How does the Japanese language use new and existing vocabulary related to food and eating to express a wide range of sensations, from flavor to temperature, texture, mouthfeel, and sound? Food for the Senses is a mouth-watering project that samples these topics.

We explore the intricate relationship between food and sensory language in Japanese culinary culture. In the Japanese language, the sound produced while eating, the texture of food, and the perception of specific mouthfeels are all typically expressed using ideophones (giongo 擬音語, gitaigo 擬態語 ): expressions such as sakusaku サクサク, "crispy, crunchy"; mochimochi もちもち, "soft, squishy"; or torori とろり, "gooey, creamy." These expressions do more than depict perceptual sensations; they also evoke emotions and stimulate a playful engagement with the world. The language of Japanese culinary culture is full of ideophones. They are omnipresent in advertising and food packaging, on television, in manga, and on social media. In all of these sectors, ideophones are creatively combined with each other, generating completely new expressions that are entering the lexicon.

Our project illuminates the history of food-related ideophones in Japan and clarifies the phenomena behind their recent expansion. In an interdisciplinary combination of linguistics, sound studies, and food studies, we have created pedagogical resources including lesson plans and quizzes, along with short "bites" that provide specialized insight. To convey the interplay between different kinds of perception and to challenge vision as the dominant sense modality, our project features sounds prominently, engaging users in new and creative ways. 

The project is sponsored by the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities and Japan Past & Present.

Header & Section Images:

• Photo by Kuan-yu Huang on Pexels.

• Ozu Yasujirō, dir. The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Ochazuke no aji). Shochiku, 1952.

• Photo by Bill Craighead on Unsplash.

• Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.