This paper examines the cultural and entrepreneurial innovations by Korean Chinese (Joseonjok) in transforming and globalizing the Xinjiang-style BBQ lamb skewers originally popularized by Muslim Uighur vendors. Despite having no historical tradition of consuming lamb, Joseonjok communities in China's Yanbian region adopted this dish in the 1980s and made it a cornerstone of their culinary enterprise. Korean Chinese entrepreneurs incorporated technical and culinary innovations—such as smaller skewers, mechanized grills, and modified seasonings—to suit local tastes and operational efficiency. Over two decades, these adaptations transformed the skewers from humble street food into a sophisticated gourmet dish served in upscale restaurants. Furthermore, leveraging transnational ethnic networks, Joseonjok entrepreneurs expanded their business to South Korea, Japan, the United States, and beyond. The study highlights the role of ethnic capital and co-ethnic networks in facilitating cross-cultural adaptation and entrepreneurial success. By appropriating an external culinary tradition and embedding it within their cultural framework, the Korean Chinese not only introduced lamb as a staple in their cuisine but also reshaped perceptions of ethnic entrepreneurship. This case underscores how cultural exchange and transnational connections can drive innovation, resulting in the globalization of regional culinary practice.

Sakura blossom forecasts on TV, mass tourism, epic picnicking and autumnal festivals are key visual and physical manifestations of seasonal cultural practice in Japan. Perhaps less familiar to outside observers is the appearance of promotional materials for Starbucks Japan’s latest summer limited edition Frappuccino. Esoteric, technologically enabled combinations of biscuit, mascarpone, purple taro powder and many other ingredients, Starbucks Japan’s summer Frappuccinos are a vernacular, if corporate, marker of seasonal progression. This paper, building on the work of Merry White’s Coffee Life in Japan (2012), suggests that if “coffee is the drink of Japanese ‘modernity’,” Frappuccino’s might represent the drink of Japanese hyper and post-modernity and the new hybrid and liminal foodscapes produced by it. Encountering in particular the food geographies, technologies and spaces of Starbucks Japan summer Frappuccino booms, and the constructed elite terrains of Starbucks Reserve and Roastery branches in Tokyo this paper considers the production of a performative and representational landscape of the elite and limited edition. White suggested that cafés were themselves “engines driving new cultural phenomena” (White, 2012), and this paper considers that amidst the complicated calorific concoctions, rare varieties of beans and quasi-artisanal brewing technologies, social and cultural identities are reforged, leisure spaces, foodscapes and their technologies made new, enmeshed within spectacular forms of glocal hyper-capitalist praxis.