Before we eat any given food, we really have no idea how it’s going to taste. We rely on other things to convince us that what we’re about to eat is going to be good, or at least that it’s going to be worth eating. The smell and appearance of a food are obvious factors in making this choice, but of course even these can be misleading (see: stinky tofu). And there are other factors that go into our eating decisions, factors that have nothing to do with the actual object we see and smell when it is served to us: recommendations from friends or reviews, physical and social contexts, psychological associations, etc.
For me, living in Japan, one of these more abstract factors that has a very powerful predetermining effect on how I judge food, and how I desire food, is the meibutsu factor. I have made a hobby out of traveling achikochi around Japan with one main goal: to sample meibutsu, the foods or drinks for which different cities or areas are famous or unique. This has taken me from a family-owned Ainu restaurant in Sapporo all the way down to the garlic-tonkotsu ramen shops of Kumamoto, and many places in between – Togakushi for soba, Uji for tea, Osaka for okonomiyaki, etc. Perhaps stupidly, I am generally ready and willing to believe that if a certain food is famous in a certain area, then it will also be delicious in that area. (And so far, this attitude has led me to more delights than disappointments.)
Sometimes, this sort of culinary tourism intersects with conspicuous consumption in interesting ways. In fact, that’s sort of what this blog is all about – I travel all around Japan, I eat as much as I can, and then I brag about it here. I should note that by “conspicuous consumption, ” I don’t mean flaunting material wealth exclusively; I also mean flaunting sorts of social capital, things like knowledge, cosmopolitanism, and adventurousness. Look at me, I ate weird food (chicken feet, fish semen)! Taboo food (whale, horse)! Expensive food (Belgian beer, gold foil)!
So last week, I got to visit Kobe on my employer’s tab for a conference. And in my meibutsu-obsessed mind, Kobe = beef.
