Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Serving food to others often figures in narratives within Japan, much like elsewhere, as a form of caring, and sustaining daily life as much as making it enjoyable. Against this backdrop of positive associations, many chefs identify deeply with their work and what they provide to others – but for some, this is precisely the problem. In this paper, I argue that while “care” is often blithely posited as an alternative to what is seen as alienation metastasized into the social fabric of Japan, some chefs have found the work of caring itself to be alienating, rather than work itself. Specifically, care often figures as an alternative because it is seen as labor steeped in personal connections, building community, and reciprocity. However, the fact that one is then not alienated from their product, but associated with it, can have seriously distressing effects if the effects of this care are viewed as deleterious. That is, alienation can be produced from the very act of caring. Drawing upon my ethnographic work with Japanese health foods chefs, I detail in this paper a segment of chefs that switched to consciously preparing alternative types of foods they see as healthy – organic, vegan, and macrobiotic – following personal crises about what they were providing to those in their communities. In doing so, I argue for a Food Studies perspective that critically interrogates care as a nexus of varied societal and cultural forces that can contour it into a potentially alienating activity.