The other day, I made egg fried rice for my kids' lunch.
The ingredients are rice, eggs, onions, salt, and sesame oil. (Simple...)
Let's say this is egg fried rice bought at a convenience store.
The rice is probably imported, the eggs are from a foreign country, and the onions are probably from a different country. In addition to salt and oil, there are a lot of additives listed, written in katakana, whose names I don't understand. The container is a plastic (probably black) container, with a white plastic spoon next to it. Next to that, there is probably trash, such as a shopping bag and the plastic wrap that the fried rice was wrapped in.
I once read an essay by a professor at an art school (I think), who wrote that eating is a "series of actions." You get the ingredients, cook them, put them in a bowl, eat them, wash the dishes, and clean up. When I watch people buying bento boxes at convenience stores and eating them, it seems like they're rummaging through the trash after about half the meal. I was always annoyed by the amount of trash I left behind after buying and eating bento boxes at convenience stores.
Let's get back to the egg fried rice in the photo.
The rice was grown in Niigata, where my wife's parents live. The eggs are from Tamura in Tokushima. The onions are grown by Chie-chan from our agricultural team. The salt is from Amami, a natural salt from the ocean in Kochi. The dishes are from Inoue Takayuki of Kojoyaki Fumotogama in Kumamoto. The wooden spoon is from Arai Tomoya in Shimanto, Kochi. The dishes and wooden spoon were purchased from a store I know, and unfortunately I have not yet met the artist, so I hope to meet him someday.
I make this egg fried rice in front of my hungry children, saying "this is not good, that is not good." The children gobble it down while muttering that it is "tasteless," and when I'm told to clear away the dishes, I carry them to the sink. This series of actions surrounding "eating" is repeated almost every day without fail.
How far does this series of daily actions extend?
Imagine "what" it will affect and "how" it will be fed back into society.
What I want to say is that if the continuity of the behavior of "eating," which will continue forever as long as we live, is repeated "carefully," it may foster an "attachment" to things, people, and the region. This, in turn, will have a major impact on the "economy" of the area.
Egg fried rice, "attachment," and "economy."
Lately, I've been seriously thinking that I wish someone would research this as a food economics theory in the style of " Satoyama Capitalism " (I've only read part of it...lol) (or should I do it myself?).