33 replies to this topic

[imrannnla]

Don't a lot of rich kids go to the school? You'd expect a sizeable chunk to be food snobs. Most of the cooking pros haven't really made a big fuss over home-style food (I do not consider erina a pro), its just some of the brats in the school whose cooking haven't matured yet.

Edited by imran013, 19 June 2013 - 06:58 AM.

[gundamgundam]

There's something important to criticize here though. I observed this from watching cooking/food shows and it's a fact in real life that all world-wide famous chefs still highly value the art of home cooking and comfort food; it's not always about fancy food and finesse. When I see the "highly skilled & professional" chefs in this manga act haughty and sneer at "commoner's food" it really turns me off in a weird way.

Food shows are NOT real life, for Heaven's sake. Really, did you really expect all those celebrity chefs to say what they really think when they know they are being filmed? In the first place, how did you reach the conclusion that "something I watch in a TV show" equals "a fact in real life"?

If there's anything with some resemblance of realism in this manga is precisely that "highly skilled & professional" chefs act haughty and sneer at "commoner's food".

[ValorantX]

Food shows are NOT real life, for Heaven's sake. Really, did you really expect all those celebrity chefs to say what they really think when they know they are being filmed? In the first place, how did you reach the conclusion that "something I watch in a TV show" equals "a fact in real life"?

If there's anything with some resemblance of realism in this manga is precisely that "highly skilled & professional" chefs act haughty and sneer at "commoner's food".

 

I never said the two are equivalent, but it shows that at the very least that value on home cooking is placed. And "commoner's food" is not the same as "home cooking," we all know that professional chefs would most likely sneer at boiled water placed in cup ramen. There's a significant difference.

I might as well have this thread deleted if everyone extrapolating that I'm making such outrageous claims are placed. -.-

[warrio5]

Just want to put some of my opinions on the matter. First, I do enjoy the manga alot, but, well, it's a manga, and shounen at that, so it's follow the cliche of glorifying and exaggerating everything up, and that's the selling points for shounen manga anyway. However, as a person who has the privilege of eating superb home cook foods(from my mom, she as good as any chef out there in my opinion) and enjoy cooking food for my self and friends, there're some instances that I think the exaggerations actually has a negative representation on real-life cooking and cuisine(don't ask me which 1 cause i don't remember ). Also, good foods and bad foods are entirely personal opinion, and personal opinion can be influence by other factors like cultural, influential people,etc. For me, culture is the biggest influence on how people decide whether they like a particular food or not(like how I'm a Vietnamese and I find Japanese cuisine to be a bit plains cause they don't use spices in their cooking or how Chinese foods is just, well, tasty but oily, which can make u lost your appetite really fast. But my Japanese friends had different opinions cause they're Japanese and they grow up on Japanese foods.), after all, u are entitle to your opinions about matters and your opinions will, most likely, to differ from other people.

 

P.S: Sorry for my bad English.

[jrusse18]

Don't mistake me, I really like this series (the stripping, especially with the guys, is weird though). There's something important to criticize here though. I observed this from watching cooking/food shows and it's a fact in real life that all world-wide famous chefs still highly value the art of home cooking and comfort food; it's not always about fancy food and finesse. When I see the "highly skilled & professional" chefs in this manga act haughty and sneer at "commoner's food" it really turns me off in a weird way.

There are always going to be some chefs that look down on home cooking but alot of them are from people with a legacy of cooking high class food. they're just conceited people who think of themselves as royalty and since they were raised on high class food that's home cooking and comfort food to them so it's not weird for them to look down at anything below that. Also, there is a long history of people studying French and Italian food looking down on eastern cooking especially there home cooking.

Edited by jrusse18, 31 August 2013 - 12:23 AM.

[diversionlion]

T.J.M. Holden published a paper analyzing the portrayal of masculinity in Japanese cooking TV shows, and you can check it out in the journal, Food & Foodways, number 13. It's called "The Overcooked and the Underdone: Masculinities in Japanese Food Programming." (2005).

