Know Your Cuisine : Japanese
Nov 28 2012.
views 953
Ready for some pristine culinary art? Yes, we are headed all the way to the Far East coast of Asia to check out the Japanese cuisine! Like any cuisine that originates with local ingredients and as a means of preserving them, the Japanese cuisine is an authentic reflection of Japan itself.
On stringent terms the traditional Japanese cuisine (nihon-ryōri or washoku) is the culinary practices before Westernization. Buddhism and Shintoism have made an indelible impact on the Japanese way of cooking, thus the strong emphasis on realizing what’s around you.
So this plethora of cultural background and ethos on a plate is the Japanese cuisine. The vegetable and fish used in cooking (meat wasn’t really used till the last couple of centuries or so) is amazingly pristine and Japanese cooking is all about precision, detail and respecting the ingredients at every single stage of preparing the meal, right from beginning to grow or catch the substance up to consuming it.
Seasonality
Harmony with nature will be exactly what the Japanese ethos behind cooking would be. There’s one harvest for the year and it brings in immaculate rice in the springtime.
In fact, ingredients are seasonal. Dishes are driven to herald the arrival of the four seasons or calendar months, so there’s a strong emphasis on seasonality of food (or shun).
The harvest from the mountains/fields and from the sea is the cornerstone of Japanese cooking, so ‘seasonality’ translates into making best use of the “bounty of the mountains” or the “bounty of the sea.”
Defining Ingredients
The pillars of Japanese cooking would be soy sauce, rice (staple), miso (Japanese fermented soybean paste used mainly in vegetarian cooking), bonito flakes (umbalakada here!) and kelp.
Rice takes a whole new dimension in Japan, as in the language of a chef, it is a religion there! Furthermore, being an island nation the bountiful supply of seafood is also very well put to use. It is opinion that Japanese food relies upon grains with vegetables/seaweed as main, with meat secondary.
Traditional Japanese food is usually flavoured using a combination of dashi, soy sauce, sake and mirin, vinegar, sugar and salt.
Dining Etiquette
Inspite of Westernization, traditional Japanese low tables and cushions are still very common. These floors are covered with Tatami mats, made of straw, and are vulnerable to damage and dirt, so taking off footwear is mandatory when dining in this particular setting.
CHOPSTICKS! About this globally popular eastern fascination, there is a code when it comes to Japanese cuisine though. The proper usage of chopsticks (or Hashi) is the vital table etiquette in Japan. Sticking them vertically in rice or passing food from one pair to another is taboo, since such are synonymous with funeral rituals.
Playing with them, spearing food and pointing with them are also frowned upon. Hold them in the latter third and treat them delicately – with respect!
Cooking methods
Like I said before, it’s all about precision and detail at every single stage. It is this very delicate and pristine nature, that might make the food seem simple, that makes the Japanese cuisine an intricately complex art.
For instance, there is a range of knives, of Japanese origin, that are to be used in a particular way and are made specifically for different stages of cooking! These are some common cooking techniques: grilled and pan fried, stewed, simmered, cooked, boiled.
Sushi, Sumeshi & Sashimi
The widest and perhaps most preposterous misconception is that Japanese food is all about Sushi! Sushi is a speciality, yet it is but a way of using rice to preserve raw fish.
Again, it is wrong to say that you can wrap anything in rice by hand/bamboo shoots and it becomes sushi – typically it is “small cakes of cold boiled rice, shaped by hand or wrapped in seaweed and topped with pieces of raw or cooked fish, vegetables, or egg.”
Sumeshi is, meanwhile, vinegar and rice literally. Sashimi is a Japanese dish of sliced raw fish – usually served with a dipping sauce, e.g. a seasoned soy sauce. Small quantities of other ingredients like finely shredded white radish or pickles may also be added as garnishes and palate-refreshing accompaniments.
Beverages and Desserts
The most popular beverage is of course sake, a rice wine and the national alcoholic beverage of Japan. Green tea also has unique variants from Japan.
When it comes to Japanese confectionery, they all came to being as accompaniments to be taken during the famed traditional tea ceremony.
NihonBashi is an authentic Japanese restaurant that adheres to originality, be it the food served, the table settings or the overall ambience. Dharshan Munidasa and his team there helped us compile this week’s edition of Know Your Cuisine.
By Nivedha Jeyaseelan
0 Comments