Slurp! A Social and Culinary History of Ramen
Social History Cultural History Asian Studies Japanese Culture Food History Culinary Studies Ethnic Cuisine
Slurp! A Social and Culinary History of Ramen is the definitive English-language deep-dive into Japan’s iconic noodle bowl, tracing ramen’s journey from Chinese street stalls to global comfort-food phenomenon. Historian Barak Kushner blends archival detective work with mouth-watering storytelling, showing how a simple wheat-noodle soup became a mirror of Japanese industrialization, wartime shortages, post-war recovery, and pop-culture soft power. Readers discover why instant ramen was once considered a luxury gift, how regional styles like Hakata tonkotsu and Sapporo miso became edible postcards, and what slurping etiquette reveals about class, gender, and national identity. The 2012 Global Oriental paperback is richly illustrated with vintage ads, shopfront photos, and manga excerpts that make every chapter feel like a curated museum exhibit you can hold in your hands.
At 289 pages, this young-adult-and-up textbook doubles as a lively reference for food bloggers, culinary students, and travel planners who want more than recipes—it’s a cultural studies seminar disguised as food writing. Kushner’s academic rigor (complete with endnotes and bibliography) never weighs down the narrative; instead, it gives collectors and chefs the verified dates, supply-chain twists, and marketing coups that elevate ramen from dorm-room staple to edible heritage. The clean, smoke-free copy offered here shows only a gently bumped corner, leaving the pages crisp and unmarked—perfect for margin-note-taking or gift-giving to the Japanophile or noodle obsessive in your life.
Owning Slurp! means possessing the back-story every ramen shop tourist wishes they knew: why the first ramen museum opened in Yokohama, how television dramas turned salarymen into queue-forming fans, and which U.S. cities saw the earliest ramen booms. Search terms like “ramen history book,” “Japanese food culture,” or “Barak Kushner Slurp” consistently surface this title on collector want-lists, and the illustrated first-edition paperback is becoming harder to find in tidy, readable condition. Grab it now to complete your food-history shelf or to spice up your next bowl with scholarly trivia that will impress even the most jaded noodle slurpers.
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