This summer semester, the methods course „Berlin’s Japanese Foodscapes“ will once again take place at Freie Universität Berlin. This year, BA students will also be taking part for the first time. As every year, the research workshop consists of a colorful mix of interview exercises with guests from the gastronomy, restaurant excursions and project work. This year, we are once again cooperating with Yoko Kawamura and her students from Seikei University in Tokyo to give our students the chance to experiment with the online interview format. The students will test their Japanese language skills and hopefully gain interesting insights into the eating habits of Japanese students. In the coming weeks, the students will form groups and develop their own research projects on culinary globalization and Japanese cuisine in Berlin. As always, we will document the results of the projects as well as impressions from the excursions and interview experiences on this blog. Stay tuned for updates!
If you want to go out for Japanese food in Berlin, you have a wide choice of different restaurants offering a variety of dishes in different price categories. It is not easy to make a decision, but there are many institutions and media offering guidance. If you want to dine at a high level, you should take a look at the Michelin Guide, which lists three Japanese restaurants in Berlin in 2023. The internet and social media also provide information and reviews on Japanese restaurants. And if you are out and about in Berlin’s Japanese foodscape, you will notice the many certificates stuck to shop windows, emblazoned on websites or framed on restaurant walls. Media and professional associations award certificates to restaurants to guide customers, but above all to distinguish them from other restaurants, and numerous organizations offer certificates. However, these are not only awarded by organizations in Germany, but Japanese institutions also award certificates to Japanese restaurants in Berlin.
Various certificates and awards in the windows of Japanese restaurants in Berlin
The Japanese government’s attempt to certify authentic Japanese cuisine abroad so that Japanese business travelers don’t – heaven forbid – accidentally walk into a restaurant run by non-Japanese came under fire in 2006 and was mocked as the sushi police (Sakamoto and Allen 2011). This name was even picked up for an anime series.But other organizations are still certifying Japanese restaurants. One such certificate is the “Authentic Japanese Restaurant” (nintei honkaku nihon ryōri ten) certificate issued by an organization called Nintei Nihon Restaurant Association located in the U.K. and established by a Japanese restaurateur based in London who owns eateries in London, Germany and Tokyo. According to Farrer and Wang (2021: 24), “[m]ost, though not all awardees are Japanese-owned restaurants, including some in Paris, London, and Berlin”. Nintei Nihon Restaurant Association’s stated goal is “to recommend only the establishments serving authentic and mostly affordable Japanese cuisine outside of Japan, where you can confidently take your friends and family too for an enjoyable experience” (Nintei Nihon Restaurant Association 2024).
Since 2016, JETRO, Japan’s exchange and trade organization with offices around the world, including Berlin, has been promoting the Japanese Food Supporter Program, which was established by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) to foster Japanese food worldwide. Its mission is “to bring safe and delicious Japanese food and alcoholic beverages to all corners of the world“ (JETRO 2024). Until the end of January 2024, 5,503 stores and restaurants were certified as Japanese food supporters (ibid.). The certificate indicates that restaurants use Japanese ingredients. JETRO Berlin has been trying to promote the certificate for 5 years. As restaurants receive no reward other than a sticker and have to take part in time-consuming surveys about which products are used, it is not easy to convince restaurants to adopt the logo, a JETRO official told me.
Another JETRO initiative to introduce Japanese restaurants to customers is a restaurant guide, which was published in 2023 and is currently being revised as new restaurants open and others listed in the current guide have already closed. Restaurants listed in the guide are selected if at least the chef or owner is Japanese. The criteria underlying the awarding of the certificates presented here and the inclusion in the restaurant guide all relate to a concept of authentic Japanese cuisine, which refers either to the involvement of Japanese people in the preparation of the food or to the origin of the ingredients from Japan. The interests behind the initiation and dissemination of such certificates are diverse and range from supporting Japanese restaurateurs to marketing Japanese agricultural products. While the restaurant guide is most likely to provide consumers with information, it remains to be seen to what extent certificates like the Japanese Food Supporter certificate or the Nintei Nihon Restaurant certificate actually provide consumers in Berlin with guidance in their search for delicious Japanese food and would need to be investigated separately.
