Japan’s restaurant industry is unique in using life-size replicas of food to advertise its wares.
These painstakingly accurate creations, known in Japanese as shokuhin sanpuru (‘food replicas’), continue to fill the windows of establishments nationwide, despite growing competition from digital displays and other hi-tech merchandising methods.
Though these food replicas have for decades been produced using moulded synthetic resin, they were originally made from coloured waxes, and often shaped by hand one piece at a time. At several venues across Japan, visitors can try their hand at this same craft. Among these facilities, several are operated by leading manufacturers of shokuhin sanpuru, lending them authenticity.
For my own attempt at food replica making, I visited the venue Ganso, located in the Tokyo neighbourhood of Kappabashi, close to Asakusa and the city’s oldest temple, Senso-ji. Kappabashi is where Tokyo’s restaurateurs have long come to purchase the tools of their trade, including kitchen knives, tableware and food replicas. While the district is firmly on the tourist map, streets lined with food trade suppliers ensure that it retains a commercial atmosphere.
Ganso itself is run by the Iwasaki company, the leading Japanese replica producer and supplier of many of the replicas on display in Japan House London’s Looks Delicious! exhibition. Ganso adds an additional layer of fool-the-eye simulation: with its shop window filled with food replicas displayed on plates and in bowls, (exactly as they are used by commercial customers) there is little externally to distinguish it from an actual restaurant.
A gallery of 1 item.
Inside, racks of food replicas (not only Japanese staples such as sushi and tempura, but also burgers and pizza) give way to a staircase, leading up to the space where replica-making workshops are held. The instructor for my session, a lady named Koyama Yoshie, introduces herself, and explains that she will guide me through making two pieces of tempura (a prawn and a shiitake mushroom apiece), plus a head of lettuce. Replica tempura, being simple to make, is among the most popular with Japanese and foreign participants alike, she tells me, before adding that the lettuce will be more challenging.
An animated video on making a prawn tempura food replica, from the Looks Delicious! exhibition
An animated video on making a prawn tempura food replica, from the Looks Delicious! exhibition: a gallery of 1 item.
Koyama reassures me that even a first-timer such as myself will be able to create some presentable food replicas, and I am struck by how closely the instruction resembles that of an elementary cookery class. Being handed an apron to put on adds to this impression.
At the heart of our ‘cookery’ table, and of the replica-making process itself, is a basin-like steel apparatus full of water kept at roughly 42°C. Next to this are several pots containing liquid waxes, specially produced by Iwasaki in the precise colours required for individual shokuhin sanpuru. These, besides the pre-made prawn and shiitake to be coated in simulated batter, are essentially all that will be needed. As for required skills, the process is one of pouring; spreading; rolling; and shaping, using paper cups and ladles.
A gallery of 2 items.
Koyama demonstrates the making of a perfect-looking prawn tempura, before instructing me to replicate her process. The first step is to take a golden yellow-hued liquid wax, thin and light rather than thick and sticky, and scoop it up in a paper cup which has been folded to create a sharp spout. Holding this cup at about eye-level (height is important in creating a ‘crispy’ appearance), I pour wax onto the warm water with a zig-zag movement, to create a rectangle on the surface. My ‘tempura batter’ takes shape. Any gaps in this thin and delicate form should be filled in, my instructor advises, to avoid unsightly holes in the finished coating.
Next, I gently place a replica prawn horizontally upon the batter; slightly off-centre so that its tail extends beyond a shorter edge of the rectangle. I then softly push the prawn just below the water’s surface level, so that its lower half is coated in wax batter. Flipping it by its protruding tail then coats the prawn’s entire body. I gently press down with my finger to even out any inconsistencies in the coating, and my instructor emphasises the importance of a light touch: non-Japanese, explains Koyama, can be heavy-handed.
Once complete, my prawn tempura is transferred to cold water for a brief time, causing its wax to set: it will become harder over the next half-day. “It looks delicious!” is Koyama’s appraisal, and indeed my first attempt has turned out better than I expected. It certainly appears edible, and perhaps even more realistic than the modern-day synthetic resin variety. The process was pleasantly undemanding, and the shiitake mushroom that follows is equally straightforward: the difference being that wax is poured onto the water’s surface to form a small disc, rather than a rectangle.
A gallery of 2 items.
The head of lettuce demands greater dexterity. First, I pour white-coloured wax onto the surface of the warm water in a square shape, which will form the leaves, followed by a green wax along one edge of the white square, to create the lettuce’s core. After using the underside of a ladle to spread this mixture thinly over the water’s surface, creating a larger square, I lift the piece from the water at two corners, then hand-fold it into layers of ‘leaves’ using alternate left- and right-hand twists. Care must be taken at this step to create pockets of air in between each layer.
The process is more forgiving than this description might sound. My lettuce has an authentic-looking form, even if not quite perfect. Koyama is even more forgiving: noticing a hole in my creation, she observes that it is surely organic produce! She then slices through the replica vegetable with a kitchen knife, to reveal its leafy-looking innards.
Back on the streets of Kappabashi after leaving Ganso, I notice that the workshop experience has both given me an appetite to enjoy some real food, and served as a reminder not to take everything encountered in life at face value. While Ganso and similar facilities are targeted towards tourists, for example, they are also keeping alive the art of making shokuhin sanpuru the original, old-fashioned way.
Darren Gore is a freelance writer, editor and consultant based in Tokyo.