A Fish Out of Water

780 Yen

This is what 780 yen worth of grapes looks like in Japan. That's not particularly expensive for good domestic "Muscat of Alexandria" grapes, the most popular green variety here, and you could spend about several times that for the same size bunch if you wanted to.

So why did I spend 8 dollars on a small bunch of grapes? Shuma. The other day he was being pretty good while we were shopping for once, not grabbing random items and throwing them in my cart or running away and hiding like he usually does, when suddenly he goes up to these grapes, sinks his teeth into one, and runs away. He doesn't even eat it, just leaves it there with his tooth marks in it. You can see the bitten grape in question at bottom centre, just under the label- it's plumped up a bit since then so it's kind of hard to tell, but it was quite obvious at the time. So I was forced to buy them.

When I caught up to him he was following an older lady carrying a little kiddie basket (that the supermarket supplies so kids can play shopping along with their mom or dad). And before I could reach him he grabbed onto the basket and started pulling. I was apologizing and trying to wrench the basket from his iron grip when the lady said "You want it? Here" and walked off with a scowl. So Shuma managed to mess with the one old lady in the store who didn't love little kids (a typical Japanese granny would probably have laughed, given him the basket, and then given him some candy- all Japanese grannies carry candy you know).

I really should restrain him, and I would for sure in Canada where people are much less tolerant of annoying kids. But Japanese shopping carts are awful to begin with, and Japanese shopping carts with child seats have to be one of the poorest designed items in the world. Here is a picture of one, kind of hard to tell but the seat is very low so you end up kicking your kid's feet with each step, or their feet drag on the ground. It also puts them at a perfect level to grab stuff off of table displays or shelves, compared to a shopping cart back home where the seat is higher and protected on each side by the width of the cart. And a typical Japanese mom would be OK but for me the handles are way too low and widely spaced so I have to stoop down to reach them. And they're really hard to steer. I hate them.

Over a year ago I bumped into a Japanese mom I know with a boy the same age as Shuma and I complemented her on the excellent behavior of her son, who stood quietly by her side holding her hand and not touching anything, and said I never let my son walk free in the supermarket. She looked at Shuma, safely subdued in a shopping cart while demanding to be held and grabbing anything he could reach, and said smugly "Well if I keep him in the cart he will never learn to behave properly while shopping." OK, the smugness is 100% in my imagination, but it did strike me as a slightly naive and insensitive thing to say. I'm sure she is doing a great job raising her child but he seems to be one of those naturally quiet and obedient children, and she doesn't realize that terrors like my son are born that way, not made.

Anyway, the grapes were pretty good. Very sweet and juicy, no seeds, edible peel (many varieties of Japanese grapes have thick bitter peels that need to be removed, way too much work if you ask me). I actually prefer the cheap imports though, I like a little tartness and crunch. Shuma loved them, I hope this doesn't give him any ideas or he's going to start biting everything he wants.

Hammered

There's always something interesting on display at the fish market in our local Super Value (a discount supermarket chain), but this won't be topped anytime soon:

A whole hammerhead shark, landed in Miyagi Prefecture and selling for a mere 3800 yen. Alas, we don't have a pot big enough to cook the thing so we had to pass, but I did learn a new word: "hammerhead shark" is shumokuzame in Japanese.

Yakiniku

Yakiniku is often translated as "Korean Barbeque", although it's not really barbeque (usually being cooked indoors over charcoal or a gas flame) and, at least as served in Japan, is not truly Korean. It's not something I want to eat often, but when I do it's a craving that's hard to ignore. Recently I've really been craving it, and not being able to afford a visit to a yakiniku restaurant (good yakiniku is pricey) decided to do it at home. It's really easy to cook at home but we haven't done so in years as yakiniku at home has one major drawback: it creates a lot of heat and smoke, so can really only be done in the spring or fall, when it's warm enough to open all the windows but not so warm that the extra heat of the grill will make you sweat.

Luckily my craving came along during good yakiniku weather so I was free to indulge myself. This is how we do yakiniku at home:

From left: sanchu (lettuce used for wrapping cooked meat); kimchi (spicy pickled napa cabbage); kashira (pork cheek); a plate of three kinds of meat: kalbi (boneless beef rib, top), buta rosu (pork shoulder, left), and gyu momo (beef round, right); and namul (Korean style seasoned vegetables): zenmai (fern shoots, left), daikon and carrot (top) and mung bean sprouts (bottom). In the bottle and little dishes is yakiniku sauce. It's a lot of food, and lest you think us total gluttons let me assure you that we shopped with leftovers in mind, and didn't actually eat everything shown that night.

The sauce and namul were homemade but the kimchi is store-bought and all meat came sliced as shown and labeled yakiniku yo (for yakiniku), sliced at exactly the right thickness. Regular supermarkets sell convenient yakiniku sets with a few types of meat in the same package, but we had done the day's shopping at a discount market with no fancy sets but very very good prices. The pork was heavily discounted and the beef was half price, the only way we could afford good wagyu (Japanese top-grade beef). Eating yakiniku in a restaurant usually involves smaller portions and more cuts of meat, and a bigger emphasis on beef, but when you do it yourself it's hard to include everything.

Yakiniku often includes vegetables, but with us they tend to get neglected in favour of the meat and end up burning. So this time we skipped them, figuring the sanchu, kimchi and namuru added enough healthiness.

Here's a better look at the kalbi. The word kalbi comes from Korea, where it's actually pronounced galbi and usually served in long strips with the bone, requiring scissors be kept at the table to cut the strips down to size. In Japan kalbi is a little more refined: it's nearly always boneless and pre-sliced and often from very good well marbled beef, like the meat above. This is shinshu-gyu a brand (yes, beef here has brands: think Kobe beef) from Nagano that is fed on apples.

