[Book Review] 'May You Eat Delicious Food' by Junko Takase

Living with 'delicious' that we cannot share

Since entering the workforce, I have had more opportunities to eat various kinds of food. At company drinking parties, people of different ages and backgrounds participate. We drink beer, stuff our faces with gyoza, and say to each other, 'This is good, this is delicious.' When I have lunch with my colleagues, they say, 'This is delicious,' and I reply, 'Yeah, it is.' Everyone seeks the same kind of 'delicious food' and wants to share it with others.

Until I read this book, I had been forcing my own sense of discomfort to think that way too. But wait. Is 'delicious food' really something we can truly share with others?

At first glance, the title of this book feels bright. The cover has a delicious-looking yellow color, and it feels as if a sweet scent might drift from it. However, as soon as I started reading, I thought, 'I've been had.' After finishing it, I thought, 'I've been had' again. My mouth felt cloying, and my throat was parched. Even so, strangely, I felt glad I had read it. That is because the true nature of the discomfort I had been harboring for so long was depicted here.

It is a workplace like any other. People who go out to eat when taken by their boss. People who watch that with cold eyes. This workplace is certainly unsettling. Ms. Ashikawa's behavior would likely constitute sexual harassment, and Oshio-san says to Niya, 'Why don't you join me in being mean to Ms. Ashikawa?'

So, why do they become so unsettling? This book depicts the root of that.
It is 'delicious food.' Within the story, the interpretations of 'delicious food' by Ms. Ashikawa, Oshio-san, and Niya are depicted as being brilliantly different. For Ms. Ashikawa, 'delicious food' is 'healthy food that takes time and effort to prepare,' while Oshio-san thinks that a meal where you don't have to say 'delicious' with anyone, like when eating alone, is 'delicious.' Then, what about Niya? He thoroughly hates 'proper food.' After eating food made by his girlfriend, he slurps down cup noodles even though he isn't hungry. In the same way, he mashes up the sweets she made and throws them in the trash. 'Only things that are not proper, things that are bad for my body, can warm me,' he thinks. That is 'delicious food' for Niya.
Watching them, I think that the cause of the unsettling feeling lies in this difference in interpretation.
It is because we are unable to understand each other even in the most fundamental part of living, which is 'eating.' It would be impossible to understand each other in other areas.

While watching them, I realized that these three people also exist within me. There are days when I make food with time and effort like Ms. Ashikawa. There are days when I get sick of sharing 'delicious' with everyone like Oshio-san. And I also understand Niya. He thinks, 'How can I convey that telling me to eat proper food and take care of my body is an attack on me?' I cannot say that I have never felt that way.

On the other hand, I also feel just as much that I cannot understand any of these three. I don't understand the feeling of bringing homemade sweets the day after leaving work early like Ms. Ashikawa, nor do I understand clearly stating one's opinion and leaving before a farewell party like Oshio-san. I also don't understand why Niya rejects proper meals so much.
Niya thought this about Oshio-san.
'This person and I are similar at the root, but even if our roots are similar, the things that make up the rest of us are completely different, so I suppose we will end up heading in completely different directions.'
I felt the same way about Ms. Ashikawa, Oshio-san, and Niya. And I am sure I will feel the same way about the people around me. Because we have no choice but to live with the 'delicious' that we cannot share. While feeling despair over that, I also feel a little relieved. I feel that this book affirms the fact that we cannot understand each other.

To us, who hide our small discomforts and act in accordance with those around us, this book asks a question. What is 'delicious food' to you? Do you truly feel that what you are eating is 'delicious' from the bottom of your heart?

Today, too, we eat to live. And we wish in order to live.
'May you eat delicious food.'
Not just to live, but to live as oneself.

All quotes and references are from 'May You Eat Delicious Food' by Junko Takase, Kodansha, March 2022.
Thank you for reading.
This is just my own impression and interpretation at this point in time.

[To those who have read this book]
I would be happy if you could let me know what you felt and thought in the comments or elsewhere.