Present Situation and Regional Characteristics of Festive Foods in Fukui Prefecture in Comparison with those of their Counterparts in the Other Prefectures in Japan

摘要

The authors conducted an investigation on the regional characteristics of festive foods in Fukui Prefecture based on relevant survey data collected from a total of 24,858 people across the nation. The results of the investigation showed that people in Fukui Prefecture had a high degree of familiarity with annual events at 84% or higher for almost all of them, while having a considerable degree of experience with such events, although not higher than their degree of familiarity with the events, at 60% or higher for almost all of them. Among the annual events with which people nationwide had high degrees of familiarity and/or experience were New Year’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, the Day before the Beginning of Spring (Setsubun), Moon Viewing (Tsukimi), Dog Days of Summer (Doyou-no-ushi) and Doll’s Festival (Jyoushi), while the annual events with which they had low degrees of familiarity and experience included Bon Festival, Autumn Festival, Spring Festival and Chrysanthemum Festival (Chouyou). Among these, the Autumn Festival and Spring Festival were found to be annual events with which people in Fukui Prefecture had comparatively slightly higher degrees of familiarity and/or experience.　The regional characteristics of festive foods in Fukui Prefecture, as observed from the present investigation, can be summarized as follows: the percentage of people in Fukui Prefecture who “have never eaten” festive foods (47.2%) was higher than that nationwide; the percentage of people in Fukui who “prepare and/or eat festive foods in their entirety at their own homes” (47.4%) was the highest among the items, including “receive festive foods from others/relatives”, for which people in Fukui had a slightly high percentage (7.9%) compared to that nationwide, also showing a high tendency to receive rice-based festive foods such as rice dumplings, cakes, sushi and red rice, which suggested that in its background, the food culture in Fukui Prefecture has an association with a human relationship represented as sharing festive foods with others.