Consuming Sumo Wrestlers: Taste, Commensality, and Authenticity in Japanese Food

Abstract

Chanko stew—making, serving, and eating it—is at the core of Japanese sumo wrestlers’ social and professional lives. Sumo wrestlers are chanko stew. It is a critical means to make social connections with the outside world by inviting important guests to share their food. Eating with wrestlers is the authentic “sumo experience.” Chanko is also consumed outside of the wrestlers’ training houses in a myriad of ways. Ranging from a luxurious seafood dish served in restaurants to cheap sumo-flavored instant ramen sold in convenience stores, each incarnation claims to be authentic. Although disparate and overlapping, producers use two main strategies to assert authenticity. While the first strategy—taste—focuses on the flavor or ingredients of the dish itself, the second—commensality—emphasizes social ties to make claims of authenticity. Recognizing the difference between these two helps to explain how authenticity works in Japan. By examining chanko stew as an “authentic” cultural practice within, bridging, and outside of the “sumo world,” we can learn how authenticity itself takes on a variety of forms and is used to make connections, cultural meaning and profits.

Keywords:

• food
• Japan
• authenticity
• commensality
• taste
• exchange
• sumo
• body
• commodity
• ramen

Acknowledgments

Firstly, the author would like to express deep thanks to the wrestlers, coaches and patrons who shared their world with him. Also, he would like to thank the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, Sophia University, and the State University of New York—College at New Paltz for providing excellent colleagues, students, and intellectually stimulating places to write, research, and teach. Thanks are expressed to George Gmelch and David Slater for their continuous support and encouragement. Finally, the author is deeply indebted to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments and suggestions that helped him clarify his arguments in this article.

Notes

1. Many scholars draw on Anderson’s concept of the imagined community to consider how “authentic” ethnic or national cuisine is tied to an imagined ethnic group or citizenry (Anderson 1991). While determining authenticity is often based in concerns around authority, recognition, and profits, the ascribing of a static or set array of tastes and dishes to an ill-defined set of ever-changing people is problematic at best and untenable at worst.

2. Soppu comes from the nineteenth-century mispronunciation of “soup” (Handō 1994, 162).

3. Shoppai derives from the standard Japanese shiokarai meaning “intensely salty.” Ogawa, in his survey of slang and idioms use in professional wrestlers, notes that shoppai is commonly used to mean “bad” (warui, dame), “stingy” (kechikusai), or a low-quality person or thing (utsuwa ga chiisai) (1999b, 38).

4. Shoppai originated in sumo, but has spread to professional wrestling and boxing.

5. The futokoro refers the space where men tuck their wallets into their kimono (or yukata). In standard Japanese, the state of one’s futokoro (being cold, warm, lonely, etc.) is a barometer of one’s financial state. Salty is unique to sumo.

6. The construction of the sumo body offers an alternative reading to western notions of obesity and fat (see Tierney 2014).

7. Ashkenazi and Jacob (2000, 88) argue that pot-based dishes (nabe) are inherently informal due to the mess that breaks down social barriers. While this may be true in a limited sense for home-cooked meals, in the case of chanko, it is not the dish, but the context of the meal that shapes its formality and meaning.

8. There is a popular misconception that all retired wrestlers open chanko restaurants, even inspiring a manga series about a retired wrestler who become a master chef (Biggu Jō 1996). Of the dozens who retire each year, many do take up jobs in restaurants or bars, but few open chanko restaurants. Similar to retired professional athletes throughout the world, aging stars might open eponymous bars or eateries upon retirement, but the typical lower ranked wrestler is more likely to work in the kitchen, rather than own the establishment. Not every chanko restaurant is operated by a retired wrestler, since some chanko restaurants have been passed down as family businesses.

9. The wrestlers are often not excited to eat chanko yet again, but recognize the joy this obligated commensality brings their guests.

10. In 2014, at tournaments in the Tokyo stadium (Kokugikan), the “Let’s Support by Eating” campaign had a table featuring information and products from the affected areas.

11. Beyond the ones near the stadium, hundreds exist throughout Japan. In recent years, the famous (and greatly beloved) grand champion, Wakanohana, opened a chain of chanko restaurants throughout Japan. Outside of Japan, a chanko restaurant exists in Los Angeles and numerous restaurants offer chanko as a menu item.

12. Some chanko restaurants use elaborate authenticating strategies, such as the well-known chanko restaurant built as a sumo training house, complete with a ring in the center.

13. Operating a chanko restaurant year-round can be challenging since stews are generally associated with cold weather.