The staff ate it later

It's related to the concept of Mottainai (もったいない, 勿体無い) in Japanese culture. Where any waste is considered bad, specially related to food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai

I wonder if this is why they tend to have plastic food displays at restaurant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_model

I think the plastic food displays are due to high uncertainty avoidance, so patrons can see exactly what their meal looks like before ordering. Yes you could use real food but the hassle of periodically filling the display case with freshly cooked dishes would be silly.

Any waste as long as it's not plastic. Plastic's a free-for-all. There's really nothing you can't individually plastic wrap. An apple? Wrap it in plastic. A cookie? Plastic. A plastic straw? You can wrap that too.

There is a similar concept in English culture called "waste".

Doesn't sound as strong due to the lack of tv captions

Some American restaurants have real food displays, too. With a chilled display case and limited airflow (and choosing only meals that keep well - avoiding exhibition of garnishes or salads that wilt in hours), you can put the same dessert on display for days.

At the end, of course, you have to throw it away - it might not be safe for staff to eat by the point it's visibly decomposing from 3 feet away. I find that just knowing the food in the case is destined for the garbage to rankle, especially when I'm simultaneously looking at menu prices and wondering why the meal costs so much; it's interesting to learn that the Japanese make those meal displays out of plastic/wax for the same reason.

We should have more picture menus where every single menu item has a actual picture of the food served, instead of the guest trying to imagine the food based on often deceptive and flowery text descriptions.

Yes, waste is an English cultural concept, especially in the US.

In this concept, waste is viewed as a sign of affluence.

So ironically, the more one wastes the more "conservative" one is considered to be.

Pretty much the opposite of the Japanese concept of mottainai.

This is why when you buy a book about mottainai in a Japanese bookstore, it comes with a detachable cover page, the bookstore gives you a cardboard cover so people can't see what you're reading, then puts the book in a plastic bag with a nice twist on top and then puts the bag in a branded paper bag.

(I'm exaggerating, but only slightly.)

> In this concept, waste is viewed as a sign of affluence.

Seems pretty dumb. Maybe mostly a US thing?

The idea of not wasting food as a sort of baseline concept is a thing plenty of parents in the US teach their children.

This is similar to the Japanese concept of Shitsurei (失礼, しつれい). It is of course impossible to comprehend this unique idea that no other world culture has ever conceived of. What a remarkable society!

I did chuckle a bit, but the idea of mottainai is just way more prevalent within Japan, compared to Western countries. I can't speak for other Asian countries, but it's very easy to feel that compared to North America and Europe (places that I've lived in). Funnily, I've felt it in post-soviet countries as well, but that's coming from the feeling of scarcity in the beforetimes.

I’ve also lived in NA Europe and Japan and disagree with this sentiment.

“Don’t waste stuff” is taught by plenty of parents, people talk about using every bit of the buffalo in America. Everyone in my generation has the grandparent who threw nothing away.

There’s maybe more modern examples of cultural thrift in Japan due to the postwar experience compared to the US… but even then.

I feel like I’m talking to aliens when these discussions of “unique Japan” things come up that are, in my experience, plenty present abroad.

I don’t even think Japan is particularly that good about reuse and waste beyond its recycling programs!

This bugged me for a while but two things came to play for me:

- humidity and the generally mold-friendly conditions of Japan means that not doing wrapping of certain food in small packs means you’re risking food waste. And generally speaking food hygiene issues can be avoided

- if you look up how much plastic is actually needed to wrap something in plastic, it’s not that much material. A single Lego brick is more plastic than a loooooot of Saran wrap.

It’s good to reduce waste when possible, but I do get the health/food waste concerns. And to Japans credit, I’ve found that plastic packaging for like… products tends to be way less than equivalent plastic packaged products abroad in many cases IME. My Sony earbuds came entirely in cardboard packaging! No fancy thick printed box either, just some thin simple paper material.

The people bring the bags home, fold them up carefully, and keep them around for the next time they need a gift bag.

Many Boomers may have heard something along the lines of "Many kids in Japan are starving and would love to have that food" even, bringing this somewhat full-circle.

Maybe I'm wrong, but from my personal experiences in NA and Europe, even though wasting is "frowned upon", there's no feeling of "guilt" with the action of "waste". Honestly, I'm not sure how to explain it.

To understand "generational" behavior it's helpful to understand the prevailing conditions at the time.

Obviously these become somewhat sweeping generalizations but they largely hold.

A concern either waste directly correlates to abundance. Countries with historical (ie post war) food insecurity treat food like it is precious. Even if it has since become abundant.

People who grow up with financial insecurity spend money very carefully, even if they now earn plenty.

These attitudes span generations. The attitude of parents often gets taught to children. Although in some cases a generation will "flip".

For example, the post war boom in births lead to a generation that had to compete for infrastructure all the time. There were limited school places, jobs, promotions etc. "Winning" became the driving force. Winners got rewarded, losers got left behind.

Their children (x-gen) refused to play the game. They prioritized family over work. They handed out trophies for "participation". They talk about "work / life" balance.

Each of us is a product of our upbringing. Some things we carry forward as important values. Others we actively discard as unwanted mistakes our parents made.

On the upside our kids will do the same.

From my experience, the idea that you shouldn't waste things, and food in particular, is similar in Japan and France. That was even stronger with my grand-parents who lived through food scarcity during WWII in France.

US however seems pretty unique in its not caring about waste. Heck, it's really tough not waste food because all servings in restaurants are for 3 people so unless you bring everything in boxes you'll be wasting things.

Yes, in the same way I chuckle when I hear people (often practicing martial arts) talking about how "a Sensei" would be a word you can't translate, to talk about some kind of magical mentor...

Dude, it just means "teacher" or "professor".

Middle class millennial French here: there's a very real concept of guilt in relation to food at least (somewhat less for electricity and water, but still).

It's considered a normal habit to always finish what's on your plate, even when you're not hungry anymore. But it's true that attitudes have softened a bit in this regard, especially at the restaurant; but when you're in control of the amount you're taking, you're still expected to not have "eyes bigger than your belly".

That's exactly why you can't translate it: it has a word that is an exact denotational equivalent but with totally different connotations, because English and US culture lack the reverence for professors and other teachers that is implicit in Japan. Like how "tofu" means "soybean curd staple food" in Japan and "soybean curd effeminate, effete abomination" to rednecks.

My “favourites” have to be food items with a natural covers, such as bananas and eggs, individually wrapped in plastic.

How common is this? I have never seen real food used as a display only (as opposed to a buffet or other kind of display where the displayed food is actually served to eat), including in the US.

Sounds like a gimmick that is way too limiting to be a general practice.

We should also have better laws that require those pictures to match what you are actually served instead of the idealized presentations that are e.g. commonly displayed in fast food restaurants.

But that's also completely unremarkable, given that word for word translation in any two languages is expected to be a lossy conversion.

Yes, but it's also a common reason for people to use loanwords like sensei, roshi, Schadenfreude, kombu, uni, and okay: they are trying to escape from the connotational trap of their local culture.

Did you have grandparents who lived through the Great Depression? Were your great grandparents adults during that? Mine were. My parents also both grew up fairly poor, partly in single-mother homes with multiple siblings. The guilt about wasting things, especially food, can be very real in North America.

Maybe your generation or your family's economic class is just very different from mine.

Many boomers had parents and grandparents who lived through the Great Depression and war rationing.