One of my all-time favourite cuisines is Japanese and I’m not talking about sushi or sushi handrolls. There is so much more to this cuisine.
For me personally I find Japanese food to be one of the most well balanced, flavoursome, simplistic, fresh, unique, “clean”, and one of the most, healthiest cuisines you could consume. Their food has a complexity of flavours that you cannot match. Their presentation of food is astounding. The food always looks just as good as it tastes.
If you’re a follower and a reader of my blogs you will know my family and I travelled extensively through Japan a few years back. I have mentioned in a past blog that all I did was eat. I was not lying. I could not stop eating. Every street corner, every opportunity, I was trying different foods and was always left in a state of delight.
Travelling through Japan was a gastronomic experience. I delved into their culture, met so many beautiful and kind locals and ate a shit ton of food.
Japanese cuisine is like “culinary artwork”. Every dish, every snack was served and presented like it was a piece of art. Even the local 7 Eleven stores had beautiful, delicious and well presented food. It was clear that a lot of thoughtfulness had gone into preparing their foods using high quality and seasonal produce.
Japanese foods tend to not have many ingredients in them, but every dish is packed with flavour. Every dish is a combination of texture, colour, flavour and exceptional quality.
They have a knack of carefully balancing out their flavours and bringing forth that umami-ness that no one can rival, and which has been around for centuries in Japan.
What was appealing to me was every time we went out for dinner in restaurants the chefs would prepare our meal in front of us. I was told that this was because they want to ensure maximum freshness and good golly Miss Molly, they did just that!
I was left in awe with the different types of restaurants they had, and what we as a family had experienced. There are restaurants that would only specialise in one type of dish. We found two amazing places, one that made only ramen dishes and an another that had the most mouthwatering Takoyaki.
I loved the displays that a lot of their restaurants had. Plastic or wax replicas of the dishes they make, which as a foreigner was a blessing for us. We could see exactly what was in the dish. We also had a family member with an extreme fish allergy so it truly was a lifesaver as we could see what was in a dish. I think we took hundreds of photos of their shop fronts.
On entering restaurants, we were greeted each and every time with the word “irasshaimase”, which we later found out meant “Welcome, please come in”. How nice is that?
Most restaurants we went to had “western style” tables and booths but unfortunately, we never got to experience a zashiki (a low traditional table with cushions where you sit on the floor). What I did find a little tricky and embarrassing is that I had to ask for forks everywhere we went. My son and I cannot use chopsticks and man have I tried to learn but my brain and hands refuse to communicate LOL!
Japanese food is what I refer to as adventurous and we would usually order share plates so we could all try new and different foods. This holiday was definitely a travel experience for my son who was a teeny tiny 6 year old back then. He really opened up his palate to a different world and I was so happy he tried everything! He became obsessed with the Takoyaki (octopus balls- when we say balls we aren’t referring to testicles we are talking about wheat batter balls with octopus pieces).
As a family we dined in a lot of Izakaya’s, essentially tapas style establishments and they were cheap to eat at, with a lot of food, and delicious food at that. Izakaya’s are usually located around train stations.
Delving into typical Japanese food their main staple is rice (kome). Rice is the primary staple food in the Japanese diet and rice was once used as currency. The base of most Japanese meals is a bowl of cooked rice. Japanese rice or hakumai is a short grain type of rice that becomes sticky when cooked. I use Japanese rice at home when I am cooking Japanese food but because I want Japanese rice that’s from Japan it is sometimes hard to find, so an alternative is to use arborio rice. Arborio rice has a high starchy content which is very similar to Japanese rice.
The second most common rice used in Japan is Glutinous rice (Mochigome) when used its even more sticky and mainly used in rice cakes or into sweets like mochi. Then Brown rice (Genmai) is not sold or used much in Japan as it is not considered to be as delicious as white rice. Interestingly I did not see any brown rice anywhere
Rice is served usually with a bowl of miso soup and pickles, and I guess it’s like us Westerners having a piece of bread/bread roll on the side of our meals.
Rice balls (Onigiri) are eaten widely throughout Japan. They are commonly wrapped in seaweed (nori) and they are usually lightly seasoned with salt and often contain fillings like Japanese plum (Umeboshi), dried bonito shavings or salmon. They are very popular and very inexpensive, and you will find them in all major convenience stores throughout Japan. And boy they are yum! Then there is donburi, katsu curries, and sushi and so many more dishes and common everyday dishes that star rice in Japan.
Japanese people eat a lot of seafood. Like, a LOT. They add different types of seafood into their meals. Remember Japan is an island surrounded by the sea, so it makes a lot of sense as to why they are seafood lovers.
Sushi would have to be the most famous Japanese dish outside of Japan and it’s also a very popular amongst the Japanese peeps. In Japan though sushi is essentially enjoyed on special occasions or celebrations.
Sushi in Australia is nothing like it is in Japan. In Japan there are a wide variety sushi. Nigiri, Gunkan, Norimaki, Temaki, Oshizushi, Inari, Chrirashi are all commonly served sushi in Japan, and they are stupendously delicious, and each variety has such a different taste.
Aside from rice, Japanese cuisine has some amazing dishes like soba and udon noodle dishes, ramen, curries, donburi, yakitori, tonkatsu, teppanyaki, tempura, okonomiyaki (best ever was eaten by yours truly in Hiroshima), I could go on for days!
As a home cook my thoughts are that when cooking Japanese food at home it can be complex, hard work, intricate and finicky to do. There is always many pots and pans all over my kitchen (and it’s the clean-up that does my head in) but for me personally I get such a buzz cooking, it brings me joy, it’s fun, its therapeutic for me. I get immense enjoyment with menu planning and cooking. I believe that there needs to be some skill behind cooking Japanese food at home. You need a steady hand and good knife skills, but I love it.
Let’s wrap up this blog post because I could be here for days telling you all about the Japanese cuisine. I end todays blog post with when you’re in Japan, remember these 4 “rules” on how to eat your rice.
- Always pick up your rice bowl with your hand whilst eating out of it
- It is considered extremely polite to finish every single grain of rice that you have been served.
- Only the “commoners” will pour soy sauce directly over the rice always use your tsukemono or nishikidori (soy sauce dish) to pour your soy sauce in
- It is recommended that you do not leave your chopsticks standing up vertically in your rice as this is ONLY done at funerals.
楽しんで読んでいただければ幸いです/I hope you enjoyed reading.
Irene
