Japanese American Food: Adaptation, Acculturation, and Assimilation

Rearing the second generation in America meant adaptations spurred by children’s experiences in schools. Grandmother’s pickles or a basic miso soup recipe would remain in the cook’s repertoire, but for the sake of children who wanted to fit in at school, lunchboxes would often contain a mix of foods. By packing an inarizushi (rice stuffed into a fried tofu skin) in the lunchbox or by stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey with rice, shiitake mushrooms, and burdock root, parents supported a blending of ethnicity. Wanting to be approved, children might ask for an American lunch from home that did not contain “smelly pickles” and “attempt a hanbun, hanbun [half and half] life” that included foods they might be able to trade at lunchtime (Kendis, 1989, p. 23). Some children, however, found Japanese foods highly tradable.