Nikkei Chronicles #11
Itadakimasu 3! Nikkei Food, Family, and Community

English:

• Food for Thought—TikTok & Tamagoyaki
  By Kyra Karatsu

  Comment from Gil Asakawa
  I loved all the English entries for Itadakimasu 3! for different reasons. But my favorite of the submission is “Food for Thought—TikTok & Tamagoyaki,” an essay by Kyra Karatsu, a college journalism student that originally ran in The Rafu Shimpo back in June 2022. She’s a Japanese-German Yonsei who’s written a series of insightful stories for Discover Nikkei about her Japanese identity, family, culture, and history that are all worth reading and absorbing.

  In this piece, Karatsu writes about her generation’s affinity for social media, and especially TikTok, which features videos that can go insanely viral. She notes she has only a few followers of her content, then explains her most viewed post is a one-minute video of she and her father making tamagoyaki, which received 2,000 views (puny by star content creator standards) but passionate comments from those viewers.

  She acknowledges there ultimately were plenty of positive comments, but cites some of the negative sentiments and weaves her food essay with threads of the current wave of anti-Asian sentiment and writes, “The Internet breeds a new brand of malice—one that can be typed yet not uttered.”

  Karatsu’s directness and clarity raise this piece about the joy of making tamagoyaki (and not particularly liking natto or sekihan) to a thought-provoking rumination on modern technology and social justice. She’ll have a fine career as a journalist and a cultural thinker, which is an exciting prospect for the Nikkei community.

  For the record, though, I love sekihan and natto… and of course, tamagoyaki!

Japanese:

• Intercultural Communication Through Sushi
  By Keiko Fukuda

  Comment from Masayuki Fukasawa
  I once asked a chef, who had just come from Japan, for his opinion on the “creative” sushi that was popular in Brazil, and I was caught off guard by his blunt response: “I wouldn’t call it Japanese food. That’s food of the Pacific Rim.” So to me, this story doesn’t sound like something that happened in a foreign country. There is even a new type of sushi restaurant called “Temakeria” (one that specializes in hand rolls), which is not originally from Japan, and it was reported that Brazilians brought it to Italy.

  Because there is no cold current flowing in the waters around Brazil, the fish they get for sushi have little fat, which is why they need to supplement with cream cheese or sauce to make it taste good. Given that they make sushi in a place where they have no access to the food that is used in Japan, of course they have to adapt.

  What’s remarkable about this story is that it shows how the mind of an immigrant changes, when not only the local situations surrounding Japanese food but also different cultures get mixed, as new generations are born, and even older generations of people gradually come to accept the fusion.

  Just like Japanese cuisine changes in foreign countries, people also change when they move to different places. On the other hand, having been away from Japan for over 20 years, living in a place where it’s not easy to make frequent visits back home, I often get overwhelmed by just how fast things change in my home country. I feel like I’m being left behind. I’ve come to realize that it’s not always the migrating one that changes.

Spanish:

• Nantu, the Mochi of Uchina
  By Roberto Oshiro Teruya

  Comment from Javier García Wong-Kit
  I chose this article because of its value from a historical, family, and scientific point of view. Through mochi, an essential element of Japanese and Nikkei cuisine, we’re able to understand the importance of food in the migration process, especially for the Japanese community in Latin America and its origins on Okinawa. I think we can learn a lot from this story, not only about Japan but also about what happens in Peru. It’s also an anecdote about how traditions unify the Nikkei community and the value of preserving traditional practices when starting a family enterprise like so many Nikkei businesses around the world.

Portuguese:

• Japanese-Brazilian Food: Japanese Cuisine with a Brazilian Touch
  By Meiry Mayumi Onohara

  Comment from Telma Shiraishi
  I loved Meiry’s account, talking about her memories—dishes and habits that were inherited from her family. What stands out is the fusion of recipes and ingredients that create new flavors while providing us with a good look at the history and family nucleus around this axis.

  My favorite segment is the one in which she talks about the typically Brazilian beans that include Japanese seaweed in their recipe. Next time I prepare beans at home, I’ll be trying out this combination myself.

  In addition to references to pop culture influences that have helped to increase interest in Japanese dishes, she goes through the unique combinations found in Brazilian sushi, with lots of freestyle in the reinterpretation of recipes that have traveled the world. Meiry also strolls through the diversity of Brazilian ingredients, many of which are cultivated by the Japanese in these lands and which allow for the great variety of new combinations.

  The most affective memory involves the bento meals—the flavor of traveling and of memories of her Bachan are materialized in the little metal boxes. A taste of family and of a unique identity, forged between two worlds.