{"id":3856,"date":"2010-07-23T14:40:19","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T14:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2010-07-23T14:40:19","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T14:40:19","slug":"a-phd-in-noodles-kick-ass-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/23\/a-phd-in-noodles-kick-ass-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"A PhD in noodles? Kick-ass, Japan!"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><strong>Food expert holds doctorate in noodle lore<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>OSAKA&#8211;A food expert, who has re-created dishes enjoyed by the nobility in the Nara period (710-784), was so taken with the 1,300-year history of noodles in this country that he wrote a book about it. &#8220;I simply wondered why ramen and soba noodles always rank high in Japanese favorite food surveys,&#8221; Ayao Okumura, 72, said.<\/p>\n<p>His book, &#8220;Nihon men-shoku-bunka no 1,300-nen&#8221; (1,300 years of noodle culture in Japan), won the Tsuji Shizuo Shokubunka-sho food culture prize in spring. The book was the culmination of two years of fieldwork. Although he is a well-known expert in traditional foods, Okumura believes a person can always learn something, no matter how old he or she is. So he entered Mimasaka University&#8217;s graduate school in Okayama Prefecture shortly before turning 70 and chose noodles for his doctoral thesis.<\/p>\n<p>He sampled noodles not only in Japan but also overseas, such as in Italy and China, and learned various ways to cook them. He sometimes ate noodles six times a day, raising his blood sugar level so high that he wound up in a hospital. In his sickbed, Okumura read 45 books from the Kamakura period (1192-1333) and later compiled a paper based on the books.<\/p>\n<p>He began his culinary career at a relative&#8217;s delicatessen and studied under food culture giant Osamu Shinoda (1899-1978), who always said, &#8220;Visit the places where dishes originate.&#8221; Okumura devoted himself to studying noodles at his own research kitchen in Nara. &#8220;The reason Japanese love noodles is because of the way we cook and eat them,&#8221; Okumura said. &#8220;Now I&#8217;d like to study the aesthetics of color and the presentation of food.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Source: Daily Yomiuri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food expert holds doctorate in noodle lore OSAKA&#8211;A food expert, who has re-created dishes enjoyed by the nobility in the Nara period (710-784), was so taken with the 1,300-year history of noodles in this country that he wrote a book about it. &#8220;I simply wondered why ramen and soba noodles always rank high in Japanese&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/23\/a-phd-in-noodles-kick-ass-japan\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;A PhD in noodles? Kick-ass, Japan!&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-linked-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3u9vK-10c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3858,"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flubu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}