Slurp! : a social and culinary history of ramen, Japan's favorite noodle soup / / by Barak Kushner.

• Author: Kushner, Barak, 1968-
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (309 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Ramen, Japan’s noodle soup, is a microcosm of Japan and its historical relations with China. The long evolution of ramen helps us enter the history of cuisine in Japan, charting how food and politics combined as a force within Sino-Japan relations. Cuisine in East Asia plays a significant political role, at times also philosophical, economic, and social. Ramen is a symbol of the relationship between the two major forces in East Asia – what started as a Chinese food product ended up almost 1,000 years later as the emblem of modern Japanese cuisine. This book explains that history – from myths about food in ancient East Asia to the transfer of medieval food technology to Japan, to today’s ramen “popular culture.”

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction – The Temple of Noodledom -- Three Sages Walk into a Restaurant and … Noodles -- Court Food versus Common Food -- International Japan, Foreign Foods and Isolation -- Early Modern Noodles and the Myth of Ramen -- The Meiji Restoration: Menu Renovation on the Road to Ramen -- Diplomacy and the Desire to Impress -- Empire and Japanese Cuisine -- World War II Cuisine: A World Adrift -- History at the Dining Table: Postwar Instant Ramen -- Ramen Popular Culture -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.