Eric C Rath
Biographic Data
| ID | 115827 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eric C Rath |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eric C |
| FAMILY NAME | Rath |
| SIGNATURE | RATH E C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kansas |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
At the Table’s Edge
On December 6, 2024, Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective met at Victoria College, the University of Toronto, for our annual members meeting. As part of the program, we organized a special roundtable on commensality, a topic often engaged by journal contributors. Proposed by H. Rosi Song, the theme of commensality is as much to do with whom we eat as with whom we don’t eat. Likewise, commensality’s inclusions and exclusions do not only implicate t…
From Washoku to We-Shoku
The first piece I wrote about Japanese food for Gastronomica was published thirteen years ago, roughly half of the time of this twenty-five-year anniversary of the journal we are celebrating this issue. My modest contribution appeared in a section called “Rumblings from the World of Food,” which featured short takes and letters to the editor, and I described how the Japanese government was lobbying the United Nations Educational, Scientific and C…
What Rats Reveal about Cooking in Late Medieval Japan
The Illustrated Rat’s Tale (Nezumi no sōshi emaki), an anonymous Japanese picture scroll created between 1550–1650, depicts a rat wedding banquet, and for a period with few other visual references of cooking, it is an important source for understanding the staff and procedures for food preparation in elite warrior households, which it emulates. The wedding party of the rat lord takes inspiration from the festivities for late medieval (1400–1600) …
Amai
In Japanese, something sweet is amai, but that adjective is as imprecise a term as its English counterpart. In both languages, the immediate flavor from a bite of an apple as well as the slower-acting but longer-lasting taste of refined sugar are “sweet” (McGee 2004: 655). Chemists differentiate between sweeteners with high potencies (HP), such as saccharine, from carbohydrate (CHO) sweeteners like stevia. The sweet taste of stevia is more immedi…
It Gives the Rice a Kick
The mold kōji (Aspergillus oryzae) contributes to the sweetness of sake and plays a vital role in alcoholic fermentation and in the creation of Japanese foodstuffs like miso and soy sauce. While scientists are uncovering kōji’s genetic past, the mold’s history is also told in the records of early modern (1600–1868) sake brewers, who may not have understood they were using microorganisms but managed to develop sophisticated means of cultivating th…
Translating Foods of the World
On December 14, 2021, the roundtable discussion “Translating the Foods of the World” took place virtually with the support of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, the Culinaria Research Center at the University of Toronto, and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas. The event was hosted by Daniel Bender, the director of the Culinaria Research Center, and moderated by Krishnendu Ray, professor of Food Studies at New Y…
Toward “Translating the Foods of the World”
The Gastronomica Editorial Collective is launching a new section of the journal devoted to translations of culinary writings. In a first for any food studies journal, we hope this will not only provide first-time access to essential food texts originally composed in other languages but also initiate a conversation about the process of translating that sheds light on the strategies needed to convert food writings created in a specific cultural his…
Sake Journal ( Goshu no nikki )
This article presents the first English translation and commentary on Sake Journal (Goshu no nikki), the earliest guide to sake brewing and one of the most important sources for understanding the history of sake making in medieval Japan (1192–1600). Sake Journal includes six recipes for sake, five of which are translated here, along with the directions for pasteurization. Besides providing insights into the technology and tools of medieval brewin…
Technology and Taste in East Asia
Research Article| November 01 2020 Technology and Taste in East Asia: An Introduction Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath is Professor of History at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses on food history and premodern Japan. A specialist in Japanese food, his books include Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2010), Japan's Cuisines: Food, Place and Identity (Reaktion Books, 2016), and the forthco…
Technologies of Taste
After the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, Tokyo rebuilt and extended its transportation infrastructure to bring the major areas for residence, business, and pleasure within walking distance, and that sparked a new genre of food writing, the Walker's Guide to Dining (tabearuki). First published in 1929, the year of the Great Depression, and continued up to the mid-1930s, the books by different authors that shared the title Walker's Guide documented a…
Some Tasting Notes on Year-Old Sushi
Funazushi, a fermented food made with crucian carp, is often described as Japan's most ancient form of sushi. This article evaluates these historical claims and offers some tasting notes, exploring traditional versions of the dish and new interpretations that offer a possible future for sushi. I could never write a global history of sushi without having eaten what has been called the most “ancient form” of sushi, the funazushi found in Shiga Pref…
The tale of tea
Imagine a hypothetical encyclopedia about tea – let’s call it the University Companion to Tea – that provides a broad overview of tea history with discussions of varieties, methods of producing and
