The Untold History of Rāmen is a study of the role of rāmen noodles in reproducing labor power and redefining the nation at key moments in the history of modern Japan. The shifting composition and function of rāmen in terms of ingredients, pricing, and production processes are deeply connected to both shifts in food practices on a mass scale and the changing symbolic associations of new foods with different nations, regions, classes, and gender roles in Japan and beyond. Rāmen, therefore, has had many incarnations, and each wave of the food's popularity is attributable to a different set of po ... More
Keywords: ramen, food, Japan, history, urban, labor, consumer culture, wheat, international relations, nutrition
Print publication date: 2014 | Print ISBN-13: 9780520277564 |
Published to California Scholarship Online: September 2014 | DOI:10.1525/california/9780520277564.001.0001 |