 

We cannot learn about what life is actually like merely by watching television or consuming manga like Shokugeki; but popular media can give us some insight into the way cultural constructions like gender are expressed and reproduced. Holden's argument is basically that we can learn something about how the Japanese view _idealized_ cooking masculinity, by seeing how it is embodied and performed by television chefs.

 

Japanese TV cooking tends to be rigidly structured by gender. When there are male and female hosts, the female will defer to the male; he gets the final say in closing the program, and in concluding and summarizing the deliberation of the judges.

 

When there are women amongst the judges, they are usually referred to as "food researchers" rather than "chef" or "sensei," like the male judges.

 

The chefs themselves are predominantly male, and the _kinds_ of cooking they do are highly gendered. Male cooking is associated with sophistication, culinary skill, and technical prowess. Men are portrayed as the cooking "authorities." Women's cooking is assocaited with the domestic sphere, with desserts, or katei ryouri (home cooking), Women's cooking is "sweet, soft, peripheral or decentered, less sophisticated or elaborate." When women cook on Japanese TV, they generally prepare desserts or katei ryouri. One of the themes of women's cooking shows is "housewife" foods; by contrast, male cooking is portrayed as professional, and the men who cook generally appear as "chefs" or restauranteurs, who demonstrate their skill at preparing fancy dishes, rather than their capacity to cook daily meals for their family. "Authority, power, and possession" are the key elements of the portrayal of masculinity in Japanese TV, and the authority of Japanese chefs is underscored by how they are announced on the program: in addition to their name and age, their institutional affiliation, the school they trained under, is always made clear. This is the source of a chef's distinction, and he is always proud to share his cooking lineage.

Now, there are exceptions, but this is the dominant way in which gender and cooking are portrayed in Japan on TV. Remember that Shokugeki is not depicting all chefs, but only those who come from elite institutions - only those, in other words, who are the most conservative and embody conventional ideas about cooking and gender. Their snobbery about home cooking needs to be put in the perspective of gender as well; home cooking, through its association with the domestic and the feminine, is felt to be inferior by these elite men. The hero's rebellion and revindication of home cooking is an attack on these ideas and on the institution itself. The hero is fighting not only the attitudes of individual chefs, but also the academy and its culture of cooking conformity. By cooking domestic foods, from the heart, we can say that he is also popularizing the kind of caring practices that are assocaited with women's cooking. But the manga is very conservative in other respects. Tadokoro, a demure female student, is portrayed as the pinnacle of caring cooking, which the hero Souma can never match, presumably because of his sex.

 

I'm really interested in cooking and gender, so I'd love to hear from anyone who does Japanese cooking to get their view on things.

[jrusse18]

Just want to put some of my opinions on the matter. First, I do enjoy the manga alot, but, well, it's a manga, and shounen at that, so it's follow the cliche of glorifying and exaggerating everything up, and that's the selling points for shounen manga anyway. However, as a person who has the privilege of eating superb home cook foods(from my mom, she as good as any chef out there in my opinion) and enjoy cooking food for my self and friends, there're some instances that I think the exaggerations actually has a negative representation on real-life cooking and cuisine(don't ask me which 1 cause i don't remember ). Also, good foods and bad foods are entirely personal opinion, and personal opinion can be influence by other factors like cultural, influential people,etc. For me, culture is the biggest influence on how people decide whether they like a particular food or not(like how I'm a Vietnamese and I find Japanese cuisine to be a bit plains cause they don't use spices in their cooking or how Chinese foods is just, well, tasty but oily, which can make u lost your appetite really fast. But my Japanese friends had different opinions cause they're Japanese and they grow up on Japanese foods.), after all, u are entitle to your opinions about matters and your opinions will, most likely, to differ from other people.

 

P.S: Sorry for my bad English.

Your English was actually really good.

[Avs]

Ohh man. He's cooking fried chicken now. These people all be up in da roof with fried chicken which is a comfort food. 

 

In all seriousness I believe the author's "chefs who snob common household foods" are actually a satire based on how normal people tend to become food snobs after dining at fancy restaurants as opposed to depicting real chefs being that way (though they exist).

