6 May
The more I learn about cooking and food culture, the more I’ve become fascinated with cultural concepts of portable foods. As I’ve written before, Japan’s main example is onigiri, rice balls, but in the Shinshû/Nagano region, it’s oyaki, the steamed buns often made with savory fillings and soba-flour dough. Combine oyaki with another one of my favorite foods, kabocha, and you have a delicious, healthy addition to your bento that is easy to make and transport.
7 Apr
Day 1: On the Road to Yudanaka Onsen (長野の名産を食べる旅：第一日)
On our second day in Nagano, we headed to Yamanouchi to see the snow monkeys at the Jigokudani Monkey Park. We kind of took the long way around, but eventually we got on the right path.
長野の旅行の第２日には山の上の地獄谷野猿公苑へニホンザルを見に行きました。ちょっと道を迷ってしまいましたけど、やっと見つけて進みました。
The roads from Yudanaka Onsen to the park are lined with ryokan and sweets shops. This one had a window cat!
湯田中温泉から野猿公苑向かって道が和菓子屋や旅館に並んでいます。この店の窓辺に猫がいました〜
3 Apr
Nothing heralds spring like seasonal menu changes! Starbucks’ sakura latte (henceforth not italicized) is much like the pumpkin spice latte in the US: people go crazy for it and it sells out long before sakura season is over. Or, in Kanazawa and the rest of northern Japan, before it even starts.
This year, the latte was replaced by a sakura white hot chocolate, which I really liked, but unfortunately it’s been gone for a month and the sakura only started blooming this week. Luckily, a sakura “latte” (technically it’s a steamer since there’s no coffee) is really easy to make at home. All you need is preserved edible sakura, boiling water, and milk.
1 Apr
Craft beer wasn’t the only delicious thing I had on my trip to Nagano. Let’s recap!
今回日本語でも書いてみようと思って、日本語で読む興味がある方がいらっしゃいますか？スノーモンキービアライブのんために長野へのROAD TRIP、行こう！
27 Mar
日本語でも英語でも書きました。日本語が母国語ではないので、文法等を間違たっら、許していただきます。
Can I just get back to writing about fandom cakes again?
サチーナの事に対して大変疲れて、ファンの友人のためのケーキについて書きたいです。さあ、始めます。
Searchina has changed the final line of their translation. Good thing I took screenshots for documentation!
今日の夜にサチーナの翻訳が更新されそうで、特に最後の文章を改造してみたそうです。ラッキなことに、記録するようにスクリーンショットを取っておきました。
25 Mar
(English here).
ようこそ、サーチナとMSNの読者の皆様。（日本語で書いてみて、過ちが多いかもしれませんから、始める前にお詫びさせていただきます。。。）ツィターで皆様の反省を読むのは本当に面白かったです。だが、サチーナで掲載された記事はサマリーだけで、それ以上最後のベッティ・フリーダンとフェミニズムの部分を翻訳されまんせんでした。又、お弁当の文化の批判として書きましんでしたが、、むしるアメリカのマスコミでの弁当ブームに対して下記の日本でのお弁当についてのことを説明してみようと思います：
19 Mar
This is a companion piece to “‘Deeply Ingrained Advantages’: American Media Discovers Kyûshoku.”
At the same time as Japan’s school lunch programs got picked up by the media, there was a burst of articles about Japan’s other distinctive lunch: the bento.
Bento and the Cult of Cute
A vegan bento served at Earth Cafe in Kanazawa. The box is lacquer and the presentation is beautiful, but this is also not an elaborate kyaraben.
