Tastes of the Past

The paper explores the intricate interplay between sensory studies and memory in contemporary food literature. The novels analyzed in the paper are Hisashi Kashiwai’s The Kamogawa Food Detectives (2023) and The Restaurant of Lost Recipes (2024). Using the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies and the concept of memory, the paper examines how sensory experiences through food allow for the exploration of themes like memory, forgetting, and remembering in literature. In the selected novels, food becomes a conduit for memories, helping characters recollect nostalgic memories by stimulating their senses. The paper looks at memory as not only a cognitive process but also a multisensory embodied event connected to food and consumption. The novels depict the process of remembering as both sensory and affective. The relationship between food, sensory studies, and memory is triadic, where each element reinforces the other. In addition to bringing back long-forgotten memories, food and its sensory experiences provide individuals with emotional resonance and catharsis. This allows them to heal emotional wounds caused in the past. The paper also studies how food in literature encompasses broader themes, depicting the importance of food in understanding oneself. Furthermore, the paper analyzes how Kashiwai’s depiction of food is deeply rooted in washoku, or Japanese traditional food culture, thereby embedding sensory memory within broader cultural, geographical, and emotional contexts. Through this triadic relationship, the paper discusses how food in Kashiwai’s novels offers a nuanced portrayal of healing, remembrance, and the preservation of cultural identity

Depiction · Embodied cognition · Food studies · Sensory memory · Sensory system · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Japanese History and Culture