In this article we analyse some of the Japanese state’s recent discourse about
the global sushi boom and compare this with Japanese media and popular non-
fiction interpretations of the same phenomenon. Why is this of any interest?
At the most elementary economic level, sushi has become a global commodity,
and generates hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue annually around the
world. Understanding how sushi has been discursively constructed, deconstructed
and reconstructed therefore certainly has implications for trade. But arguably as
important are the links between these forms of discourse and the production ofthe rhetoric of the nation. We focus, therefore, on the relationship between these
discourses as an example of how the concept of culinary nationalism emerged and
has been codified in the context of globalisation.