Rant: Sick of Entire Chapters Devoted to Cooking

So I recently dropped another JN story where the author had a tendency of filling entire chapters with cooking. Entire arcs were expended finding materials. I had dropped multiple other stories for the same reason (Death March for instance).

Previously I thought my annoyance was in the casual arrogance of the author assuming that no matter what a group of people's pallet was, if a JN MC shows up and makes Japanese food, EVERYONE will love it. That's just false. People that have lived in an environment with little access to outside foods actually tend to respond VERY poorly to stuff that is entirely different for them. I have friends who go to japan on a regular basis and hate their food. Much less jimbo the farmer who has never eaten anything but typical english faire.

In my latest attempt to read a japanese story I realized that wasn't the entire problem. In this case the MC who claimed to be a shut in who only cooked noodles for himself was inventing food in another world after 20-30 chapters.... how did he remember all these recipes if he could only make premade ramen at best before? Then I realized it, this author was using this to pad chapters. It started with a short description once in a while. Later it became entire multi-chapter filler sections. Finally had to quit when it became entire arcs dedicated to collecting herbs that would work as spices. When author described MC as only cooking noodles at the beginning, then switched it up to "can reproduce dishes in another world using monsters and medicinal herbs to approximate food and spices on earth" I realized this author was merely padding chapters.

PURE Dao of Filler. And to be honest, I can't even look seriously at a JN story anymore because of this crap. I almost want a "no cooking" tag created so I can scan for that tag before looking into whether to read the story.

I will leave the "Katana is the best weapon ever"/"If you wield a longsword like a katana you will obviously improve your swordsmanship" garbage out of this. far too much of that going around too...

 

Well it's true that i find it hard to make it look like everybody love japanese cooking.
I understand your rant though, there are many chapter filled with nothing but cooking and the story doesn't advance at all.
Still depending on the novel, i might be willing to read it.

 

JP novels and CN novels have more filler than a Thanksgiving Turkey, I thought everyone knew this by now

 

it's just different kinds of filler.

 

Well to some extent the cooking stuff can be explained when/if they have no/little spices, salt, etc.

But the worst is that it always has to be natto. That crap isn't even worthy of dogfood, but you want to tell me that everyone in the world loves it?


Imagine if some french dude show up and suddenly everyone love to eat snails, who would believe that? (Though from what I heard it's more of a stereotype and most french don't actually eat snails etc. I'm just using this as an example.)

 

why should a Japanese diss their own food?by ur logic u hate the food of ur country?CN modern novels can openly show their disdain of the Japanese ppl but Japanese novels cant show their culture in their novels?

 

i think there is the exclude tag option when searching...

well most novels with the cooking tag are light hearted -.- can't expect it to be serious.
then again, you have the option to glance over the chapter if you don't like it.

I don't like status pages and stuff but if i exclude that I'd be cutting down too many good novels -.-

 

Good rant; Nom approved

 

no I am not suggesting they diss their own food, but to casually hold to some arrogance that other people will automatically LOVE everything about their food? that's a bit much. to illustrate my point, since Soccer's been all over the TV lately I will use sports to compare it. Assuming everyone will just jump and say "this is the best food ever" for japanese food, would be like an american seeing soccer players happily enjoying their game and assuming that if these people like this, they are going to love american football... and then have the author spend 1/3 of the rest of the story going into detail about how the MC introduces the game to the rest of the world while everyone says, "yes, yes, this is clearly the best game ever, why did we used to play soccer instead?"

 

I see your point, especially when it has nothing at all to do with the story, sadly in slice of lifes it kinda does and the examples used have that tag. It's when it's used as filler out of the blue that really grinds my gears, like oh we need to go kill that bad dude, but lets sit down and spend a week eating food before we go ... surprised the MC's don't turn in to pigs with all of that ...

 

it's sad really, I like light hearted stories, and intend to keep some on my reading list. but the filler that is cooking time has just worn me down.

haha, and see, I love status pages. it's one of those things, I totally understand why some would be put off by them.

 

There are soooo many things I could complain about when it comes to JP novels. From the dense betas, to the happy-go-lucky naive MC, to the unrealistic worlds (mind you WESTERN MEDIEVAL fantasy) where everyone including the king and nobles are as polite (as a Japanese even to bow to a commoner which is stupid for a person of prestige and power to display) and friendly without ulterior motive just cause MC has cheats and can cook.

There's also all the stuff with harems. Also how MCs are so chill with slave harems. It's still slavery and she's still treated as a sex slave even with "consent"! Also one thing I notice is how stupid characters are at obvious things like they need to ask what a Potion of Truth or a Fire Bomb does. Also why is food and cooking so OP. Like it somehow can make a king your best friend and do you favors just cause the curry was delicious. Eating is like having an orgasm and being mind controlled.

And don't get me started on the nationalism. Then there's CNs which have even more to rant.

 

I swear they swap drugs for spices in those stories ...

 

Ya, I 100% agree on the Japanese food and making EVERYONE that eats it fall in love with it. It's retarded. It's basically some kind of wish fulfillment/making the mc look good doing everything/country pride thing. I mean, I like sushi but I can't eat all kinds of it and it took me forever to get used to the texture. And I don't expect a Japanese person to like a Western food item I perceive as normal or good either.

 

hahaha, i wasn't going to bring up the bowing and crap... the one I just dropped had entire chapters where the MC in a European setting was having conversations with the King about whether to call him -dono -sama or -san....

 

When it comes to food, as long as they limit it to popular condiments like Mayonnaise and well-received foods like fried chicken, I give it a pass.

Although it does confuse me when the locals can't make fried chicken. But I guess it's a lack of salt and oil more than anything.

Mm...but I wonder why they can make amazing mayonnaise anyway just from reading how it's done. I've actually tried to make it and each successful batch ended up with a horrible metallic taste. I found out it was because I was substituting lemon for vinegar, but that's not something that you figure out without experimenting...

 

jp cuisine aint that special in the world of meat.

 

I used to hate snails but once i tasted it seems that as long as it is well cooked it's good.
I will never taste Natto though, just the prepare it is enough to prevent me from going near it.

 

Ikr. Even Gods are affected by the food. Then there's the isekai where a god messes up and actually kowtow to the MC. Why apologize to a mortal when you're God! If I was freaking all-powerful God, the most kindness I'd give is just instantly reincarnate/transport them and send a letter say "My bad. I dun goofed. Enjoy your new life."

 

So thats why Kazuma didn't introduce any food(a true NEET).