The Supermarket as Sponge: Forging a Porous Sphere of Affection through Contaminated Ethics
Memories and a little life story of my grandfather and me
I have a memory of my grandfather that fosters my affection for Hanamasa. My maternal grandfather was born and raised in Ota ward, Tokyo, around the end of the Pacific War, and survived the recovery period during the era of rapid economic growth as a rice retailer after taking over from his father. He and my grandmother supported a household that included his father, mother, little sister, and three children, including my mother. Therefore, their budget rarely allowed for splurging, unlike many nuclear families considered typical of urban life at the time. The economic situation had already improved when I was born at the end of the 20th century, but he had embodied a frugal orientation in his behaviour and preferences. He usually enjoyed savoury foods, especially meat, which perhaps derived from the fact that the past economic situation limited his tastes, and possibly served as an antithesis to his livelihood based on rice.
When I cast my mind back to my early elementary school years, a particular scene comes to mind: my grandfather handing me a large rice bowl filled with a cloudy soup, in which pieces of beef oxtail simmered. He said it was gomtang, a soup derived from a traditional Korean recipe. Upon further research, it appears the actual recipe differs from what I recall. While milk was present in the version I remember, it is apparently not a standard ingredient—the actual reason for its whiteness comes from the process of prolonged simmering, especially of bones. Leaving aside the recipe’s authenticity, what I find interesting is that ingredients like beef oxtail are rather uncommon in Japan. My grandfather often drove to Niku no Hanamasa to procure unusual meats and ingredients, and would excitedly share stories about the abundance of inexpensive meat there. Besides gomtang, he frequently cooked motsuni [もつ煮]—offal, especially small intestine, stewed in a rich broth—which is readily available and inexpensive in Japan, and commonly found in casual eateries like izakaya. The recipe has now been passed down to his children, and whenever my family gathers, someone prepares it to share. He would buy these meats, not from local supermarkets within walking distance, but from Niku no Hanamasa, in bulk.
Niku no Hanamasa as a hub among social classes
Niku no Hanamasa (literally ‘Hanamasa of Meat’) [肉のハナマサ] is a supermarket chain primarily found in the Tokyo area, which stands as a distinctive fixture in Tokyo’s urban foodscape. More than a typical supermarket, it is a culinary institution, renowned for its extensive selection of vegetables and especially meat products, often available in bulk and at competitive prices. This characteristic has made it a favourite among both budget-conscious shoppers and culinary professionals.
Upon entering Hanamasa, the first section is often the vegetable corner, and sometimes the vegetables overflow all the way to the front of the street, out of the door. These vegetables are relatively inexpensive, and vary by season so that we can enjoy these line-ups even as daily window shopping. Beside the vegetables, there is a refrigerated section lined with fermented foods, raw noodles, and soy products, which are composed of regular portioned products and large bulked ones named “For Professionals.” Proceeding beyond the initial sections of the store, one arrives at the extensive meat displays, arguably the centerpiece of the Hanamasa offering. The variety of cuts and portion sizes is considerable, with some variation depending on the specific store location. However, a general principle holds: affordability increases with volume, meaning larger portions typically offer a lower price per unit weight. Reflecting an anticipation of use by culinary professionals alongside household consumers, large-format portions constitute a significant proportion of the meat available. The range extends beyond the common types of livestock to include cuts seldom utilized in typical Japanese home cooking. These less common ingredients are presented in both refrigerated and frozen forms. Oxtails, for instance, like those my grandfather used to purchase, are generally found frozen. The freezer units themselves are characteristically low, top-opening chests. Positioned directly above them, shelving units hold an array of spices and seasonings reflecting diverse culinary origins. These too are often available in dual formats—larger containers catering to professional needs and smaller ones for individual shoppers, echoing the provisioning logic seen with the meat. This freezer section often proves particularly intriguing. It contains items infrequently encountered in everyday Japanese foodscapes—unfamiliar varieties of fish, crabs, and shellfish, sometimes difficult to identify by name, displayed alongside an assortment of pre-made frozen fried foods (agemono 揚げ物).