Here is the gyu momo, buta rosu and kashira cooking on the teppan (tabletop grill).

And this is some grilled kalbi, dipped in the yakiniku sauce. Since everything is cooked little by little at the table yakiniku is always a leisurely meal, and we spent almost two hours on this meal. When we were finally stuffed we cooked the leftover meat and packed it away in the fridge, marinated in yakiniku sauce.

And it made a very nice lunch a few days later, the meat reheated and served over hot rice and the namul (served in the tub that kimchi had come in) on the side.

Presents

Up until now I've mostly avoided blogging about gifts and souvenirs I've been given, thinking it a bit tacky or show-offy, but recently I've been in a grateful mood and wanted to share some of the bounty we've been lucky enough to receive.

A few weeks ago a very kind person, who read a confession of my love of red licorice on Facebook, sent me package of Twizzlers. It was totally unsolicited, out of the blue, and an act of kindness for which I'm extremely thankful.

The Japanese are not big on licorice, especially red licorice (with its day-glo colour, artificial "red" flavour and plastic texture, I can't imagine why), so it's almost impossible to find, and I find myself craving it more often than I'd like to admit. So this was a wonderful treat, and I'd like to say I savored it slowly, eating one piece (one twizzle?) per day, but that would be a lie: the entire package was gone within a few days. Shameful, yes, but it cured me of my cravings and I think I can last until my next visit home.

Here in Japan, such spontaneous presents are relatively rare. This is a gift-giving society, but the exchange of presents is usually done according to very specific rules and for very specific reasons. The present above was a return present, given to me by a student after I had given her a souvenir from somewhere. This gift kind of breaks the rules in that it was probably more valuable than the gift I'd given her (return presents are supposed to be about half the value of the original presents, although I think it can be more or less depending on the exact occasion).

This gift was a good example of the elaborate packaging used in Japan. I usually find all it rather wasteful, but I can't help but admire the beauty of this particular package.

Individually wrapped snacks also used to strike me as wasteful, until I discovered why it's done: Japan is very humid for much of the year, and any kind of packaged food goes soft and moldy if not eaten right away or wrapped individually.

These confections turned out to be choco-arare, or chocolate covered arare (puffed rice snacks, which are usually savory rather than sweet), in regular chocolate, matcha chocolate, white chocolate and strawberry chocolate. Choco-arare seem to be rather trendy now, but I'm afraid I wasn't crazy about these. If they were just spheres of chocolate lined with puffed rice I'd like them, but the deep-fried, sweet-soy sauce flavoured rice balls inside were too much. A shame, because I'm a big fan of sweet and salty combinations and I really wanted to like these (the way I like chocolate-covered pretzels or salted caramels).

Another sort of gift-giving is the exchange of souvenirs, which is done here a little differently than the way it is in the west. Back home a souvenir tends to be a meaningful memento of one's travels, bought either for oneself or one's close friends and family, while in Japan, omiyage (souvenirs) are only bought for others. Not that Japanese people don't shop for themselves while on vacation, it's just that those purchases are not called souvenirs.

Omiyage are almost always edible, and bought for nearly everyone: family, friends, coworkers, classmates, fellow club members, and anyone else who has been inconvenienced by (or even aware of) a traveller's absence. In the case of coworkers and classmates, individual souvenirs are not necessary, and most people buy a box of something to dole out.

The treats above were brought home from one of my group classes, where things have gotten a little bit out of control. From bottome left: sakura sembei (rice crackers flavoured with dried shrimp and preserved cherry leaves), mini sweet potato cakes (they had come wrapped in the green paper in the picture above), sakura daifuku (mochi stuffed with sakura flavoured sweet bean paste), and biwa (loquat) cake. The school owner already provides snacks and tea, and at least one student will bring something for each class. More often than not all four of them come armed with omiyage, and usually there are so many things to eat that we all end up bringing excess treats home, like the loot above.

Recently many of these omiyage are not actually from a trip (unless a trip to the nearest department store counts), and sometimes they're "recycled" omiyage from a student's family member or coworker (which is always fully disclosed and isn't considered bad manners). Of the snacks above only the sweet potato cakes and biwa cake were souviners, from Kawagoe and Chiba, respectively. Which were both day trips, just an hour or so from Tokyo. It must be a bit expensive for the students (I usually don't participate, bringing omiyage only if I've taken a real trip) but they all seem to look forward to exchanging and eating the snacks so it seems to be harmless fun. I  think a lot of offices and other work environments have a similarly constant flow of omiyage, but perhaps not to this extent.

One of my private students is a retired kindergarten teacher who travels the world, and she never fails to bring me back something. She came back from a recent trip to India with a package of Darjeeling tea and a silk scarf for me. Her generosity astounds me, as does her thoughtfulness: she really knows my taste, and this scarf is totally me.

She also knows that I am a novice tea drinker looking to expand my horizons a little, and I can't wait to try this stuff. I just have to finish up the tin of Earl Grey I'm slowly going through. And now that I think about it, after eight or so years of serving her Earl Grey (she's a tea lover herself) maybe this is a hint that she'd like a change too.

