Sushi epitomizes the globalization of Japanese food in the United States. Decentering this narrative is one of the accomplishments of this meticulously researched edited volume. Six scholars with expertise in history, sociology, and global studies examine the rise of the Japanese restaurant outside Japan from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Challenging the narrative that Japanese cuisine was created in Japan before being exported by Japanese restaurateurs, they recognize “how a multitude of non-Japanese actors and sites outside Japan have also shaped the idea of what constitutes Japanese cuisine for diners around the world” (p. 4).

Using a mixed-methods, multi-sited research design, the authors conducted extensive historical and ethnographic research on six continents between 2010 and 2020, including Japanese restaurants in Nairobi and Colombo (pp. 198–205). All chapters are co-authored research collaborations. Asking how a national cuisine manifests itself in a globalized world, the authors pursue three entwined theoretical...

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