish: The raw and the cooked
Film: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

8: Readings: Oishinbo, chs. 2, 4, 9
Reading: Theodore Bestor, Tsukiji: The fish market at the center of the world,ch. 4.
大豆

WEEK V 12: 建国記念日 Holiday: no class.
15: The Great Bean: soy and a vegetable diet
Readings: Oishinbo, ch. 3, 5.

KCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S24

7Ancillary: William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi. History of Soyand Soyfoods in Japan. Lafayette, CA: Soy Information Center,2014. http://www.soyinfocenter.com/pdf/173/Japa.pdf
WEEK VI 19 TBA: Field Trip to Kyōyasai Ichiyo and Fujiwara Nattō,Kuramaguchi?
22: KCJS Trip to Onomichi. No class, but sample the local ramen!
SDGs WEEK VII February 26: Sustainability
Whale, dolphin, tuna, and cod. Are we eating endangered species?
Film: Bluefin. Discussion of ethics of eating.
Readings: TBA
29: MIDTERM TESTWEEK VIII March 4, 7: Spring Break: no classes
茶 WEEK IX 11: Experience a “tea ceremony” with tea master Bruce Hamana,
Amherst House, Doshisha University.
14: The culture of Tea:
Readings: Okakura Tenshin, The Book of Tea;
Ancillary: Herbert Plutschow, “An Anthropological
Perspective on the Japanese Tea Ceremony.” Anthropoetics 5
no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1999).
Barbara Lynne Rowland Mori, “The Tea Ceremony: A
Transformed Japanese Ritual,” Gender and Society, Vol. 5, No.
1 (Mar., 1991), pp. 86-97.

WEEK XI

18: Wagashi: tea cakes. Field trip to Tawaraya Yasutomi for ademonstration on how to make them.
21: March 21. Kaiseki: multi-course fine dining
Readings: Gary Sōka Cadwaller and Joseph Justice, “Stones for theBelly: Kaiseki cuisine for tea in the early Edo period.” In Eric C.
Rath, Japanese Foodways, Past and Present. Rath, “Re-evaluating
Rikyū: Kaiseki and the origins of Japanese cuisine.”

WEEK XII

25: Coffee: Japan and Kyoto’s cafe culture.
Reading: Merry White, Coffee Life in Japan, Ch. 2. pp. 19-41.

28: B 級グルメ: “B-Gourmet” and yōshoku(Japanese-style western cooking):
Curry, noodles and other soul food.
Readings: Oishinbo, ch. 8; George Solt, “Ramen and U.S.
Occupation Policy.” In Rath, Japanese Foodways; Satomi
Fukutomi, “Ramen Conoisseurs: class, gender, and theKCJS Exploring Japanese Cuisine S24

8internet.” In Rath, Japanese Foodways
WEEK XIII

April 1: TBA
4: Student presentations

WEEK XIV8, 11: Student presentations

WEEK XV

15, 18: Student presentations.