[TheHabeo]

Just want to put some of my opinions on the matter. First, I do enjoy the manga alot, but, well, it's a manga, and shounen at that, so it's follow the cliche of glorifying and exaggerating everything up, and that's the selling points for shounen manga anyway. However, as a person who has the privilege of eating superb home cook foods(from my mom, she as good as any chef out there in my opinion) and enjoy cooking food for my self and friends, there're some instances that I think the exaggerations actually has a negative representation on real-life cooking and cuisine(don't ask me which 1 cause i don't remember ). Also, good foods and bad foods are entirely personal opinion, and personal opinion can be influence by other factors like cultural, influential people,etc. For me, culture is the biggest influence on how people decide whether they like a particular food or not(like how I'm a Vietnamese and I find Japanese cuisine to be a bit plains cause they don't use spices in their cooking or how Chinese foods is just, well, tasty but oily, which can make u lost your appetite really fast. But my Japanese friends had different opinions cause they're Japanese and they grow up on Japanese foods.), after all, u are entitle to your opinions about matters and your opinions will, most likely, to differ from other people.

 

P.S: Sorry for my bad English.

 

Back to the original topic, while good and bad food is as you said, mostly depending on the perspective of the person, there are still certain standard, which in this case of the manga is portrayed as a higher and more fancy class, seeing as the one coming to the school is from high prestige family in the culinary business,

 

However, as you can see in the manga, other than the first year students that despite home cooking food, the teachers, and older students and famous chefs don't. Which is perfectly explainable.

 

Extra thing I wanna say is, if you enjoy seeing chefs making home cooking foods, check out Genaro Contaldo, one of the highly renowned Italian chef that is doing a series of great home cooking videos on youtube, as well as his Disciple Jamie Oliver, with many great home cooking show. Hell, even Gordon Ramsay did series of home cooking food.

[clamzoopa]

I never said the two are equivalent, but it shows that at the very least that value on home cooking is placed. And "commoner's food" is not the same as "home cooking," we all know that professional chefs would most likely sneer at boiled water placed in cup ramen. There's a significant difference.

I might as well have this thread deleted if everyone extrapolating that I'm making such outrageous claims are placed. -.-

Can I ask what cooking shows you are watching?  I don't know what you mean by, "home cooking".  Are you referring to comfort food?  Any cooking competitions I've seen take presentation into consideration as well as degree of difficulty which includes showing of specific cooking methods.  Most of the time, the people competing (and winning) are either executive or sous chefs, not someone cooking at home without some for of food prep education.

[nuknuk]

Don't mistake me, I really like this series (the stripping, especially with the guys, is weird though). There's something important to criticize here though. I observed this from watching cooking/food shows and it's a fact in real life that all world-wide famous chefs still highly value the art of home cooking and comfort food; it's not always about fancy food and finesse. When I see the "highly skilled & professional" chefs in this manga act haughty and sneer at "commoner's food" it really turns me off in a weird way.

 

Not "all world-wide famous chefs" value home cooking. The ones you are referring to are the TV personas. They do countless appearances and interviews by promoting their style of cooking along with their cooking persona. There is also no way to know if said persona is real or not. As with any industry, there wll be factions that promote their distinct values. You should not be turned off based on your experiences with celebrity chefs because they are not real.

[tybalt]

Majority of the cooking in this manga is bullshit. But mangas are all about decadence and power levels, so of course a superbly presented meal with a delicate blend of flavors is preferred. On fine dining versus home cooking, it doesn't really matter. The difference is really presentation. I mean jesus, just because it says home cooking doesn't mean you can't make complicated meals, think dinner parties. I mean in reality it's all about how well you cook and what little things you do to make a meal taste better, reducing fat, toasting nuts, etc. For example, no one scoffs at traditional mashed potatoes and they're incredible if done right but in comparison to Robuchon's potato puree, which is much more elegant and requires a high quality food mill and an even finer sieve, it doesn't compare. Robuchon is one of those michelin starred chefs, world famous and all that rot. He swears by potatoes. With good reason.