Hand-made gifts seem to be quite rare, and the two above are among the very few I've received. The are straps (meant to be hung from a cell phone or to decorate a bag or wallet) made of scrap cloth and acorn caps, and they were given to me by my landlady. We have a kind of non-stop present exchange going on that goes in cycles, usually starting out with an omiyage from somewhere and continuing with "payback" gifts back and forth, to the point that I no longer what the original omiyage that started this current cycle was. The gifts are usually not fancy: I've received a bouquet of wildflowers and home-made marmalade, and have given homemade jam and cookies and excess fruit from a box full I had received from someone else. This kind of present exchange can be a real burden to some, especially better-connected Japanese people who have a long list of people to give to. But I don't mind this set-up at all, as my landlady is the only person with whom I'm caught in an endless gift exchange with. In fact it's a great way to share when I have lots of stuff, and if it keeps our relationship healthy (especially important since she lives right next door to me), then it's a good thing.

I think this sort of casual back-and-forth of presents is much more common in rural areas or more established suburban neighborhoods (where people actually know and talk to their neighbors), with excess bounty from the garden or farm plot (or from gift boxes of apples or clementines like the one I mentioned above) frequently shared.

These grapes are going back in time a while. We received them early last autumn, and although I was a little too busy to blog about them I did keep the pictures. They are from Senbikiya, a luxury fruit store that's a favourite for expensive fruit gifts. Senbikiya is the kind of place that sells those two hundred dollar melons you've probably heard about, and although these grapes are not quite in that class of luxury they cost more than I'd ever consider spending on myself. Hideaki estimates that they were about 7000 yen (about $70 US).

They were delicious, of course--at that price they'd have to be. But I think most westerners, myself included, would prefer cheap Thompsons and concords from back home: although these were incredibly sweet and juicy, one of them had seeds and both had a very bitter, tough skin that needed to be peeled. And they couldn't be peeled by just popping them into your mouth like a concord, they had to be hand-peeled, a painstaking process that kind of took the fun out of eating them.

But they were beautiful and delicious and I'm glad we were lucky enough to try them.

It seems like people just can't stop giving us fish roe, and to that I say: bring it on. This is ikura no shoyuzuke (salmon roe cured in sauce) from Hokkaido, which is known for its seafood, including salmon. It was a special treat because we usually don't get to eat ikura except for the brief period in autumn when whole sacs of fresh roe are available and we can cure our own.

This ikura was made, along with thinly sliced shiso (perilla) into ikuradon (salmon roe atop rice). Ikuradon is at once a very simple food and the height of luxury, and we relished every bite of hours.

I don't think most of the people who were nice enough to give this gifts read this blog, but even so I'd like to say thank you. May your kindness be rewarded!

Oshogatsu

This is New Year's Eve dinner at my in-laws' house in Osaka: me, my sister-in-law, her daughter and husband, and my parents-in-law (and of course that's Hideaki behind the camera). We go there every year to celebrate oshogatsu (the new year), and those celebrations mostly consist of eating. 

It all starts off with crab, a new tradition thanks to my brother-in-law. He lives in Hokkaido and is so busy that nobody has seen him in ages, but for the past few years he has been proving his existence by sending us fresh crab, which Hokkaido is known for. It seems to get better every year, and this time was the best yet with three types of crab: kegani (hairy crab), tarabagani (similar to king crab) and hanasakigani (literally "blooming flower crab", as its shape and colour is supposed to resemble a flower). They arrived already whole and already boiled (as is common in Japan, where most people don't have pots big enough to boil the larger ones) and sadly I didn't get a chance to take any pictures before they were cut up, but here is a picture of last year's kegani, and here are some pictures of hanasakigani (maybe you'll have better luck than me seeing the flower resemblance).

The kegani is the smallest and has the sweetest and most delicate flesh.

The hanasakigani's legs and claws were huge and extremely hard to eat, thanks to the giant spikes and very thick shell. The flesh richly flavourful with a firm, almost meat-like texture, and was the most similar to the crab I remember from Canada.

The tarabagani, claw shown on top, was kind of half-way between the two in terms of both taste and texture. I think I liked it best overall, but they were all fantastic.

It's not just the legs that are eaten in Japan: the body is served as well, in order to scoop out the kanimiso. Kanimiso is often incorrectly translated as "crab brains", perhaps because that's what most Japanese think it is (miso is a common euphemism for brains). Well, I've always wondered why there is so much miso in each crab considering their level of intelligence (they walked right into the traps, after all), and it turns out that the miso is actually the liver and other internal organs, and their actual brains are as tiny as you'd expect.

Not that guts are any less gross than brains to the squeamish among you, but the seafood lovers and offal fans out there will surely believe me when I say that it kanimiso one of the finest delicacies in the world. It's extremely rich and sweet and has a creamy texture, like the foie gras of the sea. And each type of crab has a different flavour: this time we found the kegani was the lightest and creamiest, with the hanasakigani being rather strongly flavoured, and the tarabagani being rich and flavourful. This is not something you can eat a lot of, so after a few spoonfuls we were done.

But the fun wasn't over, as my niece Marya discovered that crab claws fit nicely on fingertips. She found it hilarious to hold out her claw-hands menacingly and chase us around, and if only she could have held still for a second or two I could have gotten some very cute pictures.

There was also sasazushi: a traditional type of sushi wrapped in sasa bamboo leaves, which have antibacterial properties said to help keep the sushi fresh. There was ebi (shrimp), tai (bream) and sake (salmon), and I normally would have been a bit more excited about it all, but this stuff just couldn't compete with the crab. I only tried the salmon, which was good, but it wasn't, you know, crab. 