Chop suey and sushi from sea to shining sea
Chop suey and sushi from sea to shining sea: Chinese and Japanese restaurants in the United States." Food, Culture & Society, 22(3), pp. 376–377
Rice, agriculture, and the food supply in premodern Japan, by Charlotte von Verschuer
Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan demonstrates that rice’s significance as a foodstuff and as a cultural symbol has been vastly overestimated in the history of premodern Jap
Carrie J. Preston, Learning To Kneel
A History of Japanese Theatre
Japan boasts one of the world's oldest, most vibrant and most influential performance traditions. This accessible and complete history provides a comprehensive overview of Japanese theatre and its continuing global influence. Written by eminent international scholars, it spans the full range of dance-theatre genres over the past fifteen hundred years, including noh theatre, bunraku puppet theatre, kabuki theatre, shingeki modern theatre, rakugo s…
New Meanings for Old Vegetables in Kyoto
In 1987, chefs, farmers, scholars and government officials collaborated to designate thirty-seven varieties of produce as “traditional Kyoto vegetables.” The definition of traditional Kyoto vegetables provides a case study of how one community capitalized on national interest in nostalgia and gourmet food in the 1980s; however, this example also illustrates what happens when stakeholders subsequently disagree about the future of traditional food.…
The Tastiest Dish in Edo
Japanese television has turned cooking into a competition, as exemplified by the show Iron Chef and its imitators. Readers in the early modern period could enjoy similar contests between famous restaurants and popular dishes as presented on one-page broadsheets called ‘topical fight cards’ ( mitate banzuke ). Tracing the history of mitate banzuke as they developed from kabuki and sumo banzuke , this article offers a close reading of one culinary …
Reevaluating Rikyū
Current historiography recognizes that modern Japanese cuisine is an expression of national identity and traces its origin to tea cuisine ( kaiseki ) said to have been perfected by Sen no Rikyū (1522–91). Yet, Rikyū’s contributions to the development of kaiseki are not substantiated in the historical records. This article aims to clarify the role of Rikyū in the development of tea cuisine and to call for a broader investigation of the history of …
Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan
How did one dine with a shogun? Or make solid gold soup, sculpt with a fish, or turn seaweed into a symbol of happiness? This look at Japanese culinary history delves into the writings of medieval and early modern Japanese chefs to answer these and other questions, and to trace the development of Japanese cuisine from 1400 to 1868. The book shows how medieval "fantasy food" rituals—where food was revered as symbol rather than consumed—were contin…
Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan
How did one dine with a shogun? Or make solid gold soup, sculpt with a fish, or turn seaweed into a symbol of happiness? In this fresh look at Japanese culinary history, Eric C. Rath delves into the writings of medieval and early modern Japanese chefs to answer these and other provocative questions, and to trace the development of Japanese cuisine from 1400 to 1868. Rath shows how medieval "fantasy food" rituals—where food was revered as symbol r…
Warrior noh
Although only some 6 per cent of the noh plays in the modern repertoire are shura plays, pieces that feature the ghosts of suffering warriors, these works are synonymous with ‘warrior noh’, and as a group they form one of the five main categories of plays. Prior studies have looked to the theoretical writings of noh's founder, Zeami (d. 1443), to explain why shura plays, though few in number, have come to represent the genre of warrior plays. How…
The Art of Rice
Book Review| October 01 2005 The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia. Roy W. Hamilton. Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Agricultural History (2005) 79 (4): 491–492. https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-79.4.491 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Eric C. Rath; The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia. Ag…
Challenging the old men
From Representation to Apotheosis
Modern discussions of ritual and the origins of the six-hundred-year-old Japanese nō theatre have focused on the enigmatic Okina dance—one of the "three rites," shikisanban , enacted today by performers at the New Year's and other ceremonial occasions. For modern nō actors, Okina is the heart of nō : a living prototype of the ritual theatre nō once supposedly embodied but somehow lost. Yet Okina's very rituality differentiates it from nō . Hence …
New Meanings for Old Vegetables in Kyoto
In 1987, chefs, farmers, scholars and government officials collaborated to designate thirty-seven varieties of produce as “traditional Kyoto vegetables.” The definition of traditional Kyoto vegetables provides a case study of how one community capitalized on national interest in nostalgia and gourmet food in the 1980s; however, this example also illustrates what happens when stakeholders subsequently disagree about the future of traditional food.…
Legends, Secrets, and Authority
F AROM the seventeenth to the twentieth century, Kadensho A (Treatise on the Transmission of the Flower), apocryphally attributed to Zeami (d. 1443), was widely regarded as the most authoritative work on noh. Certainly it was the most widely disseminated such piece. Today we know that Zeami did not author Kadensho. His Fiishikaden RC4Sf, usually translated as Style and the Flower, and sometimes mistakenly referred to as Kadensho, is a separate wo…