Surveying this collection can itself be a generative act, sparking contemplation of recipes for dishes perhaps never before prepared or tasted by the observer, potentially inspiring culinary experimentation. While a fresh seafood section is also present, it occupies a more peripheral space, clearly secondary in emphasis compared to the extensive meat offerings. Access to this variety of ingredients, offered at low cost and in multiple bulk options, stimulates thinking beyond ordinarily accustomed recipes. If I were to find affordable whole mud crabs and the appropriate chili spices, for example, I might be inspired to cook Singapore chili crab, recalling a dish eaten during travels. The presence of these ingredients suited to specific regional or global cuisines likely relates to Hanamasa’s function as a key supplier for chefs from restaurants specializing in those foods. This principle is clearly demonstrated by the meat selection: the availability of diverse cuts—preserving a sense of the whole animal even as it is dismantled—allows Hanamasa to cater to numerous food cultures. Recipes derived from a single animal can be incredibly varied—Korean gomtang, Japanese motsuni, Western steaks, or traditional dishes of immigrant communities—each possessing its own specific historical and cultural context, yet all tied back to the same material source.
Recent developments reveal a significant articulation between Niku no Hanamasa, predominantly active in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and the Osaka-based supermarket chain, Super Tamade [スーパー玉出]. This emerging network manifests through concrete arrangements: the reciprocal exchange of their respective private brand (PB) product lines, and perhaps more substantially, the operational transfer of eight Super Tamade stores located outside Osaka’s Nishinari ward into the Hanamasa portfolio. Super Tamade itself is recognized for its deep embeddedness within specific Osaka communities, marked visually by a conspicuously vibrant aesthetic in both its exterior and interior design, and operationally by aggressive low-pricing strategies, exemplified by its notable “1-yen sales” contingent on a minimum customer spend.
This instance of two local fixtures connecting across distance testifies to the existence of deeply rooted, local consumer cultures that, while distinct, share a common ground. This ground represents a form of counter-culture, standing in quiet opposition to two dominant forces: the polished homogeneity of globalized food practices promoted by mainstream retail chains, and the high-culture sensibilities often associated with more affluent urban strata. The material fact of this business alliance, therefore, does more than invite contemplation; it actively strengthens the counter-cultural passion and affection I feel each time I walk through Hanamasa’s doors, assuring me that my personal attachment is part of a larger, shared ethos connecting Tokyo and Osaka. This supermarket, therefore, is more than just a place; it is a dense network of material and social relations. But how does one navigate such a complex web? For me, the compass is not a grand theory, but something far more intimate and immediate: a simple, yet profound, sense of affection.
Affection towards Niku no Hanamasa as a medium to connect with others
Originating from my grandfather’s practice with Hanamasa and expanding to the articulation between Hanamasa and Super Tamade, these customs remain in my memory as fond recollections that evoke an affection for certain tastes, and consequently, for Niku no Hanamasa, where I now do my daily grocery shopping. This affection, which I position as a core theme, is intertwined with various social networks—encompassing family ties, social class dynamics, interactions across cultural communities, and relations with more-than-human entities. In this sense, I understand it as functioning to connect latent social actors, potentially fostering pathways toward desired futures. It resembles, perhaps, the active cultivation of a speculative kinship among individuals and entities brought into relation through these shared practices and spaces.
