A festival of deliciousness
On Oct. 22, the Windsor Grandhall on Mt.A campus transformed into a vibrant celebration of Japanese culture during Umami Matsuri, a festival organized by students in the GENV 1301 class, also known as Japanese Foodways. Students organized the event, and a ramen pop-up shop the following day, under the guidance of Mt.A Geography Professor Tim Reffeinstein. This is the fourth iteration of the course, with previous classes holding the Sackville Ramen Film Festival, the Japanese Food Summit, and last year, the introduction of Umami Matsuri. This year, the class elaborated on last year’s focus on typical Japanese savory flavors, adopting the same name.
When translated directly from Japanese to English, Umami Matsuri is defined as “Festival of Deliciousness”. However, the term umami is technically considered to be the fifth flavour alongside, salty, sweet, bitter, and, sour. It was originally discovered by a Japanese chemist in 1908 and it’s a key flavour in Japanese cuisine. The class’s focus for the event was to highlight four-cornerstones of umami in Japanese food: Kombu (seaweed), Shoyu (soy sauce), Miso (fermented soy paste), and Katsuobushi, which is also known as bonito fish flakes. Reiffenstein says Japanese cuisine aims for the natural ingredients to stand out on their own. Reiffenstein elaborated, saying “you can animate any flavour by simmering it in dashi [katsuobushi].” Student Claire Armstrong, one of the students responsible for greeting people at the event, said “I think everyone has an idea of what [umami] is but maybe they don’t know there’s a word for it.” She highlighted she saw the event as a great way to introduce everyone to the concept.
The event originated after Reiffenstein changed the focus of his research. Prior to Umami Matsuri, Reiffenstein focused on how patents work across international borders. However, he said he found himself more connected to studying the inner workings of Japan’s food industry. He explained that everybody has “some sort of touch stone” with Japanese food. When compared to Japanese patents, food lends itself better into engaging students. The goal of the GENV 1301 course is to introduce students to Japanese food from a geographer’s perspective. The goal of the event, in turn, is for the students to share their passion for what they have learned in the first six weeks of class. Reffeinstein mentions when creating the course he was inspired by his colleagues, Professor Susie Andrews, and now-retired Professor Marilyn Walker. The idea was to allow students to engage right away with the most interesting aspects of the subject area, which is not always possible with introductory-level courses.
Student initiative is one of the highlights of the course and the Umami Matsuri event. Reiffenstein said “I stopped being surprised by the everyday ingenuity of Mt.A students, but every year I get surprised.” Reiffenstein then highlighted a few things students had done during the course. A few students had hand drawn shoyu labels with detailed information, while others produced posters and ran social-media campaigns. A chemistry student recreated the process of isolating umami from kombu. Reiffenstein was impressed with the hard work demonstrated by all students, saying “I don’t tell them how to run a social media campaign, I don’t tell them how to set up a booth, they just figure out how to do it.”
Umami Matsuri is a collaborative effort from both domestic Mt.A students and Japanese students who are participating in the Mount Allison Semester Studies in English (MASSIE) program. Nagisa Nakimura, a MASSIE student said “it is so fun because I live in Japan, everyone knows about Japan but here everyone doesn’t know much about Japan.” She highlights it was a great experience for her and her fellow MASSIE students to teach people about Japanese culture and food. Mallory Drover, a Mt.A student involved in the event said “I absolutely would recommend the course. It was really fun getting to learn about all the different foods and how they’re actually made, which is not something we actually get to see much in the modern age.” Armstrong added she was initially concerned if people would have the resources to host the event, saying “Dr. Reiffenstein was very helpful, he made sure we had all of the ingredients and all of the posters, [the event] actually went by very swiftly.”
A new addition this year was the ramen pop-up shop in partnership with Bagtown Brewery, local chef Jon Wolfe, and NB Future. Students sold 70 bowls in 50 minutes, eventually selling out completely! Reffeinstein explained the reasoning behind the pop-up. He said “80 per cent of ramen shops fail within 3 years and the ones that [succeed] have to work bloody hard.” Reiffenstein explained this provides students with a microcosmic experience of what is like to run a ramen shop. Ramen shops are a prevalent part of Japan’s food industry, and Umami Matsuri was a way to make the challenges of running one more tangible to students.
The Umami Matsuri event had great support from the community. Mallory Drover said, “we really wanted to show people all the beautiful ways in which Japanese culture has developed flavours”. When asked if the event would be returning again next year, Reffeinstein said “the challenge with Umami Matsuri is that there were a lot of ingredients.” Reiffenstein shared kombu is easy to bring from Japan while shoyu is more difficult. He noted that the shoyu varieties available were collected from many different areas in Japan, which could prove difficult for next iterations to recreate. Reffeinstein said “if we do it again there will be an event, will it be like this? Possibly.”