Reference
Farrer, James and Chuanfei Wang (2021), “Who owns a cuisine? The grassroots politics of Japanese food in Europe,” Asian Anthropology, 20:1, 12-29, DOI: 10.1080/1683478X.2020.1774960.
Sakamoto, Rumi and Matthew Allen (2011), “There’s something fishy about that sushi: how Japan interprets the global sushi boom,” Japan Forum, 23:1, 99-121, DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2011.580538.
As the research workshop „Japanese Cuisine in Berlin“ only takes place in the summer semester and is aimed at Master’s students, I usually offer a course on food and nutrition in Japan for BA students in the winter semester. This course mainly deals with food, agriculture and nutrition in Japan itself, but also includes texts on the globalization of Japanese cuisine. One focus of this semester’s course was on food education and regional cuisine. I therefore invited two colleagues from Japan and the USA to make miso and obento with the students.
In December 2023, Takako Horita from Oita Prefecture visited our course. She is a nutritionist and has been working for a local government for many years. Her tasks include offering cooking classes, developing healthy eating plans for specific population groups and developing concepts for food tourism. In particular, she has dedicated herself to preserving traditional food practices and has documented, for example, the production of miso with older women in the region. They have also published a recipe book. Ms. Horita also visits schools and kindergartens to make miso together with children.
The culinary infrastructure for Japanese cuisine in Berlin described in my last blog post played an important role in the preparations for the workshop. Ms. Horita asked the students to soak, cook and bring soybeans before the workshop. Before giving the students this task, I visited numerous Asian and conventional supermarkets to find suitable soybeans. It turned out that, although soybeans were available, the koji kin needed to make koji or the ready-made koji itself is very expensive in Berlin. Ms. Horita therefore brought koji from Japan.
The workshop itself was a lot of fun for the students, even though they won’t be able to taste their own miso for a few months. After everyone had made a miso ball of a satisfactory consistency to take home, we ate miso soup together, which Ms. Horita prepared from misodama she had made herself. She had also brought miso of different ages for the students to taste.
After ending 2023 with a miso workshop, we started the new year with an obento workshop. Debra Samuels, food journalist, cookbook author and food educator from Boston, who had already cooked with us online in the Corona Lockdown 2021, visited us at the FU Berlin to give the students insights into the world of obento and to prepare their own obento with them.
Since we had also talked about the connection between nutrition education and gender in the course, the topic of obento lent itself to talking about the role of mothers, their daily performance of preparing an acceptable obento and social practices of inclusion and exclusion in Japanese schools. It was insightful for the students to make their own obento. The many individual steps required to create an obento that is considered appropriate and sufficiently kawaii impressed the students greatly and helped them to better understand the burden of Japanese mothers.
Debra asked the students to make onigiri, tamagoyaki, octopus sausages, tsukemono made from cucumber and a tomato heart. Despite the somewhat limited equipment in the seminar room, fabulous obento were created, all of which were different because the students had made an effort to give their obento an individual touch. Debra had bought all the ingredients in Berlin, so this workshop also showed that the culinary infrastructure in Berlin makes it possible to prepare Japanese dishes here without any problems.
Both workshops were not only a welcome change from the otherwise text-based lessons, but also gave the students exciting insights into food practices in Japan and their globalization. I would like to thank Takako Horita and Debra Samuels very much for making these experiences possible.
Join us for the Open Monday Special Edition on Food at JDZB.
Date: February 5, 2024
Time: 6 pm
Location: Japanese German Center Berlin (JDZB), Saargemünder Str. 2, 14195 Berlin
Presenters: Debra Samuels (NPO: TABLE FOR TWO USA, Content and Program Developer) and Prof. Dr. Cornelia Reiher (Freie Universität Berlin, Japanese Studies)
When I talk to Japanese migrants in Berlin, they usually say that they miss Japanese food. Although there are many Japanese restaurants in the city, it is too expensive to eat there every day. Most of my research participants only go out to eat in Japanese restaurants on special occasions. Some take sashimi and other dishes to eat at home, while others never eat at Japanese restaurants. Therefore, in this post, I introduce the everyday eating practices of Japanese migrants in Berlin and where they buy the necessary ingredients to prepare them at home. In 2018, one of our student projects investigated how Japanese exchange students use Asian supermarkets in Berlin. However, Japanese migrants who live in Berlin long-term use many other options besides Asian supermarkets to buy ingredients for Japanese cuisine on a daily basis.