Later on, when we'd had a bit of time to digest, the final meal of the year was served: toshikoshi soba. Literally "year crossing noodles", eating these buckwheat noodles will ensure a life as long as the noodles themselves. There is no particularly traditional type of soba or way of serving toshikoshi soba (although some people buy special extra-long soba noodles, to increase their luck), and at this house we usually get nishin soba, is a bowll of soba in hot broth, topped with migakinishin (dried herring). Nishin soba is popular in Kyoto, which is landlocked and traditionally could only get sea fish in dried form; nishin came from Hokkaido, which Kyoto enjoyed a thriving trade with, via the Sea of Japan. Interestingly Hokkaido also produces a lot of kombu (kelp, used for making stock), and this helps explain why the cuisine of Kyoto and surrounding areas is lighter than that of eastern Japan: kombu was more readily available there than the richly flavoured katsuobushi (dried bonito) used for stock in Tokyo and the rest of Japan. Anyway, as Osaka is next to Kyoto a lot of the food is similar, and the herring on the soba, as well as the light flavour and colour of the broth, show Kyoto's influence very well. 

Shortly before midnight the TV comes on, as NHK (the national broadcaster) features beautiful live footage of temples and shrines all over Japan. Just as the New Year begins, the temples begin joya no kane (ringing of the temple bells), with the giant bells being struck 108 times, so as to cleanse away the 108 earthly desires built up over the previous year. We also open a bottle of sparkling wine, which is not traditional  but brings a bit of fun to an otherwise rather somber occasion.

The next morning is when the celebrations really get underway, with a breakfast of osechiryouri (traditional New Year's food, also called osechi). Usually consisting of dozens of little morsels beautifully arranged in a fancy three-layered box, the osechi at my in-laws is a little bit unorthodox: just a select few osechi favourites, served rather casually in the lazy suzan shown above. I think this makes sense: rather than fussing over a whole bunch of food nobody really likes (and osechi is almost universally detested in Japan), it's a simple display consisting of just the osechi the family actually likes.

So why is osechi hated so much? It was originally prepared over the last days of the year, the idea being that having food already cooked will give the women of the house a break during the first few days of the New Year. But in order to last several days without refrigeration (as there were no fridges way back when this tradition started) the food needs to be well-cooked and heavily seasoned. Which meant that for three days people ate a lot of very sweet and very salty food, with little to no fresh produce. Also, the food served must be auspicious, with its appearance or name symbolizing a number of wishes for the New Year; thus the food is chosen not for how good it tastes, but how much luck it will bring to thediner. Finally, diners are encouraged to eat a bite of every food, in order to bring good luck, and no exception is made for picky eaters. 

Why this tradition continues virtually unchanged despite the invention of the refrigerator is beyond me, but I'm glad I didn't marry into a traditional family. Most of the osechi I can tolerate, and some I really like and would eat all year around if I could.

Here is the osechi we ate:

Kamaboko, a steamed fish paste eaten for its colour. The combination of red and white (yes, pink is considered red) is auspicious, going back to the ancient Shinto practice of offering red and white rice to the gods. Alternate layers of red and white are especially lucky (think of the old rising sun flag of Japan) so the kamaboko is always arranged as above. Kamaboko is nearly always store-bought, as it is difficult to make at home.

Gomame, also called tazukuri, is abig family favourite, made baby sardines cooked in sugar and soy sauce until crisp. Traditionally baby sardines were used as both food and fertilizer, eating it at New Year's was thought to bring a good harvest. This was home-made, and seems to be one of the easiest osechi dishes to make.

Kobumaki, or kelp rolls, involves a play on words: kobu (a variation of kombu) means both "kelp" and "joy". The filling is most often sake (salmon), nishin (herring) and anago (sea eel), and the rolls are tied with kampyo (dried gourd). We eat all three types, starting with salmon, shown above, on the first morning. These are store-bought.

Kazunoko (herring roe) can be served by itself or mixed with thin strips of carrot, dried squid and kombu to make matsumaezuke, shown above. The hundreds of tiny eggs in kazunoko represent fertility and prosperity, and it is one of the most popular osechi in Japan--I doubt there's a household in the country that doesn't serve kazunoko or matsumaezuke. This dish was home-made, and in fact my husband remembers eating matsumaezuke year-round when he was little, and it remains a big favourite of his. Unfortunately kazunoko is one of the few foods I hate, so I just eat around it and gave the yucky chunks of roe to Hideaki, who is happy to help.

The origin of datemaki (a thick omelet-like roll made of eggs and fish paste) is unclear, but one common idea is that the shape resembles rolled scrolls and thus symbolizes wisdom and knowledge. This is storebought.

Kurikinton, one of the family's beloved osechi, is made of finely mashed satsuma-imo (sweet potato) and kuri (chestnuts). The colour is thought to resemble gold, so kurikinton represents wealth. This is another one I don't like, which is odd because I actually love sweet potatoes and chestnuts. But I can't stand the mushy, textureless consistency of the sweet potato and so much sugar is added that my teeth hurt just looking at it. I usually just grab a very small chunk of chestnut and try to scrape as much sweet potato off as I can. This one is home-made, usually with the help of whichever man is around, as mashing the sweet potato through a fine strainer takes quite a bit of muscle.

Kuromame are black beans simmered in soy sauce, eaten for a double play on words: mame means "bean" as well as "health" and "diligence". These are homemade. 

Shiromame (white beans), eaten for the same reasons as kuromame. These are very sweet, so I'm not a big fan.

And now for my favourite: tainoko (sea bream roe). This is a regional osechi: eaten in the parts of western Japan that border the Inner Sea, where sea bream is bountiful, and unheard of in the rest of the country. The roe is simmered in sake and soy sauce and has a rich flavour and wonderful soft yet slightly crunchy texture, similar to tarako (cod roe). This is homemade. 