Warrior noh
Although only some 6 per cent of the noh plays in the modern repertoire are shura plays, pieces that feature the ghosts of suffering warriors, these works are synonymous with ‘warrior noh’, and as a group they form one of the five main categories of plays. Prior studies have looked to the theoretical writings of noh's founder, Zeami (d. 1443), to explain why shura plays, though few in number, have come to represent the genre of warrior plays. How…
From Representation to Apotheosis
Modern discussions of ritual and the origins of the six-hundred-year-old Japanese nō theatre have focused on the enigmatic Okina dance—one of the "three rites," shikisanban , enacted today by performers at the New Year's and other ceremonial occasions. For modern nō actors, Okina is the heart of nō : a living prototype of the ritual theatre nō once supposedly embodied but somehow lost. Yet Okina's very rituality differentiates it from nō . Hence …
Legends, Secrets, and Authority
F AROM the seventeenth to the twentieth century, Kadensho A (Treatise on the Transmission of the Flower), apocryphally attributed to Zeami (d. 1443), was widely regarded as the most authoritative work on noh. Certainly it was the most widely disseminated such piece. Today we know that Zeami did not author Kadensho. His Fiishikaden RC4Sf, usually translated as Style and the Flower, and sometimes mistakenly referred to as Kadensho, is a separate wo…
From Representation to Apotheosis
Modern discussions of ritual and the origins of the six-hundred-year-old Japanese nō theatre have focused on the enigmatic Okina dance—one of the "three rites," shikisanban , enacted today by performers at the New Year's and other ceremonial occasions. For modern nō actors, Okina is the heart of nō : a living prototype of the ritual theatre nō once supposedly embodied but somehow lost. Yet Okina's very rituality differentiates it from nō . Hence …
Challenging the old men
The Art of Rice
Book Review| October 01 2005 The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia. Roy W. Hamilton. Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Agricultural History (2005) 79 (4): 491–492. https://doi.org/10.1215/00021482-79.4.491 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Eric C. Rath; The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia. Ag…
Warrior noh
Although only some 6 per cent of the noh plays in the modern repertoire are shura plays, pieces that feature the ghosts of suffering warriors, these works are synonymous with ‘warrior noh’, and as a group they form one of the five main categories of plays. Prior studies have looked to the theoretical writings of noh's founder, Zeami (d. 1443), to explain why shura plays, though few in number, have come to represent the genre of warrior plays. How…
Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan
How did one dine with a shogun? Or make solid gold soup, sculpt with a fish, or turn seaweed into a symbol of happiness? This look at Japanese culinary history delves into the writings of medieval and early modern Japanese chefs to answer these and other questions, and to trace the development of Japanese cuisine from 1400 to 1868. The book shows how medieval "fantasy food" rituals—where food was revered as symbol rather than consumed—were contin…
Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan
How did one dine with a shogun? Or make solid gold soup, sculpt with a fish, or turn seaweed into a symbol of happiness? In this fresh look at Japanese culinary history, Eric C. Rath delves into the writings of medieval and early modern Japanese chefs to answer these and other provocative questions, and to trace the development of Japanese cuisine from 1400 to 1868. Rath shows how medieval "fantasy food" rituals—where food was revered as symbol r…
The Tastiest Dish in Edo
Japanese television has turned cooking into a competition, as exemplified by the show Iron Chef and its imitators. Readers in the early modern period could enjoy similar contests between famous restaurants and popular dishes as presented on one-page broadsheets called ‘topical fight cards’ ( mitate banzuke ). Tracing the history of mitate banzuke as they developed from kabuki and sumo banzuke , this article offers a close reading of one culinary …
Reevaluating Rikyū
Current historiography recognizes that modern Japanese cuisine is an expression of national identity and traces its origin to tea cuisine ( kaiseki ) said to have been perfected by Sen no Rikyū (1522–91). Yet, Rikyū’s contributions to the development of kaiseki are not substantiated in the historical records. This article aims to clarify the role of Rikyū in the development of tea cuisine and to call for a broader investigation of the history of …
New Meanings for Old Vegetables in Kyoto
In 1987, chefs, farmers, scholars and government officials collaborated to designate thirty-seven varieties of produce as “traditional Kyoto vegetables.” The definition of traditional Kyoto vegetables provides a case study of how one community capitalized on national interest in nostalgia and gourmet food in the 1980s; however, this example also illustrates what happens when stakeholders subsequently disagree about the future of traditional food.…
A History of Japanese Theatre
Japan boasts one of the world's oldest, most vibrant and most influential performance traditions. This accessible and complete history provides a comprehensive overview of Japanese theatre and its continuing global influence. Written by eminent international scholars, it spans the full range of dance-theatre genres over the past fifteen hundred years, including noh theatre, bunraku puppet theatre, kabuki theatre, shingeki modern theatre, rakugo s…