In the lead-in to Carlsen’s and Turner’s “In Japan, Food Can Be Almost Too Cute To Eat,” there is a slideshow showcasing the cuter side of Japanese food: tofu character goods, a kyaraben (character bento), and images of Anpanman in cartoon and pancake form. The authors mention that food presentation is part of the culture of cute, but instead of an obsession with food presentation dictating the creation of characters and mascots like Anpanman, I would actually say that Japan’s love of cute things dictates the creation of anthropomorphized food. I don’t just mean in terms of kyaraben, I mean that the regular onions I buy at the grocery store have an anthropomorphized onion on the bag. So do my eringi mushrooms. So do my tomatoes. Visual presentation of food is definitely a part of Japanese food culture, and creating a cute obento for a child to eat is part of that culture, but the food presentation didn’t create the characters necessarily.
12 Mar
Last year, I wrote about Foodpia Land, Kanazawa’s big winter food fair, in the context of street food and food culture in Japan. This year, a bunch of my friends and I went again to celebrate a birthday, so while I’m working on posts for the last two geeky/nerdy birthday cakes I made, I thought you all might like to see some photos.
Kanazawa had a mild winter this year in terms of temperature, but the somehow-even-more-constant-than-usual precipitation and the sideways snow that lasted through most of January and February were huge deterrents for wanting to get out and do things. For Foodpia Land, though, we braved the confusing weather, which started out sort of cloudy and warm and quickly became wet and cold, to enjoy some of our local favorites from all over Japan.
Our first stop was the Hida Beef Burger stand. Most Americans know about Kobe beef, but Hida beef is where it’s at. I’ve written about it here and here.
7 Feb
Can Japan solve America’s food identity crisis? Japan’s relatively low rates of obesity have caught the eye of the American news media, particularly in light of our own new government controls on junk food and measures intended to prevent childhood obesity. In January, The Washington Post ran the article “On Japan’s school lunch menu: A healthy meal, made from scratch” by Chico Harlan; NPR followed up article/radio segment on bento called “In Japan, Food Can Be Almost Too Cute To Eat” by Audrey Carlsen and Daniel N.M. Turner, featuring a radio interview for All Things Considered with host Audie Cornish and author Debra Samuels.
While it is true that the content and presentation of Japanese school lunches (kyûshoku, 給食) and boxed lunches (bento) are quite different from their stereotypical American counterparts, both articles oversimplified the topics. I’d like to focus on each article separately as my criticism for each deals with distinct rather than overlapping issues. First, I’d like to discuss The Washington Post piece’s failure to address some of the negative aspects of the Japanese diet, and, in a separate post, how the NPR piece misses the mark on the “cute” issue and ignores the gendered social issues behind the bento.
1 Feb
Curry nabe is combination of two of Japan’s great comfort foods: curry-rice (karê raisu, カレーライス) and nabe (鍋). Curry-rice is a Japanized version of Indian curries via Britain: served with rice, this dish is a thick, brown sauce, more sweet than spicy, combined with onions, carrots, potatoes, and chicken or beef, which are sauteed before boiling in the sauce. If mac ‘n’ cheese and spaghetti are the epitome of basic American home cooking, curry-rice tops Japan’s list.
Most curry roux in Japan contain meat extracts (beef, pork, or fish are the most common). I am found of Sokensha‘s vegan* curry “flake type” roux (植物素材の本格カレー), which is sold in health-food stores like Noppo-kun but can also be ordered online. I like the “spicy” one (辛口), even though it’s not all that spicy. This “Curry for Vegetarians” by Sakurai is also vegan, though I haven’t tried it. (Edit: Haiku Girl recommends S&B’s exported Torokeru (とろける) curry roux blocks, but the domestic varieties sold in Japan appear to contain chicken or beef bouillon [ブイヨン].)
Then, of course, is the staple of Japanese winter cuisine: nabe, from nabemono, which refers to foods cooked in a (clay) pot. Nabe, like curry-rice, is completely adaptable to taste: use whatever tofu, vegetables, and/or meat you like and boil them in a broth of your choice. It’s like non-committal soup, and it’s great for casual dinner parties. You can purchase broth in a variety of flavors from soymilk to kimchi at any grocery store, but I prefer to make my own, and it’s really quite simple. (How did you guess?)
