Related Guides
Film Databases
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume I-II: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window Contains classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, providing teachers visual support to introduce and contextualize hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume IV: Festivals and Archives This link opens in a new window Contains award-winning titles from contemporary ethnographic film festivals. The collection also includes field recordings and edited films by students and faculty from universities and institutions around the world, including Berkeley Media and Manchester's Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology.
Featured Films
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi streaming, Kanopy) Follows Jiro Ono, an 85-year-old sushi master and owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a Michelin three-star restaurant, on his continuing quest to perfect the art of sushi. The film also profiles Jiro's two sons, both of whom are also sushi chefs.
- Tampopo (streaming, Kanopy) Director Juzo Itami's satire is a parody of American Westerns and Japanese samurai films. TAMPOPO follows a young widow (Nobuko Miyamoto) who runs a small noodle restaurant in Tokyo and Goro (Tautomu Yamazaki), a cowboy-hat-wearing truck driver, as they attempt to devise the perfect bowl of top ramen. DVD print contains the following special features: scene access and filmographies. Japanese dialog with English subtitles.
- Tonoto Kamuy, The Spirit of Sake (streaming, Academic Video Online) This short film shows the making of Tonoto, a traditional drink of the Ainu in Japan.
- Noodle Paradise (streaming, Academic Video Online) Explore the wide variety of handmade noodles and the dishes they accompany in restaurants throughout Korea, Japan and China.
- Ichigo Ichie : fighting sexism with sushi (streaming, Academic Video Online) In Japanese society, women are not traditionally trained to become sushi masters. Myths persist that women's hands are too warm for raw fish, their makeup will block their sense of smell and their menstrual cycles affect their sense of taste. Nadeshiko Sushi is challenging all of that with Japan's first and only all-female sushi restaurant in Tokyo. There, seven women prove it doesn't take a man to make a mean sushi plate.
- Taste the light show (streaming, Academic Video Online) Dinner with a light show? Get a taste of firefly squid, the only edible bioluminescent species in the world. Local to the small coastal town of Toyama Bay, Japan, these glowing creatures beam a bright blue light, making it easy for fisherman to locate them in the deep waters.
- Here's how KitKats are made (streaming, Academic Video Online) Go inside the KitKat factory in Japan to see how the candy is made, including unconventional flavors like cheesecake and wasabi.
- Culinary journeys. Season 1, episode 6, Edward Kwon : Seoul to Jeonju (streaming, Academic Video Online) Korean Chef Edward Kwon has had a career moving through high-end hotel kitchens, but has finally settled down in Seoul, South Korea, where he has launched an arsenal of restaurants in an attempt to expose his country to a variety of different cuisines.
- A Homemade Meal ... From a Vending Machine (streaming, Academic Video Online) n Japan, vending machines generally sell beverages and simple, readymade provisions. But fresh curry over rice? You bet. Along a lonely stretch of highway in Awa-shi, Japan, you'll find a rare vending machine selling tantalizing homemade meals. Even better? The vending machine owner, Tadashi Yoshimoto, grows the rice in every meal just down the road on his own farm. In a country that prides itself on the freshness of its food, Yoshimoto has set a new standard for readymade fare.
- All Hail Tokyo’s Robot Queen! (streaming, Academic Video Online) In five short years, Tokyo's Robot Restaurant has become the stuff of legend. In short, it's a restaurant where guests are treated to a wild show involving oversized radio-controlled animatronics, dancers, a rock band and more flashing lights and colors than you can imagine
Featured Podcasts
- Heritage Radio Network: Japan Eats! What is Japanese food? Sushi? Ramen? Kaiseki? What about Izakaya? What exactly are they? Akiko Katayama, a Japanese native, New York-based food writer and director of the New York Japanese Culinary Academy, will tell you all about the real Japanese food and food culture.
- Ox Tales: Voltaire Cang: "Slurp!" In Japan, ‘slurp’ is more than just eating-related onomatopoeia. Japanese cultural and food historian Voltaire Cang researches and explores the significance of this important sound in the complex role it plays when people eat noodle dishes (ramen, in particular) and during the refined tea ceremony, Chado.
- A Taste of the Plate: Eat With Your Eyes: "Moritsuke," Japanese Arrangement of Food on the Plate A dish is considered well-harmonized in Japanese when it is peaceful to look at. This arrangement of food on the plates in Japan or at Japanese restaurants is largely dictated by the rules of moritsuké, or serving arrangement. These are a set of styles that draw on the ideas of balance and contrast established centuries ago.