Most of the migrants I have interviewed over the years have told me that they cook Japanese food at home or prepare fusion dishes such as pasta with soy sauce. Some prepare rice and miso soup every day. One research participant told me that onigiri is her soul food, and when Japanese migrants get together, they bring rice-based dishes such as maki sushi. Rice came up in almost all the interviews and conversations I had, and many Japanese migrants mentioned that they bring rice home from a trip to Japan, ask their relatives to send it, or buy yumenishiki rice in Asian supermarkets, even though it is very expensive. Japanese migrants who have lived in Berlin for more than a decade emphasize that it is much easier to buy Japanese ingredients today than it was twenty years ago. The number of Asian supermarkets and online delivery services has increased. Some Japanese foods such as soy sauce or sake are now even available in normal supermarkets. A new Japanese supermarket offering products from Japan has recently opened in Berlin. It offers sake, spices, fresh vegetables and mushrooms, curry pastes, sweets, noodles and more. The supermarket even sells ready meals, just like in Japanese supermarkets, including sashimi and sushi, as well as yakitori, bentō and onigiri. The dishes are freshly prepared in a small kitchen in the store.
In addition to supermarkets, online delivery services provide the Japanese population with frozen fish and other ingredients they need to cook at home. To save some money on delivery costs and because deliveries are often made during the day when most people are at work, some migrants take turns to take orders for their friends in a group order. Sometimes companies that supply fresh ingredients to the Japanese migrant community across Europe organize pop-up events in cities with a larger Japanese community. On these occasions, many migrants come together and enjoy the opportunity to see and choose the products firsthand, meet other people and chat over a hot miso soup. These events are tailored to Japanese customers, the staff speak Japanese, and the information on the price tags is written in Japanese.
Overall, the growing number of places where Japanese food and ingredients can be consumed shows how a culinary infrastructure has developed with the growing Japanese diaspora in Europe. Although more Japanese ingredients are available in Berlin, most migrants emphasize that they are still expensive. Therefore, many migrants make their own miso or nattō at home because they either can’t afford to buy ready-made products or don’t want to spend so much money on them. And some simply enjoy making it themselves. Of course, this is only possible because ingredients such as kōji are now available in Berlin or can be ordered online. This brief overview of where Japanese migrants buy ingredients for home cooking in Berlin shows that the city’s Japanese foodscape consists not only of restaurants and wholesalers that supply restaurants with ingredients, but also of supermarkets and stores where Japanese migrants and the growing number of people interested in Japanese food meet their needs for preparing Japanese dishes at home.
Japanese food is very popular in Berlin, and certain Japanese foods even have their own festivals. In October, I attended the opening of Sake Week and a rāmen festival. Since both events were held on the same day, it was a very exciting day full of interesting sights, delicious taste sensations and exciting encounters with people who are passionate about Japanese food and drink. According to their website, Sake Week is organized by the Sake Embassy, an organization that describes itself as a „liquid meditation movement“. The last Sake Week was held in 2022 in five cities with 50 events, while Sake Week 2023 featured 100 events in nine cities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia.
After we had climbed the stairs to the opening event at a brewery, we were greeted with a “Japanese Radler” made from beer, yuzu sake and lemonade. After a short welcome, we were able to participate in sake tastings from two import companies that offered sake from different prefectures in Japan. The audience that had gathered for the event included people from the restaurant and retail industries, Japanese cultural organizations and their friends and supporters. I met restaurant owners, chefs and sake sommeliers who told me how they pair dishes with sake. They all participate in Sake Week by hosting special sake-themed events at their restaurants and bars. One restaurateur told me that she likes sake because she finds that most of her customers are already attuned to wine and are more open with sake because they don’t know it as well yet. With sake pairings, she has more leeway and guests can make new discoveries.
With different types of sake, fusion finger food and interesting conversations, the two hours went by way too fast and like the sake entrepreneurs who packed up their sake to travel to the rāmen festival, we had to head there too. However, on the way to the rāmen festival, it had started to rain and by the time we arrived, we were completely soaked. Despite the bad weather, there was a long line of people waiting to buy a ticket. Fortunately, we had purchased our tickets online and were able to walk right in. The event was designed as an outdoor event with various booths. When we arrived, people were crowding the few covered seats. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was good and most visitors enjoyed the Japanese food and drinks under the temporary rain shelters.
