by Cornelia Reiher

Time flies and a third of the summer term has passed already. This week the students are conducting interviews with students from Seikei University in Tokyo and next week they will be taking a trip to our university’s Japanese cafeteria to practice participant observation. In the meantime, students formed four groups to investigate Japanese cuisine and food in Berlin over the course of this semester. Some groups will produce videos, but the students will also try out new formats. The first project will look at the migration stories of Japanese restaurateurs in Berlin. The second project examines what kinds of food Japanese migrants living in Berlin ask their families to send to them. The focus here is on feelings of belonging and the everyday eating practices of migrants. A third project examines school meals in the Japanese school in Berlin from the perspective of parents, teachers and kitchen staff in the context of food education (shokuiku). The fourth project deals with the adaptation of Japanese recipes in Asian fusion cuisine in Berlin. The results will be available at the end of September. Until then, I look forward to many interesting interviews, excursions, interim reports on the projects and new insights into the diverse landscape of Japanese cuisine in Berlin.