Eating in Japan – Part 1: Rice and Fish
I must admit that unlike many visitors to Japan, the food
was not something I was looking forward to. The little I knew of it consisted
of a few failed attempts to like sushi and sashimi, and a rather more enjoyable
experience of eating gyoza (a small, fried dumpling filled with pork and
cabbage).
During my first visit to Japan, last summer, I tried a lot
of foods I had never eaten before, many I had never even heard of. It was
interesting, but the combination of incredible heat and humidity, along with the
stress of a lot of life changes happening at once, meant that even relatively
straightforward and in fact rather delicious foods seemed challenging. So I was
a little concerned about what I would eat when I moved here.
I needn’t have worried.
As I have settled in, shopped in local supermarkets, started
eating school lunches, grown accustomed to styles of restaurant and so on, I
have discovered a world of delicious food and am now revelling in the enjoyment
that finding new comfort foods can bring.
So, I want to use a few posts to talk about my experiences of
certain types of Japanese food. This blog was never intended as a travel guide,
so although I hope this (and related) post will be informative, its main
purpose is simply to relate my experiences.
Rice and Fish
At school, where I suspect I am eating Japanese food in its
most traditional “home-cooked” form (akin to school meatballs, mash and
semolina pudding in the UK!), rice and fish is very much the mainstay. Of five
meals a week, in general 3-4 will consist of a box of cooked plain white rice
and a piece of cooked fish, usually mackerel, but sometimes salmon or an
unknown white fish. Interestingly for me, salmon is the least popular with
students, of all the carbohydrate options, rice is the most beloved. On
Fridays, we have bread, and slightly less than once a week we have some kind of
noodles, but neither of these are as popular as rice.
Photo originally from here: http://www.thejapanguy.com/ten-days-of-japanese-school-lunch/
When a Japanese person asks me “what Japanese food do you
like?” I sometimes have difficulty answering. Not because I don’t like Japanese
food, but because I don’t know exactly what Japanese food there is. It seems
odd to say “rice and fish” because that isn’t really a dish per se, but this
may not be such a bad answer. So much of Japan’s land is taken up with growing rice,
and so many of its foodstuffs are made from rice (or soybeans, but more on that
later), that it is difficult to underestimate how important rice is. The rice
itself is not like any I have ever eaten in the West. It is shiny and sticky,
so that you can pick up clumps of it easily in chopsticks. It has a really
delicious flavour, and as such, is rarely served any other way than plain.
Sometimes toppings such as wakame (dried seaweed), furikake (dried fish,
vegetable and spice flakes) or natto, are added, but rarely sauces. Honestly, I
like it best plain. It’s taken me a few months, but today when I sat down with
my lunch tray, I felt a genuine delight lifting off the lid of a bento box of
steaming, Japanese rice. On a cold, wet day like this one, it’s really
comforting.
As for fish, I’m afraid I’m really still only in the shallow
end when it comes to sampling the many types and styles of Japanese fish. The
fish counter in our local supermarket is easily three times the size of its
equivalent in any UK supermarket I’ve been to, and a considerable amount of
that space is taken up with products I’ve never even seen before. Not only
fish, but every imaginable sea creature is available to buy in Japan, making
for a colourful, if slightly overwhelming display.
I've definitely eaten more types of fish and seafood since arriving here. A lot of it is cunningly concealed in my miso soup or "salad" at lunch time. I now regularly eat several different types of seaweed, squid, and prawns, none of which I was particularly keen on before moving here. Fish forms the basis of a lot of the stocks, sauces and soups too, so a lot of dishes which don't feature fish or seafood still taste strongly of fish, a flavour which I'm gradually getting used to. Still my favourite is the whole piece of cooked fish that often accompanies the rice at lunch time. I really like the cooked mackerel, with its weird shiny skin and sweet and sour juiciness. I'm also improving in my ability to take it apart and remove the bones with my chopsticks before eating it under the watchful eyes of my students, all curious about how the westerner will manage with chopsticks!
So, that gives you a "taste" of one aspect of food in Japan. Next up, noodles!
There is something so utterly delicious about Japanese rice, I absolutely love it. Thinking back to my trip I don't think we ate loads of fish, not because I don't like it but because there were so many different meals we wanted to try. When we stayed in Hakone we had a big cooked fish, mackerel I think, for breakfast which was definitely an interesting experience.
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