Posts Tagged ‘mmf: oishinbo and food manga’
I feel like this week came and went and as I wrote my last few articles, I really hadn’t realized that the week was almost over.
I actually thought that I had written so much (many of them have been written prior to MMF), but the week caught up with me well and somewhere along the way I had to give up on some ideas for articles. To be fair, it’s something that is difficult to catch up on because it’s really just a summary on the cute development of Yamaoka and Kurita’s relationship. And to be honest, I can’t remember much since I crammed 104 volumes in my head.
The last day is sweet and it’s not because I made dessert with French Pancake. And it’s not because I finally remembered to mention this awesome Japanese site that actually inspired me to hold the culinary aspect of this feast: Manga Shokudo which also has its own book now!
In writing the list of unlicensed manga that mangavores and foodies could appreciate, it dawned on me that a lot of these titles wouldn’t have been present if Oishinbo hadn’t been written. After the success of Oishinbo, the manga industry found value in discussing and experimenting with food in its pages. Thus, I’m really happy that food manga was born as it gave us more manga to read.
Food, while integral to our living, hardly finds its presence in other forms of culture other than its kitchens and diners. To see it as an effective tool in educating people about food makes me appreciate its legacy not only in Japanese culture, but in the world as well. While Ed Sizemore might be missing out on experiencing these featured flavors, I’m happy that he sees value in this genre. When we all have forgotten flavors, these comics contribute in reminding us the various tastes and textures that we experience in food.
In my podcast, I asked about the future of food manga and Erin was talking about astronaut meals and such. Seeing other developments in cuisine also made me wonder if smaller or microscopic dishes will be enough to feed us someday. Perhaps our dining preferences may change and evolve but I think I can feel assured that if the world does end in 2012 and aliens would have to figure out what we ate, they might just chance upon these comics that tried to capture the flavors that changed our life.
I’d love to give my sincerest thanks to all the awesome folks who contributed for this Oishinbo and Food Manga MMF. Of course, I’d also like to thank the readers for supporting us! I’ll be updating the links in the viking a few hours from now so stay abreast and follow me over at twitter for any other announcements. If you enjoyed this feast and would like to participate to similar (sans the food) Manga Moveable Feasts, join our Google Groups page!
Next month is honestly just as exciting as mine! Michelle Smith and Anne are hosting the Inoue Takehiko Manga Moveable Feast from June 24 – June 30 at Manga Report and Soliloquy in Blue. With all these food I ate for this feast, I’m going to get my Shohoku trainers back and get myself ready. L-O-V-E RU-KA-WA! \o/
This was a difficult set to write because it was difficult to whittle down the list to seven. This week/month, I’ve been reading various food manga and here are the seven titles that I enjoyed… right now. I have a feeling that if I read the other stories, I’d probably go to my wits and them here. But right now, these are the titles that we’ll all probably enjoy, regardless if we love manga or food a little more than the other.
I’m not a dessert person. AT ALL. Thus, as much as I’d like to try all these amazing desserts in Oishinbo, I know I will be bound for failure. But I did recognize that my meaty offerings of beef and bacon might not be to everyone’s fancy, this pancake might just be the closest I can get to making a dessert from the series. Besides, it’s fun to end this Moveable Feast on a sweet note.
By the time you reach the 62nd volume of Oishinbo, you probably won’t be surprised in seeing the Yamaokas (they’ve been married by then!) picking up another lost kid in the street. It’s a common theme in this series and this time, Takako was out searching for her mother.
While the adults discussed the mother’s difficulties in her household, Takako spends some time with Haru and cooks up an awesome pancake that Takako’s grandmother taught her.
It’s been a busy day yesterday and I apologize for not compiling the summary any sooner. Despite this, I’m more than pleased that not a lot of people lost heart and still continued to submit to the feast!
For this course, I’ve taken a look at how Oishinbo is made to look like it’s an exotic cuisine in the English editions. I found this particularly problematic as it made it appear that Oishinbo was a post-colonial manga. In many ways it is but if the editions balanced the presence of the various cuisines present in Oishinbo, then it would have given justice to the series’ faithfulness in showing Japan’s culinary tension and the “globaization” of their cuisine.
Over at Experiments in Manga, Ash Brown looks at the budding romances in Oishinbo. It’s a really fun and light-hearted view of the comic. To add, in the Japanese editions, many of Kurita and Yamaoka’s female officemates actually found their husbands in either an Ultimate Menu trip or a foodie adventure. Food definitely binds people together!
I am quite pleased that there are a lot of dishes submitted for the sixth course and most of them are from Kitchen Princess! Now, isn’t this a nice proof that these dishes are actually feasible? 
In Reading is Delicious, Izandra tests two dishes from the series: Yoghurt Bread and Neapolitan Spaghetti. She really made it appear like baking bread is easy peasy! The Neapolitan spaghetti is also something quite interesting because for a dish that names itself after an Italian town, in Japan, it has ingredients not used in Italian cooking! Neapolitan spaghetti is to meat spaghetti or spaghetti Bolognese to Americans. It’s an easy dish that everyone loves to eat and make in Japan. Except… if you’re Aoba. In Anime B&B, Marina tried making a Green Tea Creme Brulee! I’m honestly impressed with all these budding chefs who make an effort in cooking such complicated dishes! Good job, guys!
Some people were moved to review thanks to the feast. Lori Henderson looked at Neko Ramen, a title I’m curious about considering how adorable it looks and how cute it is to see a cat making their own ramen stall! However Lori’s funny bone didn’t get tickled with this title. Sweetpea from Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses looks at Kitchen Princess, a title we know we could learn a lot of good food from! Terry Hong from Book Dragon started his own wine journey by reading through the first three volumes of Drops of God. And in Heart of Manga, Laura Mucciarone looks at The Manga Cookbook which uses manga as a means of instruction in making Japanese food.
That’s quite a heavy serving and quite rightfully so as we begin to wrap up this Moveable Feast. Tomorrow (err… today for some) is the last day for the MMF, so if you have any other dishes, do send ‘em over with the hashtag #oishinbommf at twitter or email my gmail: punkednoodle. Thankies!
In a dinner where Japan’s most elite gathered to discuss Tozai News’ plan for the Ultimate Menu, most men proclaimed that the most luxurious cuisine, there the most ultimate menu in the world is French. Each man was not short of giving their compliment on French ingredients and cuisine however one man couldn’t handle this pretext for the Ultimate Menu.
Yamaoka Shiro, Tozai News’ Ultimate Menu journalist called them and said Japanese Cuisine and this pretentiousness was all a . He asked the man to give him a week to find the ingredient that was just as luxurious as a French foie gras. Many in the room were not having any of it, but a week later, Yamaoka gives them a plate that almost fooled everyone. What they had thought was French foie gras was in fact the liver of a monkfish, ankimo.
Stories of East vs. West often line up in the pages of Oishinbo. If you consider the time that Japan has been open to the West, this whole East-West foodie tension should have been done and over with by the time Oishinbo was written. But does the fact that the comic continues to question the superiority of Western cuisine make Oishinbo a post-colonial text? Is the comic a tale of Japan’s own battles in preserving their own food culture?
Guest on 
d4rkn on 
Ash on 
