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Podcast: New Books in Food
Episode: Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, "Branding Japan’s Food: From Meibutsu to Washoku" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)
Description: Katarzyna J. Cwiertka and Yasuhara Miho’s Branding Japan’s Food: From Meibutsu to Washoku (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) explores historical and contemporary practices of place branding through food in Japan. The book’s narrative centers on the event that precipitated its writing, namely, the 2013 addition of “Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese, notably for the celebration of New Year” to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.The authors argue that the definition of washoku in the UNESCO nomination is part of a longer history of manipulative place branding in Japan that has its...