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Japanese Cuisine

Delicious – Nippon (Japanese Rice)

 

Throughout history, the Japanese people have been indebted to the rice that grows in their fields. The pursuit of delicious rice to this day remains an ongoing national passion. We take a look at the staple food of Japanese Rice.

Japanese Cuisine is the food ingredients, preparation and way of eating of Japan. The traditional food of Japan is based on rice with miso soup and other dishes, each in its own utensil, with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. The side dishes often consist of fish, pickled vegetables, and vegetables cooked in broth. Fish is common in the traditional cuisine. It is often grilled. Fish may be served raw as sashimi or in sushi. Seafood and vegetables are also deep-fried in a light batter as tempura.

Apart from rice, staples include noodles, such as soba, and udon. Japan has many simmered dishes such as fish products in broth called oden, or beef as sukiyaki and nikujaga. Foreign food, in particular Chinese food in the form of noodles in soup called ramen and fried dumplings, gyoza, and western food such as curry and hamburger steaks are commonly found in Japan. Historically, the Japanese shunned meat, but with the modernization of Japan in the 1860s, meat-based dishes such as tonkatsu became common.

Japan has an indigenous form of sweets called wagashi, which include ingredients such as red bean paste, as well as its indigenous rice wine sake.

Japanese cuisine, particularly sushi, has now become popular throughout the world.

Overview of traditional Japanese cuisine

Breakfast at a ryokan (Japanese inn), featuring grilled mackerel, Kansai styledashimaki egg, tofu in kaminabe (paper pot)

Japanese cuisine is based on combining the staple food which is steamed white rice orgohan (御飯) with one or several okazu or main dishes and side dishes. This may be accompanied by a clear or miso soup and some tsukemono (pickles).

The phrase ichijū-sansai (一汁三菜 “one soup, three sides”) refers to the makeup of a typical meal served, but has roots in classic kaiseki and honzen cuisine. The term is also used to describe the first course served in standard kaiseki cuisine nowadays.

Rice is served in its own small bowl (chawan), and course item is placed on its own small plate (sara) or bowl (hachi) for each individual portion. This is done even at home. It contrasts with the Western-style dinners at home, where each individual takes helpings from the large tureens and plates of food presented at the middle of the dining table. Japanese style traditionally abhors different flavored dishes touching each other on a single plate, so different dishes are given their own individual plates as mentioned, or are partitioned using leaves, etc. This is why in take-out sushi the tamagoyaki egg vs. fish, or Blue-backed fish vs. white-fleshed fish are carefully separated. Placing okazu on top of rice and “soiling” it is also frowned upon by old-fashioned etiquette.

The small rice bowl or chawan (lit. “tea bowl”), which doubles as a word for the large tea bowls in tea ceremonies. Thus in common colloquy the drinking cup is referred to as yunomi-jawan or yunomi for the purpose of distinction.

Kaiseki appetizers on a legged tray

In the olden days, among the nobility, each course of a full-course Japanese meal would be brought on serving trays called zen (膳), which were originally platformed trays or small dining tables. In the modern age, faldstool trays or stackup type legged trays may still be seen used in zashiki, i.e. tatami-mat rooms, for large banquets or at a ryokantype inn. Some restaurants might use the suffix -zen (膳) as a classier though dated synonym to the more familiar teishoku (定食), since the latter basically is a term for acombo meal served at a taishū-shokudō, akin to a dinerTeishoku means a meal of fixed menu, a dinner à prix fixe served at shokudō (食堂 “dining hall”) or ryōriten (料理店 “restaurant”), which is somewhat vague (shokudō can mean a diner type restaurant or a corporate lunch hall); but e.g. Ishikawa, Hiroyoshi (石川弘義) (1991) (snippet).Taishū bunka jiten. Kōbundō. p. 516. defines it as fare served at teishoku-shokudō (定食食堂 “teishoku dining hall”?), etc., a diner-like establishment.

Emphasis is placed on seasonality of food or shun (), and dishes are designed to herald the arrival of the four seasons or calendar months.

Seasonality

Much like the haiku poem, traditional Japanese cuisine strives to make a presentation of the seasonality (shun).

Seasonality means taking advantage of the “bounty of the mountains” (e.g. bamboo shoots in spring, chestnuts in the fall) as well as the “bounty of the sea” as they come into season. The hatsu-gatsuo or the first catch of skipjack tunas that arrives with the Kuroshio Current has traditionally been greatly prized.

If something becomes available rather earlier than usual, the first crop or early catch is called hashiri.

Use of (inedible) tree leaves and branches as decor is also characteristic of Japanese cuisine. Maple leaves are often floated on water to exude coolness or ryō (涼), sprigs of nandina are popularly used. The haran (Aspidistra) and sasa bamboo leaves were often cut into shapes, and placed underneath or used as separators.

