Ramen Ruminations: Perceptions of Authenticity at Santouka Ramen
Ooh, boy. This paper isn’t for the faint of heart — in my final paper for my Eating Culture class, I dive into an exploration of the ramen at Santouka Ramen, Harvard Square. Ramen lovers unite!
[ 1. Introduction ]
“Irrashaimasse! Arigatou gozaimasu!” If it is someone’s first time entering the almost-always busy Santouka Ramen at Harvard Square, they may be surprised to hear the waitstaff’s overlapping shouts of ‘Welcome!’ and ‘Thank you!’ to customers in both native and accented Japanese, as other diners continue slurping creamy white tonkotsu broth, eagerly bringing chopstick after chopstickful — with varying degrees of utensil-handling expertise — of chewy noodles and fatty pork into their mouths from Santouka’s signature blue ramen bowls. It is no secret that the buzz around shops like Santouka is increasing more than ever for their “authentic” Japanese dining experiences offering ramen, bowls of chewy Japanese noodles in delicious soup. Tourists and locals are flocking to shops in both major cities and small towns across the United States, and Harvard Square is no different, as home to one of sixty-two branches of the popular ramen restaurant, Hokkaido Ramen Santouka.
Yet, to what extent can shops abroad offer “authentic” Japanese ramen to its customers, and what defines “authenticity” in the first place? Our initial understanding of authenticity in foreign cuisine is often tied to the local, historical food-making traditions of cultural groups rooted in a certain location (Johnston and Baumann 64). However, this seems to be in juxtaposition with today’s globalization, which engenders an ever-increasing exchange of information, economic and cultural capital, linking societies and individuals across the globe in common “arenas,” or shared threads of culture and economy: from the ubiquity of Starbucks in Japan, to Americans eating tuna sold through Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market, the heart of the world’s fishing industry (Bestor 76). So, how exactly can one deliver and experience authenticity, such as that of ramen, across the Pacific Ocean? This need to transcend cultural boundaries may result in differences in perceptions of authenticity amongst those making the ramen versus those eating it, and also may amplify the potential for innovation with global influences. Thus, the examination of ramen in this lens can reveal the dynamic and subjective nature of food authenticity in our globalizing world.
Ramen shops like Santouka have declared their mission to elevate the authenticity of Japanese cuisine in America, in contrast to other “Japanese” cuisine molded to fit the West: from Benihana steakhouses catered to American appetites, to hybridized Philadelphia-Roll-offering sushi restaurants. Parallel to this is the rising desire for “real” foreign cuisine within the context of America’s “foodie” culture, where “the search for fine food is a mainstream passion” (Johnston and Baumann 13). Thus, with this topic in mind, I interviewed Jun Kawakami, the General Manager and Head Chef at Santouka Ramen in Harvard Square, and also conducted a survey amongst undergraduate students that have eaten there to investigate how both ramen makers and eaters in America have begun to grapple with the authenticity on their plates.
[ 2. Ramen-Makers ]
One Bow Street is home to the college-student-filled Hokkaido Ramen Santouka in Harvard Square, but beyond this bustling storefront is its down-to-earth origins in 1980s Japan: founder Hitoshi Hatanaka’s first shop in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, with nine seats and one dish on the menu: the humble shio, or salt-based ramen. Over the past few decades, Santouka’s operating company has found success in their aim to make ramen in Japan and abroad, opening sixty-two locations across ten countries, from Tokyo to Thailand (“The Story of Santouka”).
Ramen-makers like Santouka are claiming to make and deliver ramen authentic to Japanese tastes. This seems to defy previous culinary exports from Japan to the West, such as teppanyaki-dining, or food fried on a steel griddle, with Benihana’s steakhouse chain. Founded in 1964 by Aoki Hiroaki, it offered “familiar food served in exotic surroundings” with Asian-looking servers and decor, and flashy, knife-throwing samurai chefs serving rich meat, rice, and vegetable platters suited to the American palate (Cwiertka 188). Even their own advertisements marketed their American-esque “‘solid food in abundance’” in contrast to traditional “‘wispy’” Japanese cuisine. And sushi, whose popularity began to spread across America by the 1980s, also underwent an Americanization process: Japanese chefs invented California rolls filled with America’s much-loved avocado, and made makizushi with seaweed inside rather than outside the sushi in anticipation of picky American eaters (McLevitt 163). Personally making and serving these at “hip” sushi bars, this catered to the young, educated “yuppie” generation that desired to demonstrate sophistication via conspicuous consumption of such “exotic” foods. Thus, in both cases, the producers hybridized their food “to fit perceived customer tastes yet nevertheless [presented] a performance of authenticity”: making unabashedly Westernized foods packaged in an artificially foreign experience (172).