Despite numerous supermarkets near my home, I consistently choose Hanamasa. This choice is driven not merely by its competitive prices, but crucially by this complex sense of affection. This affection, while rooted in my attachment to my grandfather and the dishes he cooked with ingredients from Hanamasa, is not merely an echo of the past. Rather, it is fundamentally constitutive of my present reality. It was only upon relocating to Tokyo three years ago that Niku no Hanamasa entered my daily life. The area where I previously resided lacked such a store; instead, large-scale, mainstream shopping centres dominated the retail landscape, offering a range of goods readily available anywhere in Japan and contributing to a certain homogeneity in food procurement. My move, therefore, facilitated a crucial encounter with Hanamasa. This encounter has proven significant, acting as a conduit that flows in two directions. While my grandfather’s past practices created the memories that guide my affection now, my own present act of shopping in these aisles seems to reanimate his memory in return, transforming it from a static photograph into a living presence. It is a dynamic relationship where the present does not simply receive from the past, but actively gives it new life. And this revitalized past, in turn, deepens the affection that shapes my future choices. As a result, my very perception of eating, imbued now with these personal histories and resonant with Hanamasa’s specific material offerings, has gained considerable depth and colour.
My neighbourhood on the east side of Tokyo, encompassing areas like Sumida and Taito wards, carries a profound history marked by cycles of devastation and resilience. From the Edo period through World War II, this part of the city repeatedly endured catastrophic fires, yet its residents consistently demonstrated remarkable fortitude in rebuilding their lives and communities each time. This historical backdrop, interwoven with the area’s geography, is fundamental to the character of Shitamachi. Shitamachi is often perceived as embodying a distinct local identity, rooted in a social stratum that carries forward elements from the Edo era, standing in historical contrast to the more affluent Yamanote area. This identity is vividly expressed through the qualities of its residents—traits perhaps forged in the crucible of hardship and reconstruction. They are often characterized by an open, straightforward nature, coupled with a strong sense of humanity and kindness—qualities associated with the shomin (庶民), or ‘common people.’ The term shomin here generally refers to those with working-class backgrounds or modest means, distinct from the wealthier strata often linked to Yamanote.
This spirit deeply resonates with my memories of my grandfather. Although he lived in Ota ward—another peripheral area of Tokyo largely populated by shomin—he possessed that same straightforward warmth and human kindness I observe in the Shitamachi of Sumida and Taito. Reflecting on this connection leads me to believe in the importance of intentionally seeking out and fostering ties with specific places and their people, understanding how these bonds shape our social fabric and perhaps even contribute to collective resilience.
It is perhaps within this context of shomin life and values that places like the supermarket ‘Niku no Hanamasa’ find their significance. Hanamasa resonates with many locals because it embodies certain aspects of the Shitamachi sensibility: it is economically accessible, straightforward, and caters to everyday needs without pretence. It is a place familiar to the common person, offering food that is economically accessible, straightforward, and provides a comforting, gustatory satisfaction deeply familiar to the shomin’s palate and appetite—aligning with a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach to life—a sensibility shared by many in these neighbourhoods, reflecting an enduring connection between place, people, and the patterns of daily life.
Certainly, the term ‘shomin’ can be viewed as a stereotypical label. Such labels risk confining individuals to a specific social class, potentially leading to stigmatization. From an engaged, participant’s perspective, one should indeed be wary of using such categories to perceive people as static social actors, rather than as individuals with dynamic agency. However, a term like ‘shomin’ can also function as a catalyst. It may serve to mobilize certain latent units or potentials within society—perhaps by initially drawing them in or allowing them to adhere, much like particles to a porous surface. These are units that, at first glance, might not seem directly connected to an individual’s capacity for agentic reaction. To put it differently, ‘shomin’ can be understood as a relative concept, a word whose very porosity facilitates this interaction, allowing it to attract, absorb, and ultimately foster infinite latent connections and interpretations. It is through this porosity that new meanings and relationships, initially unarticulated, can emerge and be negotiated. In my case, an underlying potential for affection towards Hanamasa, rooted in ‘shomin’ perspectives I inherited from my grandfather—who navigated Japan’s post-war economic emergence and embodied the sensibilities of Edo/Tokyo’s working classes (at least, I recognize this connection between his past practices and my sense of kinship)—truly blossomed when Niku no Hanamasa became an integral part of my daily life following my relocation to Tokyo’s shitamachi.
