In my weekly conversation time with a Japanese friend I wanted to ask her what
were her favorite Japanese food, drink, etc. I asked her in the form of

> 何が大好きな日本の食べ物か

and she corrected me, saying that the natural informal way to ask would be

> 日本の食べ物で大好きなものは何？

I'd like to confirm if, in this context, で indicates 'among all'.
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2014-12-01T15:25:32.623
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2015-01-03T23:52:23.880
2014-12-04T23:09:51.233
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question
particle-で
What's the use of で in 「日本の食べ物で大好きなものは何？」
For practical purposes, understanding this で as an abbreviated の中で is probably
fine.

However, it doesn't actually feel like that to me. Consider this sentence:

> 最も好きな食べ物は何ですか？

versus

> 食べ物で最も好きなものはなんですか？

The essential parts are just 食べ物, 最も好き, 何 and we put them together in some
syntactically acceptable order.

> 最も好きな食べ物は何ですか？  
>  What is your favorite food?
>
> 食べ物で最も好きなものはなんですか？  
>  Food-wise, what do you like best?

Sure, there are nuance differences associated with these different syntactic
structures, but in this case it's probably beside the point. In the second
form, what's literally going on is that you're adjectivizing 食べ物 to describe
what kind of 好きなもの you're talking about. Here's a crappy-sounding, direct
translation:

> What are your most liked edible things?

but it gets the syntax across, hopefully.
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2014-12-04T06:46:34.410
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2014-12-04T06:46:34.410
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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answer