I may skimp on the osechi I don't like, but I more than make up for it with tainoko. I wish it was available in Tokyo because I could easily eat it every day.

Here is my first serving of sechi. The chopsticks are brand-new and come in a special New Year's wrapper, which is traditional (people also often wear brand-new clothes on this day). The ochoko (tiny sake cup) contains otoso, a spiced and sweetened sake that is said to ensure good health in the New Year. Indeed it tastes rather medicinal, and is often cough syrup sweet, but this year both the sugar and spice were toned down and I rather enjoyed it. I find it similar (in concept more than flavour) to the mulled wine drunk by Europeans at Christmas.

My next serving is above (the servings after that consisted entirely of tainoko).

When the osechi is done it's time for ozoni, a soup containing mochi (pounded rice cake) and other ingredients. The recipe for ozoni varies tremendously from region to region and family to family, but my mother-in-law's is a clear chicken broth with hakusai (Chinese cabbage), mitsuba (trefoil), chicken, naruto (fish paste) and a square piece of mochi. It's actually an Eastern Japan style of ozoni, albeit with a lighter broth.

Mochi is a major part of New Year eating, showing up not only in ozoni but in snacks throughout the day. This mochi was made by my sister-in-law's husband's family in Chiba, and like all home-made mochi it's far superior to the plastic-like variety sold in supermarkets and thus is hard not to overeat. In fact, most Japanese people do gain weight over the holidays and the blame lies on squarely on mochi, which is surprisingly high in calories (another problem with mochi is its extremely dense and sticky texture, and choking deaths that result are reported in the news in a grim sort of holiday tradition). Other than ozoni, mochi can be served in a number of ways, both sweet and savoury; my favourite is isobe-yaki (grilled, dipped in soy sauce and wrapped with nori seaweed). Above is a special version, dipped in shichimi-joyu (soy sauce with seven-spice mix).

To take a break from eating there are a number of traditional games to play, and in this family the game of choice is hanafuda. There are dozens of variations of the game, all with rules too long and complicated for me to explain here, so I'll just show you the pretty cards.

Hanafuda is most often a gambling game, but instead of cash we use sweets. This year's prize lot consisted of chocolates (a gift from my family to the in-laws--thanks Mom!) and cookies (received by the in-laws as an oseibo year-end gift: thanks strangers!). I'm not a great hanafuda player but I'm not bad, either, and I ate enough of these treats that I won't be able to blame this year's weight gain on mochi.

This is our first dinner of the year (yup, I'm still on January 1st). The food served is still osechi, but it's mostly the more substantial, savoury dishes.

The main event is yakitai (salt-grilled sea bream), which is bought already cooked (all other dinner food is homemade). The sea bream, caught wild in the Inner Sea, is better than anything we can get in Tokyo, although this year we found that it was overly salty. Tai is eaten because of a play on words: it sounds like the last part of medetai (which means a happy event or celebration).

This is one of my favourite osechi (actually, all the dishes served for the first dinner are my favourites), called chuuka sarada. It means "Chinese style salad", although it doesn't strike me as either Chinese or salad-like: it is a stir-fry of shiitake, carrot, renkon (lotus root), gobo (burdock root) and shirataki (yam jelly noodles), very lightly flavoured with soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil. 

I have no idea what the proper name of this dish is, we always just call it tori (chicken). It's not terribly attractive to start with, and this picture certainly doesn't do it any justice, but it tastes amazing. It's chicken thighs (and possibly other dark meat) slowly braised in a rich broth of... I have no idea. There's probably soy sauce, black pepper, star anise, negi (long onions), ginger, sake and vinegar, but from there I'm really not sure. The bones are removed before serving but the abundant jelly is kept, and the flesh is so soft and delicious it's hard to stop eating. I'm going to have to watch my mother-in-law make this one of these years, because I really want to know how to make this myself.

This is nishime, a simmered vegetable dish. Pretty much every family serves this (or a similar simmered dish called chikuzen-ni), and although the ingredients may vary there is usually kuwai (arrowroot, a relative of water chestnuts), which is that potato-like thing on the right with the long sprout. In Japanese, the sprout is called me, which brings two puns: medetai (celebration) and me ga deru (bring good luck). The other vegetables are carrot, shiitake, renkon (lotus root), takenoko (bamboo shoots), daikon, konnyaku (yam jelly), and thin strips of beef. I usually eat bowls and bowls of this, but this year my niece gave me a bit of competition, going through several bowls herself in a very systematic way: picking out and eating all the daikon, then the carrot, and then, somewhat reluctantly, the rest of the ingredients.

And finally, kani sarada (crab salad). This is normally made with canned crab, but this time leftover meat from last night's crab was used. We alsways jump on this, as we're thrilled to see fresh vegetables.

The next morning brought more osechi, this time with a different brand of datemaki (it was firmer and less sweet than the previous day's, and I liked it better) and new kind of kobumaki (stuffed with herring).

This is namasu, a refreshing and crunchy dish of carrot and daikon dressed with vinegar. It's a very welcome addition to the New Year's table, which seriously lacks vegetables--especially the fresh, crisp kind. This is another osechi that gets its good luck from its red and white colour (yup, orange was considered a shade of red).

The broth for the second day's ozoni is always made from the previous night's yakitai, and this year there was enough broth leftover to make zosui for lunch. Zosui is rice soup, most often made from simmering pre-cooked rice with some kind of leftover broth. Here it is flavoured with hakusai (Chinese cabbage), mitsuba (trefoil) and nori seaweed.

