Afro-Japanese Fusion Recipe Vlog — Mayu

Video Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KIqoLTf03E&list=PLwsJGNeYVByKtTJic39LRd7KTfyhMRCQ4&index=2

As the current situation of Afro-Japanese encounters, Japanese people seldom meet African people within daily life. Thus, when most Japanese people think of African people, they associate them with celebrities on television, such as athletes and musicians. Unfortunately, however, there are some Japanese people who get scared or surprised when they see an Afro person on the train or in a shop. Needless to say, this reaction annoys African people. In order to construct good relationships between Africans and Japanese, it is necessary to recognize and understand each other.

Therefore, I imagined Afro-Japanese interaction through food. There are mainly three reasons why I imagined food as a theme of Afro-Japanese future. Firstly, I believe that food is a topic that everyone is interested in and that the love of food is universal throughout the world. Secondly, food does not have a language barrier. Thirdly, food is deeply related to the society in the past and the present. For example, cooking methods, seasonings, and ingredients provide a glimpse into the history of lifestyle and social stratification.

In my project, I made 4 afro-Japanese dishes named “Fried Chicken-Sushi’’, “Couscous-Ramen’’,” Chicken mamba-Dorayaki” and “cornmeal muffin with red bean paste”, by creating a fusion of Japanese cuisine and African cuisine while recording a video of the process. My plan is to introduce what African people eat to Japanese people and also introduce to African people what Japanese people eat. Moreover, I want the Japanese to know about the existence of African people and get interested in Africa and vice versa. In this project and essay, the term of African people refers to African people living in the African continent and African American people, because I used African traditional ingredients, in this case, Couscous and chicken mamba, and African American soul food such as fried chicken and cornmeal as African food. When I decide on certain ingredients from the Japanese side, I put emphasis on easily available, famous, historic and delicious ingredients, because I hope people can recreate this Afro-Japanese food wherever they are.

As African food, I referred to the article by the U.S. Embassy Japan and CNN. The following indicates a brief explanation of each ingredient that I used. For Fried Chicken, the history of fried chicken is rooted in the colonial era in the United States. At the time, many African people were captured and forced to work as slaves in the United State. These African slaves were only allowed to eat meat on the bone which caucasian people threw away because of the difficulty to eat. According to the article by the U.S. Embassy Japan, Afro Slaves tried to make these parts of meat edible by using their own cooking method and seasoning. Because of that, fried chicken has suffered a strong association with African American stereotypes. However, interestingly, in Japan fried chicken is customary to eat at Christmas. For cornmeal, it is also the soul food of African American as well as fried chicken. For Couscous and chicken mamba, I referred to the CNN article and found the fact that chicken mamba was selected as one of the top 10 best world’s food by CNN.

In terms of Japanese food, I think sushi and ramen are very famous Japanese food all over the world, and also red bean paste has a long history from the Heian period. Hence, I chose these ingredients. For dorayaki, dorayaki often appeared in Japanese famous manga, Doraemon. Thus, I think dorayaki is also a well-known Japanese food.

Lastly, it is geographically difficult for me to visit African content or the United States and introduce Japanese food. Therefore, I tried to make an entertaining video about Afro-Japanese food in order to get African people interested in Japanese food or Japan and want Japanese people to get interested in African food. Furthermore, I posted the video on YouTube, because YouTube can spread information all over the world and promote understanding with low cost.

References

Adrian, M（2019, February 25）“Celebrating American “Soul Food,” Edible Black History” retrieved from https://amview.japan.usembassy.gov/en/celebrating-american-soul-food/

Jane, A（ 2017, July 12） “15 of Africa’s favourite dishes” retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/africa-food-dishes/index.html