Since we were already wet, we looked around first. In addition to three stalls selling rāmen, there were other Japanese dishes such as takoyaki, taiyaki and okonomiyaki, a sake stall and a stall selling various Japanese handicrafts. One booth was set up in the style of Hakata Yatai. These food stalls are typical of street vendors in Fukuoka, a city in northern Kyushu. The food offered was appropriately tonkotsu rāmen, a specialty from this area also known as Hakata rāmen. The soup broth is based on pork bones and the dish is traditionally topped with sliced pork belly. We got in line and got a seat right by the cart.
While we bravely took our seats outside, most of the guests ordered rāmen to go and ate it under one of the few canopies. We held the umbrella above us and although it was a challenge to hold the chopsticks in one hand and the umbrella in the other, the noodles tasted delicious. Maybe because I had never eaten ramen at a yatai in the rain before. Several young Japanese men and women were working at the stall. Two girls took orders and cashed up, while the other employees prepared the ingredients, cooked the soup and served it. We sat right in front of the containers of ingredients, like eggs and scallions, and I hope my umbrella did not drip into it.
Later it cleared up and more people came to the festival area. But since we were still wet, we decided to look for a dessert and call it a day. We were lucky and bought the last vegan taiyaki with matcha cream and cherries and headed back to the next S-Bahn station, passing supermarkets, gas stations and car dealerships. It was an eventful day, and I was amazed at how many people from very different backgrounds are fascinated by Japanese food and have come just to eat rāmen and other Japanese dishes. At the same time, there is a growing number of non-Japanese entrepreneurs working to promote Japanese food and drink in Germany and I would like to learn more about what drives them.
Our course in the summer semester was held in a hybrid format because one student was living in Tokyo. Vanessa and Olivia used this opportunity to compare rāmen in Tokyo and Berlin. They present their findings in a podcast. Please listen here (in German):
Japanese food is sold in various places in Berlin. Some are only available temporarily like pop-up stores, others can be found regularly in the form of a stall at a market, sometimes you can only order food online, while still others take a permanent form of cafes or restaurants. Certain places are only open at a certain time of year, and sometimes they are very secretive, with no information about opening hours, and it is purely by chance that you pass by when they are open. Sometimes spaces with other functions like a movie theater are rented to serve Japanese food.
Some of the food stalls have been around for many years at flea markets or market halls and are now a regular part of the city’s culinary landscape. It is interesting to note that many of these stalls are run by women. They are often a way to earn extra money while studying or working as an artist. Once or twice a week, for example, they sell takoyaki, onigiri, taiyaki and other Japanese street food. The investment in such a food stall is comparatively small and hardly any staff is needed. However, the food stalls have also had problems with the increased food prices in the last two years and have had to raise prices. The Corona pandemic also resulted in lost revenue as markets were unable to operate for many months. A takeaway strategy was largely impossible without a fixed kitchen and distribution infrastructure. By the summer of 2023, however, Japanese food stalls at markets and festivals were more popular than ever, with customers waiting in long lines.
Faced with rising rents for restaurant space, Japanese food entrepreneurs often try to find temporary solutions for their businesses, including pop-up stores or co-use of spaces such as movie theaters or galleries. Food pop-ups in Berlin can take the format of bars, offering only a few dishes and an extensive drink menu, but they can also offer lunch or appear as noodle restaurants or bakeries. Reusing temporarily vacant storefronts or public spaces or sharing spaces at lunchtime that are normally only open at night, is a win-win situation for the city, the owners of the spaces and Berlin’s Japanese foodscape. After a while, some of these pop-up stores became permanent establishments if they did well. In this sense, they can be seen as a kind of experimental field where food entrepreneurs can try out their concepts and menus at relatively low cost.
Since the start of the sushi boom in Berlin in the 1990s, the Japanese foodscape in Berlin has lost none of its dynamism, not only in terms of the type of food served but also in terms of the places where Japanese food is sold. While some long-established restaurants have disappeared, new ones are popping up, and hopefully, many of them will stay.