My affection for Hanamasa and my daily culinary practices exist in a dynamic, reciprocal relationship, continuously evolving in a fluid and experimental manner. While familial memories initially drew me to preferentially shop at Hanamasa, my daily explorations of its aisles have revealed more. As previously described, I’ve become increasingly aware of the marked ethnic diversity of its ingredients—many of which are uncommon in typical Japanese home cooking—and the fluctuations in its vegetable selection and prices, often more pronounced than at major supermarkets due to seasonal, climatic, and logistical factors. In essence, I’ve recognized that Hanamasa’s offerings are remarkably diverse and perpetually in flux. These characteristics, I believe, can be attributed to both Hanamasa’s specific geographical locations within Tokyo and the scale of its operations. The ethnic variety of its ingredients, in particular, appears to be a reflection of the culinary practices of immigrant communities residing in the Shitamachi areas who are regular Hanamasa patrons. This vibrant reflection of diverse food cultures is, in turn, made accessible to all who shop at Hanamasa. For me, this connection is not abstract but material, catalysed by a specific memory: my grandfather’s gomtang. His recipe, I now realise, was an unconscious echo of the very immigrant cuisines whose ingredients fill these shelves. Hanamasa, therefore, becomes the laboratory where this latent historical connection is tested and forged in the present. It is through the visceral practice of cooking—the successes and, just as importantly, the failures with these unfamiliar yet resonant ingredients—that a tangible bond is formed. This is not a romantic identification with an abstract ‘other,’ but a gut-level affection born from shared material engagement, an intimacy that literally connects my stomach to the lives of my immigrant neighbours. This entanglement with their culinary world, in turn, makes my own past feel more substantial and immediate. Moreover, having recently adopted a vegetarian lifestyle (driven by animal and environmental ethics), I find myself shopping at “Niku no Hanamasa” for its affordable and abundant vegetables and plant-based foods. This strengthens my connection to the store, and perhaps even the broader vegetarian movement’s affinity for it. However, I feel a contradiction and a fragile relationship with the store, given the products it sells and its very modifier ‘肉 niku’ (meat). This creates a slight internal conflict because I literally “meet meat” every time I visit Hanamasa, even though I’m striving to minimize my personal commitment to animal exploitation by simply buying cheap vegetables as a way of negotiating my relationship with farm animals.
Porous Sphere of Affection: thinking through contaminated ethics
What if the modern tendency to dismiss housework—of cooking, cleaning, and caring—as a task of mere survival we share with ‘animals’ is what blinds us to one of our most vital arenas for philosophical inquiry? What if the kitchen is not a space to escape from, but a space to think within? In an age that prioritizes productivity, especially in urban areas, the complex practice of eating dwindles into mere supplementation, a chore delegated and outsourced. This supposedly ‘progressive’ way of living, which appears to liberate us from tedious labour, in fact diminishes our latent capacity for social solidarity. It is precisely against this backdrop that this chapter locates eating practices, grounded in material observation, as a crucial arena for thinking through the ethical turbulence that they inevitably create: a domain defined by the absence of fixed or enduring relationships.
My own philosophical method, therefore, must begin with a form of disciplined perception, a commitment to face the material flows that cooking and eating entail. It is a practice of standing in the cold aisle of Niku no Hanamasa and seeing beyond the packaged goods. The ingredients here possess an unruly liveliness, a refusal of the sterile uniformity of major supermarkets. The freshness of the vegetables fluctuates noticeably; it demands a discerning eye, a form of connoisseurship. Here, the home cook is nudged into the role of the professional, forced to strategize around bulk portions, to develop the skill to assess and adapt. It’s the kind of place that might sell you a bag of lemons still dusted with pesticides, not out of negligence, but with the quiet assumption that you possess the know-how to make them safe—a small, pragmatic initiation into a world of material engagement. It is about feeling the hum of the open-chest freezers and recognizing it as the audible evidence of thermodynamics at work—a battle against entropy that keeps the flesh of extinguished beings from returning to the earth. It is about holding a piece of frozen oxtail and perceiving the vast, indifferent network it implies: the global logistics chain, the economic rationalities, and the biological fact of a cow’s life and its termination. This is a nihilistic substrate. Any honest affection must be built upon this bedrock of indifferent causality, not in spite of it.
