Rant... About isekai Jap creating food...

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by LysUltima, Sep 12, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Wing0

    Wing0 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2015
    Messages:
    181
    Likes Received:
    52
    Reading List:
    Link
    I bet somewhere in Japan, someone is working on stories with similar titles !
    ...After running out of subjects to write a story, you start to write stories about writing stories :ROFLMAO::LOL::ROFLMAO:
     
  2. Fluffums

    Fluffums 【R-18 Researcher】【Seeker of Moe】

    Joined:
    May 12, 2016
    Messages:
    2,403
    Likes Received:
    3,649
    Reading List:
    Link
    Yeah, I've been struggling with this in japanese isekai. Given that isekai is a wish fulfillment genre, being good at cooking is just part of that I guess. It's especially weird when the main character cooks for his slaves, though. And even weirder when he cooks for his undead minions. Because when you think "zombies" you think "miso soup" and "wasabi", amirite?

    I could see cooking good food being useful if that's your main focus, like... that novel about the chef for a mercenary company. Or the guy who gets online shopping as his cheat ability and just goes around cooking for his fenrir pet. But "I was a normal high schooler. Now I'm in a fantasy world, so I'm automatically a master chef!" doesn't make sense at all.
     
    readerz likes this.
  3. readerz

    readerz Madam Jin

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2017
    Messages:
    3,797
    Likes Received:
    8,595
    Reading List:
    Link
    Maybe this one?
    http://www.novelupdates.com/series/isekai-yururi-kikou-raising-children-while-being-an-adventurer/

     
  4. Yukkuri Oniisan

    Yukkuri Oniisan 『Procrastinator Archwizard Translator and Writer』

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2015
    Messages:
    5,416
    Likes Received:
    9,276
    Reading List:
    Link
    Oh, four pages already?
    Then, do you know the series where the curry cooking appeared?
    I had seen hamburg (Salisbury steak for westerner), karaage, tempura and other batter fried fritters, numerous kinds of yaki, nikujaga, many kinds of pastries, many kinds of noodles, many kinds of steamed bread and buns, tomato stew and other stews, pasta, pizza, burger, sandwiches, ice cream, gelato, yokan and other jellies, plain normal barbeque meat...

    The only curry cooking that I remembered, is in Death March...
    Satou find a notebook belonged to someone with curry recipe.
    He spent almost entire later parts Arc 9 chapters searching for the correct spices and perfected the taste because Aze wants to eat a curry rice. (He can't say no to Aze).
    He acquired 80% of the spices from the duchy capital, and gathered the remaining 20% from Boruenan forest.
    Defeating monsters along the way in his epic journey for pickle for his curry garnish.
    But the curry from the recipe he got was lacking in taste.So he throw flour and butter until it get nice texture.
    Then curry festival.

    No roux could be seen... And Satou is a hax chara...
     
  5. AliceShiki

    AliceShiki 『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2016
    Messages:
    24,647
    Likes Received:
    98,364
    Reading List:
    Link
    Oh, I can understand that! It really makes sense!

    I think one novel that made cooking in isekai nicely, was "I'm Back In The Other World?", because the character came from a world with horrible tasting food, then reincarnated in Japan and learned to cook a lot of good tasting food because she was super in love with quality food, so she wished to know as much as possible.

    Then she was thrown back to her old world with horrible food... But by now she DOES know how to cook properly, so it can actually work out!

    ... And I think she didn't make curry... Don't quite remember tbh.


    Oh, in Ascendance of a Bookworm they give some acceptable reasons behind the foods Maine knows how to cook, so it's also okayish... Those are pretty much the only ones I could find which are well done though... >.>
     
  6. Pyoo

    Pyoo ☀ Summer Melody ☀

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    2,028
    Likes Received:
    35,932
    Reading List:
    Link
    Are there novels where the native people didnt like the food made by and liked by mc? Im sure the physicality of the toungue differs, but the biggest difference should be the food culture and what theuy think as delicious

    Contrary to popular (?) beliefs, there's no universally delicious thing. Just as there's no universally beautiful thing. Taste preferences / tastiness isn't actually biological (or at least not wholly). It's actually cultural.