This year both Hideaki and I were suffering from colds and required a lot of rest. When he fell asleep on the living room sofa (usually because he was too full to make the trip upstairs to the guestroom) I'd tuck him into a blanket to keep him warm, which caught the attention of Marya, who would insist on either helping me tuck (she'd even say "tuck, tuck, tuck" while she did it) or being tucked in herself. She's not actually asleep in the picture above, just pretending in hopes that she'll get tucked in.

New Year's is a time to meet old friends though, so he couldn't stay on the sofa for the whole visit (as much as he would have liked to). On the second night of the year we went to a shinnenkai (New Year party) at the home of a high school friend of his. The good eating continued, with kaninabe (crab hot pot) featuring yet another type of crab (zuwaigani, or queen crab) and this lovely cake for dessert.

On the third day the osechi continued, although lunch was completely non-osechi: a bowl of ochazuke (rice with hot green tea). This is a somewhat fancy version, with genmaicha (green tea with puffed brown rice) and four types of tsukudani (seafood simmered in soy sauce): kombu (kelp), chirimen-jako (tiny dried fish), mekabu seaweed, and hotate (scallops).

Dinner that night was at Meishan Kajousai, a Chinese restaurant in nearby Senri Chuo. Ownded by Ume no Hana, a chain of tofu restuarants, we've really enjoyed it on past visits but were disappointed this time. Still, a few dishes stood out, like the extra-crisp harumaki (spring rolls) and daikonmochi (radish cakes) above. Apologies for the small pictures, I forgot my camera and had to use my phone.

The mabodofu (tofu with spicy meat sauce) was served with two styles in the same pot: the regular spicy version on the right, and a creamy white version, made with soy milk, on the left. 

The fried fish with sweet and sour sauce was also very good.

As usual, Marya entertained us between courses.

Our last treat in Osaka was dessert from a local cake shop. Above is a rolled cake with a cute cowhide pattern in honour of the Year of the Cow. Apparently this was very good, although I didn't try it.

I'm not much of a cake eater and am rather picky about other desserts, so my in-laws, who buy cake at every opportunity, always go to great lengths to find something they think I'll like. It's totally unnecessary, since I'd be perfectly happy with one of the dozens of sweet treats already in the house: piles of clementines, ice cream (there are always a minimum of three flavours of Hageen Dazs in the freezer, along with a few other kinds), and boxes of cookies and other sweets sent as oseibo gifts or brought as souvenirs by visitors. So the fuss is really uncalled for and I usually feel bad that my pickiness causes so much trouble. But this time I was glad for it, because this is what was chosen for me: 

The fanciest chocolate tart I've ever seen. There are so many things happening here that I wasn't sure where to start, but I finally did (the macaron went first) and holy cow was it ever good (except for the whipped cream between the tart and fruit and on top, which I gave to Hideaki). The tart itself was excellent and would have been enough, but the fruit and macaron on top were wonderful finishing touches, a very fitting way to end the holiday excess (for anyone in northern Osaka, both the cake and tart came from Ichirin Coffee in Minoh).

JapanSoc it!

Ume jam

One more thing to do with ume (Japanese apricot): make jam.

 

This is it on toast (that's my usual peanut butter and banana toast on the left). No, I didn't make it--a student of mine did, with fruit from her own ume trees. It is deliciously sweet and sour with a lovely ume fragrance, and I don't think it's going to last very long. It is great plain on toast and I have a feeling it will also make a good sauce. Thanks Mrs. A!

She used ao-ume(green ume) for her jam but most recipes call for ripe yellow ume. And since there are still yellow ume left in the stores I might just have to make a batch for myself. If you'd like to give it a try as well, Obachan has some basic ume jam instructions in English here, and these two recipes, although in Japanese, have enough pictures to make them understandable.

The basic process is the same as any other jam, but before you begin you'll need to detoxify the ume: soak the fruit in salt water overnight (or a few hours if you're using yellow ume) and then boil in water, removing the scum that will form, drain, and repeat the boiling twice. The soaking and boiling is not necessary when using fruit leftover from making umeshu (ume liqueur). The pits can be removed after the boiling (the fruit will still be firm so you'll need to cut them out with a knife), or midway through the jam making process when the fruit will be soft enough to crush with a potato masher. The crushed fruit can then be pureed for a smooth jam, or left as-is for a chunky jam.

If I don't get around to making jam with fresh ume this season at least I know just what I'll be doing with the ume leftover from my umeshu next year.

Foraging in Tokyo

A few posts back I mentioned picking cherries while at a local park, and I thought I'd follow that up with some pictures from a more recent visit. (The park is actually two parks: Oizumi Chuo Koen in Tokyo and Wako Jurin Koen across the border in Saitama, so the title of this post is a bit misleading as not all of my foraging was actually within Tokyo's borders.)

This is a hebi ichigo (false strawberry), which looks like it would be delicious. The first time I found one here I assumed it would be similar to the wonderful wild strawberries we get at home, so it was a huge disappointment when I had a taste. Despite the colourful, juicy appearance, they dry and have virtually no flavour. Occasionally one will have a hint of sweetness, or a faint melony-cucumber flavour, but it's very subtle. They are fully edible, and don't actually taste bad, but would only be worth picking if you were starving. Still, I occasionally find myself popping one in my mouth, just because.

These are sakura no mi (wild cherries). They're ready when they're black and plump. Over-ripe cherries are slightly wrinkled and should be avoided: they're plenty sweet but likely to be chock full of bugs.

This is the queen of wild fruit, at least in my area: yama ichigo. Literally "mountain strawberry", these are actually a type of raspberry.

They are sweet and mild, and the seeds are lighter and softer than regular raspberries: they are pleasantly crunchy and do not get stuck in your teeth.