Rice, agriculture, and the food supply in premodern Japan, by Charlotte von Verschuer
Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan demonstrates that rice’s significance as a foodstuff and as a cultural symbol has been vastly overestimated in the history of premodern Jap
Carrie J. Preston, Learning To Kneel
Chop suey and sushi from sea to shining sea
Chop suey and sushi from sea to shining sea: Chinese and Japanese restaurants in the United States." Food, Culture & Society, 22(3), pp. 376–377
Technology and Taste in East Asia
Research Article| November 01 2020 Technology and Taste in East Asia: An Introduction Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath is Professor of History at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses on food history and premodern Japan. A specialist in Japanese food, his books include Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2010), Japan's Cuisines: Food, Place and Identity (Reaktion Books, 2016), and the forthco…
Technologies of Taste
After the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, Tokyo rebuilt and extended its transportation infrastructure to bring the major areas for residence, business, and pleasure within walking distance, and that sparked a new genre of food writing, the Walker's Guide to Dining (tabearuki). First published in 1929, the year of the Great Depression, and continued up to the mid-1930s, the books by different authors that shared the title Walker's Guide documented a…
Some Tasting Notes on Year-Old Sushi
Funazushi, a fermented food made with crucian carp, is often described as Japan's most ancient form of sushi. This article evaluates these historical claims and offers some tasting notes, exploring traditional versions of the dish and new interpretations that offer a possible future for sushi. I could never write a global history of sushi without having eaten what has been called the most “ancient form” of sushi, the funazushi found in Shiga Pref…
The tale of tea
Imagine a hypothetical encyclopedia about tea – let’s call it the University Companion to Tea – that provides a broad overview of tea history with discussions of varieties, methods of producing and
Toward “Translating the Foods of the World”
The Gastronomica Editorial Collective is launching a new section of the journal devoted to translations of culinary writings. In a first for any food studies journal, we hope this will not only provide first-time access to essential food texts originally composed in other languages but also initiate a conversation about the process of translating that sheds light on the strategies needed to convert food writings created in a specific cultural his…
Sake Journal ( Goshu no nikki )
This article presents the first English translation and commentary on Sake Journal (Goshu no nikki), the earliest guide to sake brewing and one of the most important sources for understanding the history of sake making in medieval Japan (1192–1600). Sake Journal includes six recipes for sake, five of which are translated here, along with the directions for pasteurization. Besides providing insights into the technology and tools of medieval brewin…
Translating Foods of the World
On December 14, 2021, the roundtable discussion “Translating the Foods of the World” took place virtually with the support of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, the Culinaria Research Center at the University of Toronto, and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas. The event was hosted by Daniel Bender, the director of the Culinaria Research Center, and moderated by Krishnendu Ray, professor of Food Studies at New Y…
What Rats Reveal about Cooking in Late Medieval Japan
The Illustrated Rat’s Tale (Nezumi no sōshi emaki), an anonymous Japanese picture scroll created between 1550–1650, depicts a rat wedding banquet, and for a period with few other visual references of cooking, it is an important source for understanding the staff and procedures for food preparation in elite warrior households, which it emulates. The wedding party of the rat lord takes inspiration from the festivities for late medieval (1400–1600) …
Amai
In Japanese, something sweet is amai, but that adjective is as imprecise a term as its English counterpart. In both languages, the immediate flavor from a bite of an apple as well as the slower-acting but longer-lasting taste of refined sugar are “sweet” (McGee 2004: 655). Chemists differentiate between sweeteners with high potencies (HP), such as saccharine, from carbohydrate (CHO) sweeteners like stevia. The sweet taste of stevia is more immedi…
It Gives the Rice a Kick
The mold kōji (Aspergillus oryzae) contributes to the sweetness of sake and plays a vital role in alcoholic fermentation and in the creation of Japanese foodstuffs like miso and soy sauce. While scientists are uncovering kōji’s genetic past, the mold’s history is also told in the records of early modern (1600–1868) sake brewers, who may not have understood they were using microorganisms but managed to develop sophisticated means of cultivating th…
At the Table’s Edge
On December 6, 2024, Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective met at Victoria College, the University of Toronto, for our annual members meeting. As part of the program, we organized a special roundtable on commensality, a topic often engaged by journal contributors. Proposed by H. Rosi Song, the theme of commensality is as much to do with whom we eat as with whom we don’t eat. Likewise, commensality’s inclusions and exclusions do not only implicate t…
History (18 works) · Art (16 works) · Culinary Culture and Tourism (14 works) · Japanese History and Culture (12 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · History (6 works) · Literature (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Visual arts (6 works)