    Research (yes, research) has concluded that peole prefer the average of things they know / see / experience / are exposed to. Meaning, a delicious food would be the average of all the food they've eaten, usually made by mothers at home. An extremely different food (considering mc thinks the existing food are all crap) wouldn't automatically get a positive reaction. Humans by nature fear difference and new things, at most it'll be curiosity, fear, a little disgust, and uncertainty.
     
  7. LysUltima

    LysUltima Riichi! Tsumo! Toitoi! Suuankou!?

    Joined:
    Aug 6, 2017
    Messages:
    2,144
    Likes Received:
    5,554
    Reading List:
    Link
    Was going to put that, but I forgot midway... (internet problems)
     
    Pyoo likes this.
  8. Pyoo

    Pyoo ☀ Summer Melody ☀

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    2,028
    Likes Received:
    35,932
    Reading List:
    Link
    ayes~ j believe the genius~
     
  9. lnv

    lnv ✪ Well-Known Hypocrite

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2017
    Messages:
    7,702
    Likes Received:
    9,044
    Reading List:
    Link
    If MC made fried mud, people would gobble it up like the most delicious thing in the world. Things like taste pallets don't exist in Isekai.
     
    King0Mik likes this.
  10. Pyoo

    Pyoo ☀ Summer Melody ☀

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    2,028
    Likes Received:
    35,932
    Reading List:
    Link
    the food version of plot armor~ plot pan? Plot plate?~
     
  11. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2017
    Messages:
    3,635
    Likes Received:
    3,513
    Reading List:
    Link
    Yeah, the world building in most isekai novels is terrible. The reason is that the writers tend to rely on story telling shortcuts, and these shortcuts mean that they're trying to avoid the nitty-gritty of any complex tasks so they're obviously going to gloss over the actual challenges involved. So these worlds end up being very accessible (because there's nothing to learn), but also completely uninteresting as well. What I find interesting is just how unimportant even high nobility is in these books.

    I much prefer the way that it's done in books like Ascendance of a Bookworm because that book is actively about all of the difficulties involved in even the most seemingly mundane products and activities. The story wants to show the characters overcoming the challenges, so it's pretty explicit in pointing out how tough they can be and makes any victories feel that much more satisfying.

    I've also noticed an oddity about Japanese writers and their obsession with food; especially with Japanese food. While Japan has had a unique cuisine for thousands of years, most of what we think of as "Japanese food" didn't exist until after the Meiji Restoration. In essence, Japanese cuisine historically is precisely the kind of bland foods that the isekai populations had to put up with until their otherworldly travelers come in to save them.
     
    Gitami, King0Mik and readerz like this.
  12. Glaurung

    Glaurung Long Member

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2016
    Messages:
    966
    Likes Received:
    668
    Reading List:
    Link
    so you can suspend your disbelief in: transmigration... reincarnation... magic... gods and status screens... beastkins... demons... dragons... orcs... goblins... slimes...

    but somehow you draw the line at the mc making a dish? an actual dish... that really exists?
     
  13. Fluffums

    Fluffums 【R-18 Researcher】【Seeker of Moe】

    Joined:
    May 12, 2016
    Messages:
    2,403
    Likes Received:
    3,649
    Reading List:
    Link
    Personally, I draw the line at mayo. How can anyone even think it's tasty, much less go through the effort of figuring out how to make it from scratch in a fantasy world?
     
    readerz likes this.
  14. Yukkuri Oniisan

    Yukkuri Oniisan 『Procrastinator Archwizard Translator and Writer』

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2015
    Messages:
    5,416
    Likes Received:
    9,276
    Reading List:
    Link
    Don't know about you...
    But if I'll ever get transported to another world, I'll miss Indomie Mie Goreng and my mother Gulai (curry but with coconut milk). And various gorengan (fritters). I'll try to replicate them even in another world if I can.

    EDIT: Almost forget about Martabak.... Yumyum.

