Investigation of Food Culture through Japanese Literature: How did people represent food in literary works in early modern Japan?

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K13385
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Japanese literature
• Research Institution: Niigata University (2020-2021); Nagoya University (2017-2019)
• Principal Investigator: Hata Yuki 新潟大学, 日本酒学センター, 特任助教 (60768422)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 近世日本 / 食文化 / 文芸表現 / 草双紙 / 擬人化 / 料理 / 本草学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study examines how food was represented in the literature and arts of early modern Japan, mainly by analyzing literary works for common people, such as kusa-zoshi (illustrated storybooks) and ukiyo-e. People often depicted food in literary works in the early modern period, though few such pieces existed before the medieval period. So I discuss how and why people frequently represented food in the 18th and 19th centuries through a perspective of cultural history. In this study, I interpret literary works from people's points of view of this period, checking against cookbooks, herbal books, and so on. This shows two points below:
1) Previous research sometimes treats these works as reflections of real life, like pictures. But we should not equate food depicted in them with that in people's real life.
2) We tend to consider food as a part of our livelihood culture. However, there is room for further research about food; we can re-examine it in terms of representational culture.

Free Research Field

日本文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

江戸期の「食」を描く文芸は従来、単なる滑稽文学・文芸と捉えられ、十分な検討がなされてこなかった。しかし本研究により、文芸中に描かれた「食」と実際の生活の中での「食」との間には相違があることを示し、「食」を表象文化として捉え直す必要性を提起できた。また、江戸文化がなぜこれほど「食」を表現したのか、江戸文化を「食」から研究する可能性を指摘するに至った。さらに、現在まで数多く遺されていながらもそれぞれ孤立した状態にある江戸期の「食」関係資料について、それらを有機的に結び付け行う食文化研究の方法論を提示した。