Japan. Every day I think of Japan. When I think of Japan, I think of the food first. In my opinion, it is the best thing about the country (besides the people I love there). Where do I even start writing about this complex cuisine? Ok I‘ll start with the 2 main regional flavors. I stress the word main because there are so many specific regional culinary styles in Japan I would be writing a book about that alone. So I’ll start with the two general regional flavors: Kanto (Tokyo) and Kansai (Osaka). Kanto is in eastern Japan, Kansai in western Japan. It was explained to me that the main difference between Kanto and Kansai flavor is soy sauce flavor vs dashi flavor in soup stocks. In Kanto, if you order ramen, udon or another soup the broth will be darker with a soy sauce flavor. In Kansai it will be lighter with a dashi flavor. Dashi is a subtle fish stock made with dried and shaved bonito fish steeped with konbu a type of dried seaweed.
I have not spent as much time as I would like on the Kanto side of Japan, my time was mostly spent in Tokyo and some time in the countryside of Saitama on a flower farm. Tokyo is what you would expect from Japan. Japanese twists on international cuisines as well as traditional fare. You can find any type of food and almost at any time, much like New York. From micro beads of ice cream to controversial whale skewers, Tokyo has it all. I loved the food I ate in Tokyo; at the same time there was nothing I had there that I felt I couldn’t get in Osaka. But keep in mind I haven’t spent extensive time in Tokyo and I consider myself more connected to Kansai, so I may be a bit biased.
Kansai. I have much more to say about Kansai and the food known from the region. It was the place I resided for 5 years off and on, and the place close to my heart. I lived with my ex husband’s family for the first year of my life in Japan. His mother was a housewife and generally cooked every meal. My ex, Yuuya, and I had the bottom floor of the house, complete with its own kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, dressing room and bedroom. The second floor was the main kitchen, living room and parents bedroom. The third floor was the main laundry room, my ex’s old bedroom, sister’s and brother’s bedrooms. All the rooms were small and made the large house seem small. I rarely cooked in the time I lived in the house of my ex husband’s family home. Yuuya’s mother, Keiko-san, did most of the cooking for the family. I was mostly an assistant to her- when she would let me, but I did make bento boxes for my husband in the mornings before he went to work. When I first started making his lunches, at first usually American-style lunches; sandwiches, chips and fruit. He chuckled and thought it funny, he told me the other guys at his job laughed at him and thought it was strange. The next time I went grocery shopping with his mother and father, I got food more appropriate for a Japanese bento box, being different is not the most welcome attribute in Japan. I made the usual rice with either small sausages, tomago (sweet egg Japanese omelet) and ume boshi (pickled plum) or sometimes Japanese curry/ rice or rice and a piece of broiled and salted fish with ume boshi. Simple dishes, especially at 5 in the morning… I'm by nature a night owl and could barely open my eyes let alone cook a full meal! I would pack them in small boxes that stacked with a handle and fill a thermos with cold green tea or sometimes oolong tea.
Keiko-san was a good, traditional cook. The older Japanese mothers still tend to adhere to the older ways of cooking, not using microwaves and instant rice. I was lucky to have tasted so many traditional dishes being cooked at home. I remember the first dish I ever ate in Japan. It was sukiyaki. Sukiyaki is paper-thin beef with spring onion, tofu and konnyaku (Japanese mountain yam cut into noodle-like strings, it is somewhat gelatinous and is a great noodle substitute) boiled in dashi stock with soy sauce and sugar. It is to be cooked and eaten at the table like nabe and you dip the food in a small bowl with a whisked raw egg. And of course there was rice! I was a bit weary at the raw egg as you are taught in America to be concerned about raw egg at any cost. But I have never been squeamish about food and am pretty adventurous, so I whisked the egg with my chopsticks and attempted to pick up the slippery konnyaku and beef with my chopsticks. It was damn difficult I wont lie to you. Keiko was pleasantly surprised at the way I held my chopsticks, very proper and graceful she said. I was feeling anything but graceful as I struggled to grasp the noodles and a piece of the soft tofu. But she assured me it is difficult for many people and Japanese people tend to not hold their chopsticks in the proper way these days. It made my attempts feel less embarrassing. The sukiyaki was salty from the soy sauce and sweet from the sugar; the beef soft and tender for how thin it was sliced and how long it poached in the blend. I loved the konnyaku from the start. It has a fishy odor when you take it from the package; it can come either in a block or in noodle-like strings and comes in a watery liquid much like tofu. The texture is gelatinous and a bit rubbery as it is a bit stretchy, but not in a bad way. Almost like mung-bean noodles. The egg made the whole dish more mild, less salty and less sweet; bringing it together harmoniously in my mouth. It came to be one of my favorite dishes and still make it today whenever I can get my paws on konnyaku!
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