Fed up with the kind of food being sold in so-called Japanese restaurants internationally, Japan's government is introducing a new seal of approval, writes Anthony Faiola
On a recent business trip to Colorado, Japan's agriculture minister popped into a Japanese restaurant with a hankering for a taste of home. What Toshikatsu Matsuoka found instead was something he considered a high culinary crime - sushi served on the same menu as Korean-style barbecued beef. "Such a thing is unthinkable," he said. "Call it what you will, but it is not a Japanese restaurant."
A fast-growing list of gastronomic indignities - from sham sake in Paris to shoddy sashimi in Bangkok - has prompted Japanese authorities to launch a counter attack in defence of the nation's celebrated food culture. With restaurants around the globe describing themselves as Japanese while actually serving food that is Asian fusion, or just plain bad, the Japanese government announced a plan this month to offer official seals of approval to overseas eateries deemed "pure Japanese".
A trial run of sorts was launched this summer in France, where secret inspectors were dispatched to 80 restaurants in Paris that claimed to serve Japanese cuisine. About one-third fell short of standards - making them ineligible to display an official seal emblazoned with cherry blossoms in their windows or to be listed on a government-sponsored website.
Matsuoka, who took over Japan's top agricultural job in September, is the mastermind of the new "Japanese restaurant authentication plan". He says it does not always take a culinary sleuth to spot an impostor. "Sometimes you can tell just by looking at their signs that these places are phoney," he says. "What people need to understand is that real Japanese food is a highly developed art. It involves all the senses; it should be beautifully presented, use genuine ingredients and be made by a trained chef."
In recent years, few culinary traditions have witnessed the kind of global boom, and distortion, of Japanese food. In the US alone, the number of restaurants claiming to serve Japanese food soared to 9,000 in 2005, or double the number a decade ago. The government projects that the number of Japanese restaurants worldwide will leap to 48,000 by 2009, more than double the current level.
With the demand for real Japanese chefs far greater than the global supply in a nation with a shrinking population and few modern-day emigrants, many foreign owners of Japanese restaurants have turned to cooks from other Asian countries to add a faux touch of authenticity to their establishments. That has infuriated Japanese sushi chefs overseas, leading some to unite into advocacy groups aimed at protecting an elaborate form of cooking that is tradition-bound and highly hierarchical.
Officials emphasize that it is not the race of the cooks they are concerned about, but the fact that such chefs are rarely properly trained and know little about the culture behind the food. In Japanese haute cuisine, for example, the aesthetics of a meal - from elegant ceramic serving bowls to suitable flower arrangements - are considered as important as the food. Such meals must be prepared by highly specialised chefs, some of whom apprentice for years before they are permitted to cook for customers.
The government has appointed an advisory board of food luminaries and intellectuals to develop a workable method for the project ahead of its full launch in April. Matsuoka says the most likely scenario would be the creation of government-sanctioned food commissions in major countries to evaluate a restaurant's "Japanese-ness" based on authentic ingredients, chef training, aesthetics and other criteria.
Such a method might also coincidentally increase Japanese food exports, given that restaurants using Japanese products are likely to score some brownie points.
"Of course using Japanese materials would be preferable," Matsuoka says. "But our real purpose is to set benchmarks for how Japanese food is made overseas. We take our food very seriously."