Santouka Ramen, on the other hand, seems to reject such outward catering to the American palate. When asked whether Santouka calibrates its food to American tastes, head chef Jun Kawakami’s answer was a confident no. So, what specific aspects of their ramen does Santouka claim to convey as authentic? Kawakami’s first answer was their origins in colder-climate Hokkaido as a “a distinguishing factor,” and he links this to their “rich and filling” broth, which they boil for “sixteen to eighteen hours” to “extract as much flavor” and “the creaminess of the bone” for their pork tonkotsu broth. He highlighted their ingredient sourcing as well, with a majority of Santouka’s locations having the same suppliers to have “consistency in ingredients.” In other words, Santouka emphasizes its authenticity as geographic-based, and its associated traditional practices to create carefully curated tastes. Kawakami’s recounts also reflects Santouka’s emphasis on transparency, care, and tradition, with their “mild tasting” soup “made by hand” with “minimal salt and artificial seasonings,” so it “has not changed its taste since its beginning” (“The Story of Santouka”). So, they seem to value the established, down-to-earth processes behind their ramen to convey authenticity via the quality of taste.
At the same time, ramen-makers may prioritize certain aspects of authenticity to deliver ramen on their own terms to a global audience. One can discern this from merely entering Harvard Square’s Santouka, which, without ramen or chopsticks, resembles any other modern American restaurant: ergonomic plastic chairs tucked under minimalistic, rectangular black tables, grayscale walls, and clusters of spotlight-esque lights — which, during the holiday season, are even adorned with Christmas ornaments. This decor is a far cry from the cozy, nine-seat ramen counter from which Santouka began, and Kawakami admits that they aim for a “more upscale interior and try to lift [their] level” “to an actual dining experience.” In other words, Santouka sacrifices the decor of a traditional ramen shop to create an elevated ambiance in which visitors may consider ramen in a more serious light. And, while unmentioned, Kawakami’s answer also alludes to the business-minded motive of offering an atmosphere to which Americans are more accustomed and may enjoy more.
Consequently, the divergence between self-proclaimed authentic ramen-makers like Santouka, and previous examples of Japanese food in America, begins to emerge: These ramen-makers have departed from Benihana-style traditions where they must “perform dinner as a show” (Solt 165). Nor are they serving up American-Japanese hybrid dishes at “trendy” sushi bars, where waitresses in kimonos and decor with “cherry tree posts” and “high rice-paper globe lights” were deemed essential to American perceptions of authenticity (McLevitt 173). Instead, as Goerge Solt describes, ramen-makers are increasingly likely to “do business on [their] own terms” with a simple “artisanal bowl of noodle soup” (165). And Santouka seems to convey their artisanry, the core of their vision for authentic ramen, by prioritizing the ramen’s origins and taste, more so than perhaps traditional ambiance. That is, For Santouka and similar ramen-makers, they may want their ramen alone to speak for itself.
[ 3. Ramen-Eaters ]
Still, how is Santouka’s “authenticity” received outside their kitchen doors? To glean more from the consumer’s perspective, I disseminated an anonymous online survey to forty Harvard undergraduate students who have eaten at Santouka Harvard Square, and they ranked the authenticity of eleven elements of the dining experience, from taste to service, from 0 to 5.
Ranked first with a score of 3.525, 15% above the overall average of 3.063, is a commonly preferred aspect of authenticity of diners trying foreign cuisine: presentation, with a balance between being “too fussy to be honest, and too commonplace to be interesting” (Johnston and Baumann 73). Santouka’s ramen seems to fit this description: underneath is a thin, black wooden tray; with their signature cobalt blue donburi bowl of golden noodles immersed in soup; and pork and other toppings carefully scattered on top. And in fact, value for such kind of culinary aestheticism, stemming from kaiseki cuisine, had been spread as “the epitome of culinary ‘Japaneseness” across Japan in the twentieth century and then abroad with the export of delicately-formed and presented sushi (Cwiertka 176). Thus, even though Kawakami only briefly mentioned “how [the ramen] looks” in his discussion of authenticity, the ostensibly thoughtful yet straightforward ramen plating may indeed convey an intriguing simplicity associated with Japanese authenticity, which respondents seemed to strongly recognize.
