SORIANO, Ivy Nicole G.

4LIT1

Food as Identity and Popular Culture in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen (1988)

Ever since the surge of technology in Japanese culture, the concept of identity has become
far more complex than its depiction in television and media. Much has been said in traditional
Japanese cartoon. Voltes V, Doraemon, and Hello Kitty have all made their rounds in the narratives
of 1980s folk: faint but familiar figures of the past.

Indeed, contemporary Japan adopts the same pulse: Pokemon Go, for instance, has kept its
players or ‘trainers’ busy flocking the overpopulated streets, meanwhile, Naruto has kept social
media amused, after inspiring hundreds of UP students to dash forward and run altogether within
campus, as if to imitate the ninjas from Konoha.

The hype towards Japanese iconography in a postmodern era does not operate without
historical bearing. It is imperative to map these traces of identity, of nostalgia blending with new
trends.

In studying Japanese pop culture, it is necessary to recall the traditions of early Japan,
which heavily regards a refined appreciation of the beauty of nature (Watanabe 279). More
importantly, such love for nature includes food—the “art of cookery”—and forges a deeper
meaning by weaving it into early Japanese identity.

Yoshimoto’s Kitchen tells us the story of Mikage Sakurai as she deals with the loss of her
grandmother. She meets Yuichi Tanabe and her mother, Eriko—also dealing with their own
loses—and lives with them for the most part of the story.

The place I like best in this world is the kitchen” (3), reads the first line of the novella. The
kitchen forges a space for the woman. It is in it and in the cooking that she exerts her power.
Yoshimoto uses this particular part of the house as a symbol of comfort, more so of “confinement
and escape” (Jaffe 224). Similar representations can be traced in Latin America’s Like Water for
Chocolate (1992) by Laura Esquivel. In the novel, we see parallels of how Tita—the youngest of
three siblings hence forced to attend to her old mother until death—recognizes as well as disdains
the kitchen as her domain. She feels trapped in the domestic sphere and yet genuinely enjoys
cooking, which ultimately empowers her that she sees it as an escape. Mikage, on the other hand,
uses the kitchen “to nurture other characters with her cooking (a symbol of comfort and
womanliness), but more important[ly], to emotionally nurture and fulfill herself (as a means to live
independently)” (Kellerman 54).

On the other hand, despite ramen and soba noodles, eel pie, and the iconic katsudon that
travelled kilometers, the characters’ choice of food seems to manifest a trace of the influence of
popular culture. Yoshimoto’s style and tone would almost render these pop culture allusions
almost invisible, almost ordinary. Characters are tired of tofu (90), hates pickled wasabi root (78),
and instead eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken and a pudding cup from the convenience store (46). A
brief mention of the American restaurant Denny’s is also present (90).

Whereas the many tea sessions throughout the story appears to be ‘very Japanese,’ it is
revealed later on that “he was drinking smelly Earl Grey whose soapy odor reminded me of many
a late night at the Tanabes’ (75).”
 References

Hanson, Elizabeth. "Hold the Tofu." The New York Times. 17 January 1993.
<http://www.nytimes.com/>.

Jaffe, Janice. “Hispanic American women writers’ novel recipes and Laura Esquivel’s Como Agua
Para Chocolate. Women’s Studies 22.2 (1993): 217-230. Print.

Kellerman, Robert. "A Room of Her Own in Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen." Pacific Asia Inquiry
1.1 (2010): 54-63.

Uychoco, Marikit Tara Alto. “Like Water for Chocolate: The Rewriting of the Female Experience
and Its Parallels in Philippine History.” Humanities Diliman, vol. 9, no. 2, 2012, pp. 95-
110.

Watanabe, Masao. "The Conception of Nature in Japanese Culture." Science 183.4122 (1974):
279-282.