I’ll Make It Myself!: Localizing Big Boy
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A recent returnee, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan and the US; curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan; and admins The JET Alumni Culinary Group on LinkedIn.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
…During a work conference in Chiba that first fall, I ended up out for a quick lunch at Big Boy, which is essentially a hamburger-and-standard-”American”-fare family restaurant in the US. In Japan, as with most “Western food” family restaurants, Big Boy has been cleverly localized. There are no hamburgers, only hamburg plates.