Moreover, the second-highest rated factor was their service, at 3.325, which may reflect Santouka’s efforts to transmit Japanese-style hospitality, such as the staff greetings in Japanese, or the provided bag holders for customers to store belongings. However, Kawakami admits it is a “very subtle difference”: the Santouka staff, at most, have generically friendly attitudes like that of any Western restaurant. Nonetheless, this may reflect a broader trend in America of gradually increasing positive expectations of service in Japanese restaurants, as indicated by the results of a study on New York City’s East Asian cuisines. It found that from 1997 to 2007, Japanese restaurants’ Zagat rating for quality of service, 19.50 (out of 30), was the only one of the five cuisines examined to exceed the world average of 18.45, and showed the most significant change over the decade (Choi et. al). Even if circumstances have changed slightly, this result provides a window into Americans’ increasing association of quality service with Japanese dining experiences — and thus, how we may begin to link such a factor to their culinary authenticity.
Interestingly enough, taste — which Santouka deems most crucial to their authenticity — is third with a score of 3.275. This result may be a relative success, for Kawakami reiterated taste over factors such as decor, which earned a correspondingly lower 2.775. Still, Santouka had highlighted their Hokkaido origins, from which their down-to-earth food-making, with the mostly Japanese ingredients in made-from-scratch, long-simmered broth, stems, as integral to their ramen’s final taste. However, the quality of ingredients and the ramen-making process scored slightly lower at fourth and fifth (3.225 and 3.175) respectively, with Santouka’s origin falling to 2.95 at seventh. While Santouka likely would not reveal any compromising ingredient or cooking “shortcuts,” this difference in ratings may illuminate the ramen-eater’s disparity between taste and knowledge of key factors creating the taste due to cross-cultural gaps. With only two respondents explicitly stating Santouka’s origins in Japan as a reason for authenticity, many more reflect on just the taste as “pretty authentic” while expressing uncertainties, such as how “the sourcing probably isn’t.” Thus, taste emerges as a comparatively tangible factor by which ramen-eaters can attempt to gauge authenticity: regardless of how much they know of Santouka’s origins, ingredients, and food-making behind the taste.
So, diners’ experience of “authenticity” may differ from Santouka’s intentions based on their expectations and experiences. We can in fact perceive this through the mediocre authenticity score of 3.063: would not Santouka’s earnest mission to make “real” ramen merit a higher score? In reality, the respondents’ basic sentiment was that it is impossible for Santouka to be fully authentic, offering reasons from it “probably… accommodates for a more Western palate,” to simply, “It’s in America.” So, even though Santouka would not reveal any accommodations to appeal to American tastes, it is fascinating that their aim to “never stop delivering [their] consistent flavor” is met with just as adamant presuppositions that it is impossible for them to do so, either because they are not in Japan, or just because the diners “don’t have anything truly authentic to compare [the ramen] to.” This perspective, from lack of experience, manifests in the order of the top three factors. Presentation and service, while not particularly emphasized, are factors that are both more tangible, visibly understood, and easily matched to perceptions of Japanese culture. They are then followed by taste, which the ramen-eaters feel they have less “authority” with which to pass judgment, and then the aforementioned factors that may be even less understood.
Consequently, whereas a few do cite eating in Japan as a basis for comparison, more respondents rely on hearsay and “ethnic information” as heuristics to measure authenticity, akin to how patrons at the earliest sushi restaurants in America would refer to “the expertise of acquaintances” that “travel[ed] to Japan” and Japanese customers that provided the necessary “mark of authenticity” (McLevitt 173). Santouka ramen-eaters echoed these sentiments: one explained their rating of 4 with, “my Japanese friend told me it was almost as good as his favorite spot in Shibuya,” while another cited that “many patrons are not Japanese” as a reason for their rating of 3. So, even if a ramen shop today may strive to present authenticity more than a sushi bar in the 1980s, the customers may defer to those who they think have more jurisdiction — in this case, those with ethnic ties to Japan — to decide whether it is authentic. Consequently, we can discern how authenticity is largely “constructed through the perceptions of food producers and consumers”: a balance of both the ramen-maker and ramen-eater’s experiences and perceptions of what it should consist of, thus rendering the overall attained experience as a socially dependent and subjective process (Johnston and Baumann 61).
[4. Let’s Eat: Implications of Authenticity ]
So, if ramen-eaters, and possibly even Santouka itself, do not wholeheartedly believe that ramen abroad can communicate an objectively authentic Japanese experience, does this signify a paradox in efforts to transcend cultural boundaries, in that consuming foreign foods like ramen only “communicate[s] sameness and difference, selfness and Otherness?” (Karaosmanoglu).
