Il Cibo Giapponese in America: il caso di Ivan Ramen

This thesis aims to shed light on the word authenticity in relation to Japanese food found in America. Following the history of Japanese cuisine in the Nipponese archipelago and consequently outside of it, it is possible to see how the characteristics of locality and tradition have not always been respected. Most of Japanese food, in fact, has foreign origins, sometimes Chinese, Portuguese, American and yet it has been refined in Japan to become an UNESCO heritage site. The case study on Ivan Orkin highlights how a Jew from New York can create authentic Japanese food even by failing to meet the requirements of locality or ethnic descent, and instead by leveraging personal experiences and passion for Japanese culture making Ivan an authentic individual per se. What finally seems to have particular importance in defining a specific dish as authentic, is media communication. The media are an increasingly important part of contemporary society and it is often almost impossible to perceive how they modify and even build reality itself; therefore, we find ourselves judging something as authentic only because it is represented as such in a television program or in a social media. For this reason, the following thesis aims to trace the social issues that may arise from defining a particular cuisine as authentic or otherwise as not authentic and finally to find a new definition of authenticity itself.