This is a yama ichigo flower, the centre of which will eventually turn into a berry. The plants are abundant at the park, but don't produce a lot of fruit--and what fruit they do produce is a bit hard to find, usually hidden under the leaves.

Unfortunately they prefer the same terrain as hebi ichigo produce fruit at roughly the same time. And because the berries look similar, at least from afar, they can be rather annoying to pick. Here are a few hints: up close, yama ichigo plants can be identified by the white flowers--hebi ichigo usually have smaller yellow flowers, and their flower season is long over when the berries ripen. The fruit of the yama ichigo is large and reddish orange, and usually grows off the ground, up to a height of about 40 cm, while hebi ichigo fruit is bright red, small and close to the ground.

These berries weren't very tasty.

Heehee, just kidding, but I did almost reach for one of these ladybugs. This particular tree, and this one only, was just covered with ladybugs--some brand-new and some still in the larval stage. They had an amazing variety of spot patterns and came in three different types: black with orange spots, black with white spots, and reddish-orange with black spots (the orange one at top right has just emerged and will shortly turn a bit darker). There are more varieties of ladybugs in Japan than this, but still the large variety of them on this one single tree was astonishing. I only wish I was able to get a picture with a bunch of them together, but they weren't very cooperative. So failing that this collage gives an idea of how heavily this tree was crawling with ladybugs.

This is what I came home with: a bag of sakura no mi, a bag of yama ichigo and kuwa no mi (mulberries), and a few sprigs each of ki no me (leaves of sansho, or Sichuan pepper) and yomogi (mugwort). There were a few more edible plants that I didn't pick: warabi (bracken fern), which was too mature, and tampopo (dandelion) which were too far out in the open (see warning below). And those are just the plants that I know and can identify. I wonder what other edible herbs and berries are out there?

Here's a better look. Clockwise from left: yama ichigo, sakura no mi, ki no me, hebi ichigo, kuwa no mi. I had originally planned to turn the berries into jam or liqueur but I ended up just eating them as-is. Hopefully the park will continue to produce berries for a few more weeks, and then I'll get to do something more exciting with them.

So if you live in Tokyo, don't assume that it's all a concrete jungle! Sakura no mi and kuwa no mi abound even in the city, and other edible treats may be lurking around as well. The next time you're at a park or even just walking through the streets, keep your eyes peeled. An easy way to find cherries and mulberries is by searching the ground for black splotches caused by fallen fruit: look up and you see fruit that is dark puple to black and looks like a berry, it probably is. One little bite will tell you if it's tasty or not.

* Caution: Poisonous berries are relatively rare and tend to look different from edible berries, and if you know what wild cherries, raspberries, mulberries etc. look like you'll be fine. Poisonous berries tend to be white, green or bright red and are bitter enough that you'll want to spit it out immediately. As far as I know there are no berries in Japan that can cause harm from just one taste, but do be cautious and don't eat anything that you can't identify.

A more practical warning is to steer clear of low-lying berries and herbs out in the open, especially in dog-intensive areas. I think you can guess why. Yama ichigo are safe as the stalks have thorns which dogs tend to avoid. Also, avoid berries that touch the ground, are mishapen or are discoloured as they are more likely to have extra protein in the form of slugs and bugs.

Sashimi

I'm not sure how a one-week holiday turned into a two-week absence from this blog. Maybe going on vacation disrupted the rhythm of my life and it's taking some time to get back into the swing of things. Maybe I'm suffering from a severe case of the blahs. Maybe my very mild but long-running cold is sapping all my extra energy. My best guess is a mixture of all three. But what I do know is that it's time to post something. So here we go: a recent late night snack:

Some sashimi I bought on my way home from an evening class last week (half-price due to the late hour). Clockwise from bottom left: kibinago (a small type of herring called banded blue-sprat); katsuo (skipjack tuna); aji tataki (chopped horse mackerel); and buri (yellowtail). The tsuma (garnishes) were all included with the sashimi: shredded daikon; shiso (perilla leaves); hojiso (stem of shiso buds); and grated ginger.

Sashimi is commonly sold in supermarkets here already cut up, with a few different kinds of fish packaged together complete with garnishes. I don't often buy sashimi that way, partly because my husband doesn't like it much, and partly because I can never find a selection that appeals to me (tuna and/or squid tend to be included in most assortments, and with supermarket-quality sashimi tuna and squid are really just filler). And maybe also because I do a lot of shopping at night and hours-old sashimi just seems like something to avoid.

But slap a half-price sticker on a lovely selection like that above and I'm sold! This was good stuff, with the quality of the garnishes a little better than the average selection. The kibinago was a bit on the bland side and could have been fresher: it really is best eaten perfectly fresh in early summer. But the buri was fantastic, still rich with fat despite its season being over.

Best of all, Hideaki wasn't in the mood for sashimi so I had it all to myself. It was a lot of fish but I could easily have eaten more: I can never tire of good sashimi. Years ago I failed at the South Beach Diet, but if ever I can afford to eat fish like this every day I think I'll have to give it another go.

Golden Week begins

Today was Showa no Hi, the birthday of the former emperor Showa (Hirohito's posthumous name). Why exactly we celebrate his birthday I'm not sure, but this was the first of four public holidays that make up Golden Week and I'm not about to complain.

