Blog#4: The Comeback of a Tradition 'Kouji' Marino Mori

              I will introduce the Kouji, the material used for cooking as one of the examples of products came back in Japan. Kouji is a traditional material used for making the taste of the meal more rich and tender. It is white colored and thick liquid made of fermented flour. Recently, ‘Shiokouji’( kouji with salt) is popular among house wives, to use fish and meat making it tenderer. Shiokouji were shelved on the supermarkets, and many recipes were published in Japan. Even ‘Shiokouji restaurants’ and lunch menus were made when this boom came. The peak of this trend was in 2012, and enen though the popularity is getting steady, it is still popular for the cooking material.

              I consider that this trend has come on the background of changing food cultures in Japan. Currently, Japan is filled with fast food restaurants and oily meals imported from the Western culture. According to that situation, Japanese people’s health got worse than the previous times. Many diseases such as health-related diseases are now in concern among all generations in Japan. Therefore, in order to tackle these health issues, people in Japan started to seek the forgotten traditional food culture. As a result, healthyKouji attracted many people’s attention, because it uses few flavoring, and it became a boom around the country.

              I think this trend will give a positive impact on Japanese health issues. Once people in Japan found out that traditional food culture is healthy and delicious, their health concerns will increase, which means that more sound people may increase in our society. Since the medical fees cost much in Japan, it is one of the solutions to lower the costs for the medication. Besides, as the food culture in Japan has now more attention among Japanese after the Japanese food culture has registered in the World Heritage,   I assume that more traditional healthy foods will revive in our society.

              In conclusion, while many western style foods are still popular among Japanese people, booms of healthy traditional foods such as Shiokouji may have an influence to change the people’s eating habits.

 

 

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