While it is true that ramen in America, as a Japanese food, may automatically establish this sense of “otherness,” a ramen shop’s strides to deliver their microversion of authenticity to open-minded consumers can still create a space for intercultural exchanges. In fact, 61% of survey respondents reported that they gained some or moderate knowledge of Japanese culture tied to eating customs. What’s more, 70% noted they would bring their families to Santouka to enjoy a warm bowl of ramen. So, it seems that Santouka’s proclaimed mission to serve “family-friendly” ramen “loved forever by people around the world” has borne fruit, even if customer experiences may not entirely match idealized goals for authenticity (“The Story of Santouka”). Kawakami himself even reflects that he is “always very comforted” when seeing “a non-Asian, non-Japanese person coming in” and “actually enjoying ramen.” Thus, from the ramen-maker’s — and perhaps more cynically, businessperson’s — perspective, this expedition of cultural and economic exchanges may begin to supercede any static definition of authenticity.
We should note, however, that the arbitrary nature of “authenticity” does not signify that anything can be ramen, as the proponents of Japan’s short-lived “sushi police” plan to quash heretical “sushi burritos” abroad might suggest about “proper” sushi (Cwiertka 175). It is indeed necessary for any concept to have a prototypical definition: as mentioned before, ramen, at its simplest, is a dish of chewy, wheat-based noodles, in a broth of “some combination of meat, seafood, and vegetables” (Solt 3). However, this kind of standard allows for more freedom than what any food police might realize, because, as Johnston and Baumann put it, inherently social concept of authenticity is based on “a set of standards and values” rather than “a cultural object’s qualities” (63). For example, ramen also honors the Japanese value for the local, which is what led to nineteen officially recognized regional ramen styles, such as with Kyoto chefs adding “the leafy vegetable mizuna to their noodle soup to make ‘Kyoto ramen’” (Cwiertka 157). This therefore indicates the dynamic nature of authenticity, even within Japan.
So, when asked about his own visions for ramen, Kawakami suggested how like chefs in Japan, he could rely on local features — such as Boston being “very rich in seafoods” — to create an innovative Boston-style ramen that honors the eclectic history of ramen itself. Indeed, as writer Meredith Abarca notes, “insistence on authenticity stifles culinary chistes,” or innovations, “from taking place.” And, with these chistes magnified by “global flows of food resources, eaters, and food producers,” insistence on rigidly defined authentic features can stifle the more globally-minded perspectives food-makers have in their paths to create the new “authentic” within a “globalized modernity” (Johnston and Baumann; Urban Foodways 174).
[ 5. Conclusion ]
In essence, ramen-makers like Santouka are striving to deliver and serve ramen to overseas audiences with their own vision of authenticity, rather than merely catering to Western tastes. However, with American ramen-eaters, influenced by their own perceptions and experiences in relation to ramen and Japan, we can illuminate how authenticity is a social and thus a subjective and imperfect experience, especially in our globalized world. Furthermore, such “rapid cross-fertilization” of ideas across the world can complicate the very concept of authenticity itself: what today’s chefs forge that will become a food’s “authentic history,” as well as consumer perceptions of what “authentic” food is (Bestor 76).
But, regardless of ever-fluid boundaries between authentic or not, food is simply “one of the few true universals in the world,” something we taste, consume, and enjoy (Urban Foodways). The reason why most of our ramen-eaters ate at Santouka was simply “it tastes good.” So, even though they may not perceive their ramen as fully authentic, the fact that they eat there, just for the pleasure of eating, illustrates the normalization of Japanese ramen into these American students’ food choices. Therefore, akin to what Japanese chefs had pointed out about sushi a decade ago, Santouka’s ramen in America can portray how “Japanese food had grown beyond its exoticized origins to become a global cuisine,” “consumed eagerly” beyond its roots (McLevitt 175). And, even though a ramen shop sent across the Pacific may be reconstructed in ways that may be “transformed,” from Santouka’s modernized interior to Kawakami’s hypothetical Boston ramen, these “global actors” elect how to honor and convey their understanding of the “authentic” ramen experience homegrown in Japan. It is at this fascinating intercultural crossroads in which “one can find the local in the global” (Bestor 92).
So please, sit down, slurp, and enjoy.
Appendix
Original Survey | Survey Results
*I wrote the paper before the 41st response and thus only used the first 40 in my paper.
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