Hideaki and I made a visit to Kichijoji to run some errands and while we were there had a quick lunch at a Chinese place called Kisshousaikan. We both had lunch specials, with me getting kurozu no subuta (sweet and sour pork with black vinegar) and my husband had pork stir-fried with matchstick potatoes. Both were excellent, and the potatoes were a surprise as I'd never had them cooked that way before, and had no idea what they were when I first tried them (I hadn't heard my husband's order), thinking maybe they were zasai pickles or bamboo shoots. They were soft and giving but had a slight bit of a firm crunch left: very nice. Both our lunches came with egg drop soup, zasai, salad, rice and annin-doufu (almond jelly) with mango sauce, all of which are surprisingly good, considering they are usually afterthoughts with this kind of set lunch.

On the way home we stopped at Planetes for a treat to bring home. My raspberry tart got banged up quite a bit on bumpy ride home but Hideaki's "chocolate royal", while arriving home a bit worse for the wear, stayed mostly intact. It contained three rich layers of chocolate, plus the chocolate fans and gold leaf on top: very decadent. My tart, while not much to look at, was super and had the perfect crust. Really, it's mostly the crusts that I buy tarts for--if they just sold empty crusts I'd buy them by the dozen. Not that I mind the filling though (and besides, if I only bought the crusts I'd miss out on the raspberries, and lord knows how hard they are to find in Tokyo).

So about this Golden Week. The holidays don't all run together, so unfortunate should like my husband are back to work tomorrow for three more days until the holidays resume, but a few lucky folks like myself have the whole week off. I'm headed tomorrow to the in-laws in Osaka, where I'll hopefully be able to keep you updated with a moblog post or two.

Wishing you all a week as golden as mine!

Kisshousaikan (Japanese link)
0422-41-0628
Uchida Building 3rd Floor, Kichijouji Minami-cho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo
Open daily 11:00 to midnight (last order 11:00)

Patisserie les Planetes (Japanese link)
03-5933-1233
5-8-20 Oizumigakuen-cho Nerima-ku Tokyo (Also outlets in Omiya and select Tokyo department stores)
Open 10:00 to 7:00, closed Wednesdays

Gyoza

Those of you outside of Japan might not know about the latest food scare here, but the news this week has been dominated by gyoza-- specifically, frozen, made-in-China gyoza contaminated with pesticides.

Gyoza are Japan's version of jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) and were extremely popular in Japan until the story broke last week. Now mass hysteria has taken over and people have been avoiding gyoza, and Chinese food in general, like the plague. Doesn't matter that the poison gyoza were traced to a single factory in China, or that a Japanese fact-finding mission failed to find any traces of the pesticide at the factory, or that Chinese farmers' overuse of pesticides, many of which are banned in Japan, has long been common knowledge. Suddenly all gyoza and Chinese food, no matter where it is made and with what ingredients, are bad. Gyoza sales at supermarkets and restaurants are way down, and Chinese restaurants are suffering.

Partly as a show of support, and partly because seeing all the gyoza in the news has induced a major gyoza craving, Hideaki and I ate at our favourite local Chinese restaurant on the weekend. On the way there we passed a gyoza restaurant which was completely empty and we were tempted to eat there instead out of pity, but as it's a chain shop and the Chinese restaurant is a mom-and-pop place we stuck with our plan. The normally packed little place had just one customer and one cook on duty-- the emptiest I've ever seen it. We started with a double order was gyoza, and boy were they good (so good we'd already eaten a couple before I remembered to take a picture). I wish I could eat here, and all the other empty Chinese restaurants, every day.

Don't get me wrong-- I have no intention of defending China. In fact I actively avoid buying many Chinese products due to concerns I have of the safety of the products themselves and as a kind of boycott against the country's lax safety controls. But I don't like how this issue, just one of many food scandals in recent years, has taken on an ugly anti-China tone.

On a positive note, people seem to be starting to question Japan's reliance on imported food, which is a really important issue that desperately needs to be addressed. But sadly there doesn't seem to be any discussion on the growing reliance on convenience foods. I've always admired the respect Japanese people have for food, with shopping for fresh food still a daily activity for many people and appreciation for seasonal food instilled from an early age. This is changing though, as evidenced by the increasing size of supermarket frozen food and prepared food sections, packed with ready-made food of all kinds. Most of the frozen food is okazu (side dishes) rather than the complete meals sold in the West, as no self-respecting Japanese home cook would serve a meal entirely consisting of frozen convenience food. More typically a single frozen okazu will round out an otherwise home-cooked meal; many working moms and busy housewives are apparently rely on this ready-made food.

I think something is very wrong here. As lifestyles are changing and more women joining the work force, it is understandable that fewer people are able to cook traditional home-cooked meals. But I find it sad that frozen prepared food, chock full of additives and made from who knows what, is seen as the solution. Why not work towards abandoning outdated concepts of what a woman's role is or what a proper meal should consist of?

As it is, women are still overwhelmingly responsible for all of a family's housework, including cooking, regardless or whether they work or not. Help from husbands and children quite rare, and serving take-out or delivery food is frowned upon. Yet there are countless rules for meal preparation which require a huge investment of time in the kitchen. Bento (boxed lunches) need to include a certain amount of food and a certain number of colours and cooking styles. The typical "simple" home-cooked meal is called ichiju-sansai, which means "one soup and three side dishes" (aside from rice and pickles). The meal should also reflect the season and contain a wide variety of ingredients, with each side dish incorporating a different cooking style (one steamed, one sauteed and one grilled, for example). Everything is served in separate tiny dishes, and the majority of homes have no dishwasher (other than the lady of the house, of course). No wonder people turn to frozen food to help shorten the time in the kitchen.

Serving simpler meals or demanding that their families help out would require guts, something that, I'm sorry to say, modern Japanese seem to lack. Frozen okazu are a far more attractive alternative, and it saddens me that this latest food scandal will do little to change that.