午夜剧场

Compared to the number of people who become interested in foreign countries through food, there are few studies on the history of food culture by country. This book provides an overview of the characteristics and trends of American culture and society through food. Food is packed with memories of a distant, buried past. It is a time capsule that tells how a group secured its food, who they met, and how they established their own eating habits.

Inscribed in American food is a memory that is often overlooked: that this country's food culture has important origins in the non-Western world, such as indigenous peoples and enslaved Black people, and that it is a hybrid creation formed by layering the wisdom of immigrants from various regions. America has experimented with creating hybrid, original cuisines that did not exist anywhere else in the world and turning them into shared assets. The history of food culture reflects that it was not only white people who built this country, but that a hybrid and free experimental spirit is at the core of this nation's creativity. This eloquently demonstrates that politics hostile to immigrants and minorities runs counter to the very origins of this country.

But why was the result of that experiment standardized fast food? In fact, the hamburger, the mainstay of fast food, was one of many creative ethnic sandwiches that met the demand for finger foods that grew alongside industrial society. The essential ketchup and pickles are legacies of the ethnic food business, and the soft drinks indispensable to the fast food business were originally developed as health foods. Ironically, the results of hybrid creativity and technological innovation in industrial society also paved the way for the standardization of food and the pursuit of efficiency.

Today in America, a transformation toward a post-fast food society has begun. The legacy of the hippies' food culture revolution has revived and fused ethnic and healthy elements. Furthermore, community-supported agriculture, which prioritizes the environment and food safety over the large-scale monoculture of genetically modified varieties for fast food that reigns over a divided society, is encouraging a shift from efficiency to the public good.

American fast food has swept the world. Understanding the trajectory of the American food culture experiment will deepen our understanding of this country and provide hints for rethinking our own dietary habits.

Toru Suzuki

Chuko Shinsho

272 pages, 880 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.