Traditional ingredients

Further information: History of Japanese cuisine and List of Japanese ingredients

A characteristic of traditional Japanese food is the sparing use of meat (mammal meat), oils and fats, and dairy products.   Use of soy saucemiso, and umeboshi makes them high in salt content, though there are low-sodium versions of these available nowadays.

Non-meat practice

As Japan is an island nation surrounded by an ocean its people have always taken advantage of the abundant seafood supply.   It is the opinion of some food scholars that the Japanese diet always relied mainly on “grains with vegetables or seaweeds as main, with fowl meat secondary, and mammal meat in slight amounts,” even before the advent of Buddhism which placed an even stronger taboo.   The eating of “four-legged creatures” (四足 yotsuashi) was spoken of as taboo, unclean, or something to be avoided by personal choice through the Edo Period.   But under this definition Whale meat and suppon (terrapin) would not be regarded as taboo four-legged meat. Meat-eating never went completely out of existence in Japan. Eating wild game, as opposed to domesticated livestock, tended to be regarded as acceptable, and slaughtered hare is counted using the measure word wa (羽), normally used for birds.)

Vegetable consumption has dwindled while processed foods have become more prominent in Japanese households due to the rising costs of general foodstuffs.

Food oil

Traditional Japanese food, generally speaking, is not prepared using a lot of food oils. An exception is deep fried types of preparation was introduced during the Edo Period due to influence from Western foods (once called nanban-ryōri (南蛮料理?) and Chinese foods, and became commonplace with the availability of oil due to increased productivity. Examples of these such as Tempuraaburaagesatsumaage are now part of established traditional Japanese cuisine. Words such as tempura or hiryōzu(synonymous with ganmodoki) are said to be of Portuguese origin.

Also, certain homey or rustic sort of traditional Japanese foods such as kinpirahijikikiriboshi daikon usually involves stir frying in some oil before stewing in soy sauce flavoring. Some standard osōzai or ”obanzai” dishes feature stir fried Japanese greens with age or chirimen-jako (dried small fish, young sardines).

Flavoring

Traditional Japanese food is typically flavored using a combination of dashisoy saucesake and mirinvinegarsugar, and salt. These are typically the only flavorings used when grilling or braising an item. During cooking, a modest number of herbs and spices are used as a hint or accent, or as a means to remove fishy or gamy odor, and include ginger, and takanotsume (鷹の爪) red pepper.   This contrasts conceptually with e.g., barbecue or stew where a blend of seasonings is used before and during cooking.

Only after a main dish has completed its cooking are spice elements as minced ginger, and various pungent herbs are added as a garnish, called tsuma.   In some underseasoned dishes, a dollop of wasabi, and grated daikon (daikon-oroshi), or Japanese mustard are provided as condiment.   A sprig of mitsuba, a piece of yuzu rind floated on soups are calledukimi.   Minced shiso leaves and myoga often serve as yakumi, or a type of condiment to go with tataki of katsuo orsoba.   Minced or crumpled nori and flakes of aonori are seaweeds used as an herb of sorts.

Dishes – okazu (or sōzai (惣菜); List of okazu

In the aforementioned stock phrase ichijū-sansai (一汁三菜 “one soup, three sides”?), the word sai () has the basic meaning of “vegetable”, but secondarily means any accompanying dish including fish or meat. It figures in the Japanese word for appetizer,zensai (前菜); main dish, shusai (主菜?); or sōzai (惣菜?) (formal synonym for okazu – considered somewhat of a housewife’s term).

Salads

The o-hitashi or hitashi-mono (おひたし) is boiled green-leaf vegetables bunched and cut to size, steeped in dashi broth, eaten with dashes of soy sauce. Another item is sunomono (酢の物 lit “vinegar item”), which could be made with wakame seaweed, or be something like a kōhaku namasu (紅白なます “red white namasu”) made from thin toothpick slices of daikon and carrot. The so-called vinegar that is blended with the ingredient here is often sanbaizu (三杯酢 “three cupful/spoonful vinegar”) which is a blend of vinegar, mirin, and soy sauce. A tosazu (土佐酢 Tosa vinegar”) adds katsuo dashi to this. Note sparing use of oil, compared with Western salads.

An aemono (和え物) is another group of items, describable as a sort of “tossed salad” or “dressed” (though aemono also includes thin strips of squid or fish sashimi (itozukuri) etc. similarly prepared). One types are goma-ae (胡麻和え) where usually vegetables such as green beens are tossed with white or black sesame seeds ground in a suribachi mortar bowl, flavored additionally with sugar and soy sauce. shira-ae (白和え) adds tofu (bean curd) in the mix.  An aemono is tossed with vinegar-white miso mix and uses wakegi scallion and baka-gai (バカガイ or 馬鹿貝 a trough shell (Mactra sinensis) as standard.

