No.056 - “Food sustainability: Exploring the nature of diet geared to the future” Joint symposium with Ajinomoto Foundation for Dietary Culture

“Food sustainability: Exploring the nature of diet geared to the future”
Joint symposium with Ajinomoto Foundation for Dietary Culture

The National Institutes for the Humanities（NIHU）, together with the Ajinomoto Foundation for Dietary Culture, holds an online symposium entitled “Food Sustainability: Exploring the Nature of Diet Geared to the Future.” As some of the readers may be aware, NIHU has been organizing joint symposiums with the Foundation at the Ajinomoto Group Takanawa Training Center, attracting large audiences. In 2020, as a precaution amid the spread of coronavirus, we decided to record the presentations in advance and stream them online rather than organizing a physical gathering. Despite the many limitations this format imposes upon us, we hope the virtual symposium will encourage an increasing number of people to join the symposium. The event consists of the following parts:

Interview with Shinobu Namae（Executive Chef, L’Effervescence）

Presentation by Noriko Yuzawa（Professor, Faculty of Sustainability Studies, Hosei University）

Round-table discussion among Shinobu Namae, Noriko Yuzawa and Robert Campbell（Director-General, National Institute of Japanese Literature / Scholar of Japanese literature）

The symposium begins with an interview with Shinobu Namae, executive chef of the restaurant L’Effervescence, which in 2018 won the first Sustainable Restaurant Award for Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants in recognition of the restaurant’s environmental awareness and social engagement. Namae believes that sustainability is about the pursuit of humanity. While the term sustainability often evokes concepts such as “organic” or “eco-friendliness,” Namae says there’s more to it. “A sustainable restaurant is one that values its guests and every staff member while emphasizing its connections with society,” he says. “It offers space for those savoring meals and producers of ingredients alike to connect and convey their thinking. It is a place for communication where people exchange diverse opinions on an even level.” Asked at the end of the interview what chefs should strive for going forward, Namae responded that they need to be able to think about their relationship with society and the world.

In the following session, Noriko Yuzawa, professor at Hosei University’s Faculty of Sustainability Studies, gives a presentation on “Dietary Culture Opening Up the Past, Present, and Future of a World of Coexistence: Who will Take Care of Our Meals?” She is a specialist who studies daily life from the perspectives of geography, history, and economics. Her work has drawn attention in recent years with three consecutive publications on the topic of food. Expressing her agreement with Namae’s observation that food sustainability is an indispensable part of humanity, Yuzawa points to the importance for a sustainable society to recognize, through dietary culture, that our environment encompasses not only other people but also the divine, animate life, and inanimate things. Moreover, she asserts, “the diversity of a world in which all this coexists is highly desirable.” In her talk, she also mentions initiatives that are aimed at nurturing children and students’ imagination surrounding food. Asked to share thoughts on the theme of “the meal of the future,” she recalls, one student envisioned a world where not one person has to struggle to obtain their “daily bread.” That response resonates with us especially during the current pandemic.

The final part of the symposium is a round-table discussion among Namae, Yuzawa, and Robert Campbell. Taking up the topic of food poverty in modern cities, the session highlights the importance of “coexistence in the world” between the individual and the surrounding world. The speakers also pointed out that food sustainability requires empathy and imagination regarding diet, and they shared stories of practical ways to nurture those qualities by closing the distance between producers and consumers through backstories about ingredients. The session concludes that acting mindfully in our daily life is the key to realizing “coexistence in the world” and achieving food sustainability.

The symposium was video recorded on October 9, 2020. It has been made publicly available starting November 24 on platforms including the NIHU YouTube channel and the Ajinomoto Foundation for Dietary Culture website.

Text: Hiro’o Aoyama（Executive Director, NIHU）

Noriko Yuzawa, professor in the Faculty of Sustainability Studies, Hosei University, speaking at the Ajinomoto Group Takanawa Training Center.

Roundtable discussion among Shinobu Namae, Noriko Yuzawa and Robert Campbell.

Flyer of the online symposium.