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Short Essay On Japanese Culture

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Japanese cuisine has long been an important part of Japanese culture, and traces its roots far back into the late Jōmon period when rice cultivation was likely to have been first introduced by immigrants from the Korean peninsula around 400BCE (Fuqua, 1996). Since then, Japan is one of the unique countries that has significant cultural meaning in staple food, and is sometimes viewed as “a powerful and evocative symbol of the collective self of a people” (Ohnuki-Tierney & Werblowsky, 1993). Today, Japanese cuisine itself has become a “staple” cuisine in almost every major city in the world, yet, not much emphasis is placed on the social, cultural and economic factors that gave birth to modern Japanese cuisine. Hence, this essay will seek to explore in particular, the caste system in the edo period and how it played a significant role in developing Japan’s culinary arts. The arrival of the Edo period brought not only unprecedented peace and social order, but also unified and formalized many elements of Japanese culture. The four tier …show more content…

It was one of the unique styles of dining that was formalized during this period and is arguably one of the foundations for modern Japanese cuisine. (Seligman, 1994) Kaiseki, which is also considered an art that places a high importance on not only taste, but also texture, appearance and color combinations of the food, rose to prominence during the Kyōhō period (1716-1736) through the formalization of tea practices by iemoto (family foundation) organizations. Similar to how the way of the samurai was codified in what became known as Bushido, the “Way of Tea” was codified by the san-Senke Schools , Omotesenke, Urasenke, and Mushakōjisenke. (Nishiyama & Groemer, 1997) Without the influence of these iemoto organizations, it would have been impossible for the practice of tea ceremony to have evolved into the complex ritual that exists in Japanese culture

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