Through this sustained, material perception, the solid boundaries of the self begin to dissolve. To truly sense what is involved in the preparation of a single meal is to understand that the “I” who eats is not a self-contained entity but a temporary eddy in a constant flow of matter and relation. Perhaps this is overthinking it, but it feels as though a sign—be it a taste, a memory, or a supermarket aisle—only comes to life when an interpreter is present. And to keep the signs left by past interpreters, like my grandfather, alive, I must become the interpreter, here and now. Memory itself, triggered by the immediacy of taste and smell, is not a fixed recording retrieved from a dusty archive. It is reanimated, reconfigured, and subtly altered each time it is summoned into the present. I am constituted, in this moment, by the cow from Australia, by the labour of the person who drove the refrigerated truck, by the ever-reconstituted memory of my grandfather’s post-war frugality, by the anonymous hands that harvested the vegetables, and by the very laws of physics that govern the transformation of these materials into sustenance. This act of sensing reveals that I am porous, predicated on a network of countless actors, all of whom have left their material trace on me.
It is from this awareness that a different kind of affection can be generated. This is not the affection of a closed, familial circle, defined by blood or ritual. Nor is it the abstract, intellectual affection of a political ideal, which often demands purity and consistency. It is an affection born not of shared identity, but of shared material entanglement; an affection that is earned through practice, not assumed by status. It is a porous sphere of affection, a mode of kinship built not on stable identity but on shared material reality. Like a sponge, this sphere has no solid border; it is defined by its capacity to absorb. It soaks up the warmth of my grandfather’s memory and the evolving taste of his motsuni as I attempt to recreate it. It absorbs my sense of belonging to the shomin culture of Tokyo’s Shitamachi, a kinship I feel with the other shoppers at Hanamasa. But its porosity means it cannot be selective. It must also absorb the uncomfortable, the dissonant, the troubling. It absorbs the economic precarity of the part-time workers stocking the shelves, the metallic scent of the butcher’s section that challenges my vegetarian ethics, and my own complicity in a global food system whose full consequences I can never fully grasp.
Living within this porous sphere means dwelling in a state of perpetual ethical turbulence. The affection it generates is necessarily contaminated. My choice to shop for vegetables at “Niku no Hanamasa” is a daily practice of this contaminated ethics. Each visit is a confrontation with the very animal exploitation I seek to minimize. I “meet meat” every time. There is no clean solution, no pure moral high ground from which to act. This sphere of affection does not offer comfort or resolution; rather, it forces upon me a constant state of revision. The discomfort I feel is not a sign of failure, but a signal that my ethical faculties are engaged. It is the friction generated by holding contradictory relationships in tension—my love for the store’s affordability and its connection to my past, my unease with its primary commodity—that prevents my own ethics from hardening into a brittle, unthinking dogma.
This, ultimately, is the philosophical and political promise of such a practice. Most violent conflicts arise not from disagreement, but from the moment ethics becomes fixed, when a worldview solidifies into a non-negotiable truth that cannot accommodate the other. The practice of thinking through a contaminated, porous sphere of affection is an antidote to this solidification. It is a commitment to remain vulnerable, to allow oneself to be troubled and changed by the inconvenient others—be they a difficult memory, a challenging ingredient, or an uncomfortable truth about one’s own position in the world. It is a quiet, daily philosophical practice, conducted not in a seminar room but in the kitchen and the supermarket aisle. It does not promise a better world, but it offers a method to navigate the flawed, contradictory, and deeply entangled one we already inhabit with a greater degree of care, awareness, and the perpetual possibility of revision.