Below are listed some of the most common:

  • grilled and pan-fried dishes (yakimono 焼き物),
  • stewed/simmered/cooked/boiled dishes (nimono 煮物),
  • stir-fried dishes (itamemono 炒め物),
  • steamed dishes (mushimono 蒸し物),
  • deep-fried dishes (agemono 揚げ物),
  • sliced raw fish (sashimi 刺身),
  • soups (suimono 吸い物 and shirumono 汁物),
  • pickled/salted vegetables (tsukemono 漬け物),
  • dishes dressed with various kinds of sauce (aemono 和え物),
  • vinegared dishes (su-no-mono 酢の物),
  • delicacies, food of delicate flavor (chinmi 珍味).

Classification – Kaiseki

Kaiseki, closely associated with tea ceremony (chanoyu), is a high form of hospitality through cuisine. The style is minimalist, extolling the aesthetics of wabi-sabi. Like the tea ceremony, appreciation of the diningware and vessels is part of the experience. In the modern standard form, the first course consists of ichijū-sansai (one soup, three dishes), followed by the serving of sake accompanied by dish(es) plated on a square wooden bordered tray of sorts called hassun (八寸). Sometimes another element calledshiizakana (強肴) is served to complement the sake, for guests who are heavier drinkers.

The tea ceremony kaiseki is often confounded with another kaiseki-ryōri (会席料理), which is an outgrowth of meals served at a gathering for haiku and renga composition, which turned into a term for sumptuous sake-accompanied banquet, or shuen (酒宴?).

Vegetarian

Strictly vegetarian food is rare since even vegetable dishes are flavored with the ubiquitous dashi stock, usually made withkatsuobushi (dried skipjack tuna flakes), and are therefore pescetarian more often than carnivorous. An exception is shōjin-ryōri (精進料理), vegetarian dishes developed by Buddhist monks. However, the advertised shōjin-ryōri at public eating places includes some non-vegetarian elements.

In regards to vegetarianism, it is worth mentioning  fucha-ryōri (普茶料理), introduced from China by the Ōbaku sect (a sub-sect of Zen Buddhism), and which some sources still regard as part of “Japanese cuisine.”  The sect in Japan was founded by the priest Ingen (d. 1673), and is headquartered in Uji, Kyoto. The Japanese name for the common green bean takes after this priest who allegedly introduced the New World crop via China. An interesting aspect of the fucha-ryōri practiced at the temple is the wealth of modoki-ryōri (もどき料理 “mock foods”), one example being mock-eel, made from strained tofu, with nori seaweed used expertly to mimic the black skin.   The secret ingredient used is grated gobo (burdock) roots.

Rice – Japanese rice

Rice has been the staple food for the Japanese historically. Its fundamental importance is evident from the fact that the word for cooked rice gohan and meshi, also stands for a “meal.”

Rice used to be consumed for almost every meal. But there has been a shift in dietary habits, so that a large segment of the population will have bread for breakfast, and have noodles (especially ramen, and even instant cup-o-noodles) for lunch.

Donburi rice bowl

Japanese rice is short grain and becomes sticky when cooked. Most rice is sold as hakumai (“white rice”), with the outer portion of the grains (nuka) polished away. Unpolished rice (genmai) is considered less delicious by most people, but its popularity has been increasing recently because gemmai is more nutritious and healthier than hakumai.

Noodles – Japanese noodles

Udon noodles

Soba noodles

Japanese noodles often substitute a rice-based meal. Soba (thin, grayish-brown noodles containing buckwheat flour) and udon (thick wheat noodles) are the main traditional noodles.

Japanese noodles, such as soba and udon, are eaten as a standalone, and usually not with a side dish, in terms of general custom. It may have toppings, but they are calledgu (). But the fried battered shrimp tempura sitting in a bowl of tempura-soba would be referred to as “the shrimp” or “the tempura”, and not so much be referred to as a topping (gu). The identical toppings, if served as a dish to be eaten with plain white rice could be called okazu, so these terms are context-sensitive.

Hot noodles are usually served in a bowl already steeped in their broth and are calledkakesoba or kakeudon. Cold soba arrives unseasoned and heaped atop a zaru or seiro, and are picked up with a chopstick and dunk in its dip sauce. The broth is soy-dashi-mirin type of mix, the dip is similar but more concentrated (heavier on soy sauce).

In the simple form, yakumi (condiments and spices) such as shichimi, nori, finely chopped scallions, wasabi, etc. are added to the noodles, besides the broth/dip sauce.

Udon may also be eaten in kama-age style, piping hot straight out of the boiling pot, and eaten with plain soy sauce and sometimes with raw egg also.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cuisine

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