    Japanese mayonnaise is typically made with apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar and a small amount of MSG, which gives it a different flavor from mayonnaise made from distilled vinegar.
    Never had Western mayo before, but the Japan mayo look-a-like in Indonesia taste quite good. I used it for my fritters (with additional chili sauce),
     
    kenar and King0Mik like this.
  15. Ai chan

    Ai chan Queen of Yuri, Devourer of Traps, Thrusted Witch

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2015
    Messages:
    11,278
    Likes Received:
    24,346
    Reading List:
    Link
    Well, can't say anything about the rest of the rant, but every Japanese kids who at least graduated high school would know how to cook curry, or Japanese version of curry. Curry is a recurring recipe in their home economics class and if they know any recipe at all, it would be scrambled eggs, white rice and curry. Some guys would know hamburg and some girls would know cookies. But curry is a recipe they all share.

    Ai-chan would like to inform you that Ai-chan had tried to conquer the world in my quest for curry.
    http://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/bringing-the-elves-to-conquer-europe.42428/
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 25, 2017
    NekoMK2, readerz, kenar and 1 other person like this.
  16. Rosver

    Rosver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    274
    Likes Received:
    163
    Reading List:
    Link
    Huh? Are Pizza, Curry, Steak, Cakes, Pasta, etc. extremely different foods? Huh? HUH?

    I would understand if you are talking about deep fried grasshoppers, candied scorpion, or stir-fry cockroach, but Curry? Pizza? Cake?... No!

    Oh! Come on. Don't just pull things out of thin air.

    While people do have preferences, many foods have become universally known. Cakes, Pizza, Cookies, Fried Chicken, Candy, Chocolate, Pasta, Pancake, etc. there are lots of food that traverse culture and is even adopted by other cultures. I can't imagine that someone could consume a regular candy and would say that it taste bad.

    And food has been exchanged by various cultures. Many foods can be traced back to have traveled across the world before being adopted by that culture. That is the food was "introduced" in that culture. Just study the history of food and you will see how cultured exchange food. I mean, an obvious one is the popularity of tropical spices in cultures that are in non-tropical locations and vice-versa.

    You can't really just simplify culture like that. It is really complex, especially when it seems that you understand culture that much.
     
  17. Irradiate

    Irradiate Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2016
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    97
    Reading List:
    Link
    I haven't eaten curry ever so I wouldn't know the recipe and cooking process, but I do agree that it's getting a tad bit overused.
     
  18. Nekone Rin

    Nekone Rin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2017
    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    11
    Reading List:
    Link
    I agree with this a lot! At the very very least, just explain their cooking ability away with magic or something, but I don't know why every fantasy world is portrayed with having really rubbish food.
     
  19. Pyoo

    Pyoo ☀ Summer Melody ☀

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    2,028
    Likes Received:
    35,932
    Reading List:
    Link
    Yes.
    I'm not talking about whats normal in our culture (or more like in YOUR local culture), I'm talking about extreme on the other world's culture.
    And deep fried grasshopper isn't extreme in this world too..
    *casually wonders how many very different cultures you've visited or been exposed to*
    Tell me how those food you say become spread worldwide~ Isn't it through conquering of the country for years, decades and centuries?~
    Doesn't sound like something our MCs do.
    Hmm~ centuries of trade yes~
    Spices was first introduced for their preservation properties, not really taste

    Ofc I can! That's what anthropologist do~ (okay I admit, maybe not anthropologist, but it's been studied for decades. And these people have published studies)
    I mean I quite trust the people who study culture and their generalizations of culture
     
  20. MrSplashy

    MrSplashy Grey Knight

    Joined:
    May 18, 2017
    Messages:
    1,343
    Likes Received:
    955
    Reading List:
    Link
    Oh god especially when the girls got somehow "conquered" by the food that they are willing to have sex with the MC. I mean wtf? This is the reason why I stopped reading most of isekai JPN novels and thus turn to Chinese novels.
     
    Lurker of the dark and readerz like this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.