Japanese Cuisine
Overview
The Relationship between the Culture and Cuisine
The Relationship Between a Society and Its Cuisine
To learn about the lifestyle of people living in a society, one can look at cuisine of that society. One of the perfect examples of this relationship is Japanese cuisine, which is one of the most popular cuisines in the world. Japanese cuisine and the way of life of Japanese people are closely related. One can understand that the Japanese people attach importance to aesthetics and beauty in their daily life and occupations by looking at the way they present their dishes. The fact that they pay attention to the appearance and colour harmony of the dishes clearly shows that they like to be meticulous about the work they do. Just as the Japanese are trying to adopt a healthy lifestyle in daily life, they generally prefer to use less oil and spices in their meals; thus, they manage to preserve not only nutritional value of the food but also its flavour. Serving food in small portions suggests that they are a more minimalist society rather than extravagant. Just as they give importance to the balance in their daily life, they also pay attention to balance in their meals and use rice instead of bread as their main source of carbohydrates. The fact that they attach great importance to table manners shows that they are a society that takes care of their values. To give an example of table manners, chopsticks should not be stuck in a rice dish called Hashi. This is because sticking a chopstick in Hashi rice is a traditional movement that is done in funerals as a sign of respect, which shows that the Japanese people are a society that respects the dead. To sum up, by looking at Japanese culture, we can get many clues about the life of Japanese society and it can be understood that people's lifestyles are an element that deeply affects culinary culture.