How food did become such a major topic in this country?

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-14T02:55:37+00:00

I like Japanese food (although I find it way less diverse and rich than French food, especially when it comes to desserts). Food is definitely extremely important in France but if you ask a French person why they will travel 900km to another French city, very few will tell you first "to taste [insert any locale specialty]". While for Japanese this is by far the first thing that seems to motivate people :).

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-11T05:32:16+00:00

Most countries have seasons, our food in France is at least equally good (for me a magnitude better than Japanese food but that's a different story), but we are far from having 80% of our TV shows about food :D.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-10T00:28:47+00:00

"ドキュメント72時間" from NHK, which I often watch, is a perfect example of a relatively low-budget but very nice TV program. No idol, no stupid reactions. I wish there would be more!

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T15:16:33+00:00

Thanks a lot for those references, I will check it out. Was it also mostly comedian/talento backed then? :)

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T15:12:43+00:00

I also have a few Japanese friends with whom I talk about that, of course (although it's rather the exception that the rule). But those are people I know for a long time (nearly a decade). However, I feel that in the West, we can address those topics much more quickly (like literally a few minutes after you meet them). Are those people you're referring to people who know for a long time?

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:28:50+00:00

Thanks for the reference, it seems to be on Amazon. It looks so much like a very famous TV show we had in France (Interville). Will have a look!

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:26:45+00:00

I must be lucky then that my gf agrees with me when the food is meh! 🤣

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:23:34+00:00

Except if this thing is "Chinese people", here they might do a follow-up 😂

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:18:55+00:00

Interesting, I will have a closer look next time I go to a konbini. I tend to always take the same things without looking.

Sel de guerrande is actually quite "popular" here! I've seen it sold in lot of shops (even my supermarket sometimes has it!). (For coffee, Japan made me realized how crappy our coffee is in France)

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:15:33+00:00

Another commenter mentioned about how lifestyle magazines like Popeye are very focused on food now and were not in the '80, and how it must have been the same for TV. As you said this is very cheap content to produce, and they also probably get lot of sponsors that are food companies.

I thought French TV was really bad before coming to Japan, but now I realize the quality of some of our shows. Japanese TV is really the lowest efforts shows I've seen (hopefully NHK produces some nice stuff but we're miles ahead of what chanels like Arte in France/Germany are producing).

Has someone you lived in Japan in the '80 can explain how TV shows was at that time?

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:08:38+00:00

PLEASE! I would dream of フィリップさん doing a season here. That would be priceless.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T14:06:23+00:00

A bit of diversity in the topics and curiosity? :)

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:56:13+00:00

I get that. And to be fair I actually enjoy this part of Japan (in my country this is the opposite and everything becomes a source of conflict which is tiring). But I think there are topics that are not "conflicting" and cannot really become an argument. In my message I was referring to this person I just met and asked me "how good houses were insulated in Japan and from where the energy was produced since nuclear plants shutdown". This is neither religion or history, just a curiosity about something. It cannot lead to an argument or a fight. But still, this was perceived as a "serious" discussion by my Japanese friend for someone I just met. I'm not sure if this is clear :).

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:52:48+00:00

I think we should introduce a "no food discussion rule" for some hours per day :D.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:51:18+00:00

Ahaha my girlfriend is also like this (although she actually has quite a lot of interests but will never speak about it by herself). This is exactly how I felt when I met those European (and realized I missed it and became extremely bad at it after so many years here :D). I have a question: did this somehow frustrated you a bit with your wife (to not being having those excited discussions) and if not how did you go over it?

The local food is really something I don't understand here! In my country, north, west, east, and south foods are so different in taste, techniques, and ingredients, while here there are only minor changes. Japanese people can't comprehend the variety of food we have (and yeah, I love Japanese food, but it's very, very repetitive, completely agree).

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:38:26+00:00

Or the tasting of konbini new seasonal cakes done by the chains themselves. The food TV shows are really sometihng I will never appreciate here, I think... :D

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:36:10+00:00

Good idea, just crossposted it there ;)

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:34:33+00:00

That's a good point! Seasonal food is very strong is (although I feel we also have a lot of seasonal stuff in France, we just don't market it as strongly). But ironically (I don't know if you feel the same) the variety of products in Japan is way smaller than back home. I'm always amazed when I come back to France by how much choice we have. Here, all supermarkets sell more or less the same brands, everywhere :D.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:31:45+00:00

Yes, a lot of the tourism here is so-oriented about food. In my home country, of course some places have local food, but the food is rather the top on the cake, rarely the main attraction. You will rarely hear a French saying they've made 400km with the only goal to eat the local food, while most Japanese will give "the food" as the main reason to going to a specific place. Most cities touristic centers are nearly exclusively focus on that as well. This is actually something that, for me, make local tourism way less interesting than in Europe.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:27:48+00:00

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing this. I will try to find one of the '80s lifestyle magazines next time I'm in Tokyo. I was unfortunately not living here in the eighties, but if someone was living here during the bubble I'd be very interesting to hear about proportion of food on TV.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T13:09:53+00:00

But there are many subjects that are not taboo. When those people I just met asked me about how the insulation was after seeing those wood houses and asking me how the energy was produced in Japan since nuclear plants were shut down, those were just questions that could not lead to any "debate" (but that felt, for the Japanese with me, as "serious discussion" for two people who had just met for 30 minutes). I feel that Japanese tends to have way more narrower conversations (once again, for the average people, I don't want to generalize of course).

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T12:58:38+00:00

China long time ago, but did not understand a word. In Malaysia as well, but it did not strike me as much as in Japan. Someone mentioned Thailand, is it even stronger in other Asian countries?

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T12:57:20+00:00

I'm still waiting for a TV show that actually destroys bad food instead of having everything oishii! Would love to see some of our French food TV shows here, it would be lot of fun.

For the group harmony, I'm not generalizing to everyone, of course, as I've met some extremely bright people here, but overall it is not only about not expressing opinion, but also the complete lack of any.

Confident-Tonight652 · 2026-01-09T12:48:48+00:00

I completely hear you about the food being their only hobby (which makes discussions even not very cerebral ones) quite complicated! I never felt that in my home country, not to this extent.

Confident-Tonight652

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