 

Good fresh ingredients are really the life blood of cooking. So yeah, having truffles and farm raised eggs in your omelet are probably going to make it taste better than your average overcooked scrambled eggs. Having a good sense of smell and taste allows a person to discern the composition of food and complement ingredients and spices. Plus wine. I mean wine and European cooking go hand in hand like a insert simile. 

 

More importantly, this manga is so shounen you shouldn't at all expect it to resemble anything like real life. It's basically Yakitake Japan, and that was so full of bullshit I couldn't even comprehend. But that's not why you read such things. You read them because they're hilarious and the girls are hot, and more often than not someone's naked. And food mangas are awesome.

[tellemurius]

As a food student, our stance on home cooking that while is the basic form of most cuisines, professionals take it to the next level on expanding the flavors and the display of the food. You will never be able to compare the two together. Thats not going to happen ever, I sure as well won't be serving 3 star dishes to my kids.

[FakeHero]

T.J.M. Holden published a paper analyzing the portrayal of masculinity in Japanese cooking TV shows, and you can check it out in the journal, Food & Foodways, number 13. It's called "The Overcooked and the Underdone: Masculinities in Japanese Food Programming." (2005).

 

We cannot learn about what life is actually like merely by watching television or consuming manga like Shokugeki; but popular media can give us some insight into the way cultural constructions like gender are expressed and reproduced. Holden's argument is basically that we can learn something about how the Japanese view _idealized_ cooking masculinity, by seeing how it is embodied and performed by television chefs.

 

Japanese TV cooking tends to be rigidly structured by gender. When there are male and female hosts, the female will defer to the male; he gets the final say in closing the program, and in concluding and summarizing the deliberation of the judges.

 

When there are women amongst the judges, they are usually referred to as "food researchers" rather than "chef" or "sensei," like the male judges.

 

The chefs themselves are predominantly male, and the _kinds_ of cooking they do are highly gendered. Male cooking is associated with sophistication, culinary skill, and technical prowess. Men are portrayed as the cooking "authorities." Women's cooking is assocaited with the domestic sphere, with desserts, or katei ryouri (home cooking), Women's cooking is "sweet, soft, peripheral or decentered, less sophisticated or elaborate." When women cook on Japanese TV, they generally prepare desserts or katei ryouri. One of the themes of women's cooking shows is "housewife" foods; by contrast, male cooking is portrayed as professional, and the men who cook generally appear as "chefs" or restauranteurs, who demonstrate their skill at preparing fancy dishes, rather than their capacity to cook daily meals for their family. "Authority, power, and possession" are the key elements of the portrayal of masculinity in Japanese TV, and the authority of Japanese chefs is underscored by how they are announced on the program: in addition to their name and age, their institutional affiliation, the school they trained under, is always made clear. This is the source of a chef's distinction, and he is always proud to share his cooking lineage.

Now, there are exceptions, but this is the dominant way in which gender and cooking are portrayed in Japan on TV. Remember that Shokugeki is not depicting all chefs, but only those who come from elite institutions - only those, in other words, who are the most conservative and embody conventional ideas about cooking and gender. Their snobbery about home cooking needs to be put in the perspective of gender as well; home cooking, through its association with the domestic and the feminine, is felt to be inferior by these elite men. The hero's rebellion and revindication of home cooking is an attack on these ideas and on the institution itself. The hero is fighting not only the attitudes of individual chefs, but also the academy and its culture of cooking conformity. By cooking domestic foods, from the heart, we can say that he is also popularizing the kind of caring practices that are assocaited with women's cooking. But the manga is very conservative in other respects. Tadokoro, a demure female student, is portrayed as the pinnacle of caring cooking, which the hero Souma can never match, presumably because of his sex.

 

I'm really interested in cooking and gender, so I'd love to hear from anyone who does Japanese cooking to get their view on things.

 

Great observeations! I really enjoyed your post. This may not only be in Japan though, I´ve noticed the same trends in both China and USA.

Edited by FakeHero, 01 May 2014 - 06:30 PM.