globalization

by Fabio Parasecoli

Living in New York and working in food — previously as a journalist and currently as a professor — I often find myself talking about restaurants, products, and trends. A growing number of people identify themselves as “foodies,” passionate about all things culinary, ready to improve their expertise, and always willing to discuss their last discovery.

This kind of approach to food and eating is no longer exclusive to post-industrial societies like the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan. Foodies are a cosmopolitan tribe that has emerged in urban centers where upward economies, burgeoning middle classes, and global flows of people, ideas, and technology allow for growing numbers of people to express their identity — and their social distinction — through the consumption of food.

India’s largest cities are examples of this worldwide phenomenon. I was reminded of that by reading an article by food journalist Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi. Its title, Why We Need A Time-Out From Foodie Culture, says it all. The author observes: “We feel like we’re experts on food because we all eat. We follow international chefs on Twitter, we watch aspiring ones make detailed, complex dishes on MasterChef — preparations that take hours are edited down to minutes. We’re now not only experts, we’re now instant experts. Because we saw someone chiffonade herbs on TV, we saw the Wikipedia entry for sous-vide, we tweeted about the best biryani in town, we feel we can now talk about food with some authority.”

When I was doing research in Bangalore, I joined the Facebook Bangalore Foodies Club, which now boasts more than 13,000 members. As I was new to the city, I was looking for tips and advice. I ended up meeting very interesting and warm people who generously showed me around and introduced me to the local food culture. After I made it back to NYC, I asked the members of the group what a “foodie” was for them. Interestingly, very few people responded to my query, and not because of lack of participation in the group. Other threads about specific restaurants or dishes routinely receive much more attention. It seemed that most participants were not so interested in reflections, but rather in sharing experiences, impressions, and often complaints. Those who answered agreed that the word “foodie” was somewhat abused, but that at the same time it indicated a desire to experiment, break barriers, and try new things.

Who are these “foodies”? Based on shared dinners, conversations, and more formal interviews, they definitely do not constitute a homogenous group, which would be impossible in India and especially in a metropolis like Bangalore. Many point to the impact of MasterChef Australia, which started broadcasting about 3 years ago, as the beginning of the trend. Now there is a MasterChef India, and its popularity is so pervasive that male kids now think that being a chef is a legitimate career.

In general, locals are proud of their food traditions and expertise. Many argue that their city is at the same level as Mumbai or Delhi. They enjoy the availability of so many cuisines from the south and elsewhere: vegetarian and non-vegetarian, fish, Brahmin, and Muslim. The traditional elites who speak kannada, the local language, frequently enjoy patronizing establishments featuring traditional fare. English speaking elites native from Bangalore tend to be more cosmopolitan, but at times resent the growing numbers of strangers moving to the city following the IT boom. Newcomers are both married and not married, an important factor in Indian society in terms of interaction and leisure dynamics. As a consequence, eating out becomes particularly important for singles, and many among those employed in IT have some disposable income to spend on good food.

Outsiders often observe — and the locals tend to agree — that the Bangalore upper crust is relatively price conscious: they want value for their buck. They are not so much about seeing and being seen, or hanging out with celebrities. Restaurants that invest just on looks, and where food is not good or too expensive shut down fast. Many establishments, trying to ride the tide, have opened and closed really fast. Food has certainly moved from the private sphere to more public conversations, allowing up-and-coming individuals and group to display refinement, knowledge, and connoisseurship through their culinary choices. Inevitably the numbers of those who fancy themselves as experts has grown exponentially. However, there are some who write about food, travel, culture, and tradition seriously and accurately. Among my favorites, Aliyeh Rizvi on A Turquoise Cloud, Suman Bolar on the FTB Blog. and Suresh Hinduja on GourmetIndia. More to come about restaurants in Bangalore…

by Fabio Parasecoli

from Huffington Post

Japan occupies an interesting place in Western popular culture: as one of the most developed countries in the world, its presence is warranted among the major players in the global economy and in international politics. Its industrial and technological products are among the most common household names in consumer culture across the globe. Its popular culture, especially when it comes to fashion, design, anime, and manga, has a considerable following outside its borders. The disasters following the recent tsunami have also contributed to a prominent spot for Japan in the global imagination.

Yet, when it comes to food, Japan has lost some of its mystery. Restaurant patrons are conversant with sushi, sashimi, and tempura, and shoppers are less and less surprised to see wasabi, seaweed, green tea, and even mocha in the “international aisles” of their supermarkets. The recent documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi reflects the interest of Western gourmets in a culinary tradition that, until a few decades ago, was shrouded in exoticness. Now we have access to delivery sushi; we can pick sashimi off little conveyor belts; and cookbooks, TV shows, and other media are contributing to make Japanese cuisine accessible and comprehensible. Still, there are still layers and layers that some Western foodies have yet to consider, including the many local traditions that stubbornly survive in parts of the country, the kaiseki dining and cooking style, and the ongoing evolution that has created relatively novel approaches like the Japanese-inflected wafu pasta.

Merry White’s new book, Coffee Life in Japan guides us along as we discover a visible yet quite unexplored dimension of Japanese consumer culture. An anthropologist by training and by trade (she teaches at Boston University), the author takes us from coffee house to coffee house, uncovering a whole world that would be hidden from those wrongfully believing Japan is only about tea. As a matter of fact, it is the third largest coffee-importing country in the world, with an internal market shaped by high prices, high quality, and high costs of production. Although the country’s love affair with the drink is more recent than Europe’s, cafes were thriving long before the arrival of Starbucks.

White proves that the drink has played a significant role in the process of modernization in Japan through its ability to adapt to political earthquakes, changing urban structures, and evolving behaviors. Cafes turn out to be places where people can take a break from social pressure and express one’s individuality outside the harmonious consensus that many perceive as a defining trait of Japanese culture. Throughout the book we get to explore wildly different establishments, meeting a curious cast of characters that have dedicated their lives to preparing the best café possible, each embracing quite different standards. Preparations, design, techniques, atmosphere and soundscapes may vary, but all the café owners portrayed in the book seem to take coffee and customer care with the greatest seriousness.

Kodawari, the disciplined dedication and attention to detail that these individuals display, is far from being the stereotyped perfectionism (bordering on the pathological) that many attribute to Japanese culture. As White points out:

“A café in Japan is not a ‘global space’ -unless one counts the Seattle-based chain stores – nor is it usually a deeply local place, forbidding to newcomers… There is no single model for the café… The very openness of definition, along with the cultural parameters of services and quality that make these places ‘Japanese’ is the draw and the preservative of the café in Japanese cities… Its cultural logic is strongly Japanese, but the experience of the café can break almost all the usual rules of being Japanese.”

White wanders from café to café, from brewing master to coffee merchant, with nonchalant pleasure. At times the book structure seems far from linear, returning to topics and concepts already touched on before, but White’s affection for the world she describes is infectious. The narrative often reads like a memoir, and the author is able to transport us to places and situations that are not only described with the eye of the anthropologist, but shared with the passion of a true coffee lover.

The Bangalore Foodie Club: Eating Adventures in a Cosmopolitan City

Coffee Life in Japan: The Exotic and the Apparently Familiar