Something on rice

In this case, konbu (the seaweed).

About 10 years ago, a friend I had invited to stay to dinner with me asked me if Japanese really ate just plain white rice, which he thought was rather tasteless. I told him that was true of most Japanese most of the time. But often, Japanese put something on their rice, and I often wonder what percentage of rice in Japan is actually eaten completely plain. Certainly my daughter almost never has just plain white rice, or even plain brown rice. She likes it either wrapped in nori, the thin sheets of seaweed that are wrapped around the ubiquitous onigiri and some kinds of sushi, or else sprinkled with furikake. That's a real kid kind of rice topping. It's make of dried fish, egg, vegetables, and/or assorted industrial chemicals -- at least, that what they look like from the vivid pinks and yellows of some of the flakes.

Furikake is probably a modern take on an old custom of sprinkling whatever you have available on rice to make it tastier. A more formal, more adult version of this is called ochazuke. Originally this was, as the name says, green tea poured over (leftover) rice -- an easy way of warming up rice for a quick breakfast. You can buy packets of ochazuke in any supermarket, it's on the shelf next to the furikake. The labels are generally less colorful, more adult-looking, though the principal is the same; GIVE THE RICE A LITTLE MORE FLAVOR. Most people just put one or the other on fresh rice, straight out of the rice cooker since rice cookers can keep rice pretty fresh overnight.

Of course, the basic principle is always to give plain rice more flavor through salt and a few bits of something-or-other. I'll sometimes use konbu or hijiki, two different kinds of seaweed. Some people simply stick an umeboshi (pickled plum) in the middle of a serving of rice. This not only looks good, the powerful flavor of the umeboshi makes the rice near it tasty, as well as flavoring your mouth for whatever you eat for the following five minutes.

Self Udon

Of course, that means self-service udon, a popular kind of relatively low-cost restaurant in Japan. When you come in the door, you're at the beginning of a cafeteria-type line, but one with a difference since you don't want to eat udon that's been soaking in hot water too long. What do you is select a bowl of cooked, room temperature udon (small, medium, or large) and move one step to your left (or right, depending on the room, of course). There you dump your udon into a wire basket and set it into the tub of hot water just in front of you. Wait a minute, then lift out your udon and put it back into your bowl, now warmed up.

Next you choose your toppings, typically tempura of various kinds. Want tempura scraps. like the floating bits the fish and chips shops in England used to throw in? They're there for the taking. Ditto for chopped green onion.

Then you pay, then you add the broth.

Voila!

Lee and I paid about 850 yen for our two bowls. It was pretty good, too. The udon was handmade.

Katsuo no tataki

The finest food in Japan. And one of the most unusual.

It's unusual in one small way and one big, mysterious way.

(Linguistic note: tataki comes from the verb tataku, meaning spank.)

There are a variety of Japanese dishes that are called something-or-other tataki, but this one is usually just called tataki. Katsuo is the kind of fish it's made from, bonito, the small member of the tuna family that swarms around the southern coast of Shikoku and is caught in the millions, dried, and shaved paper-thin. This is the katsuobushi, "dried shaved bonito" used as the basis for about half the soups and sauces in Japanese cooking.

If, instead of drying the katsuo fillets, you want to make tataki, here's what you do:

Well, not you, personally, but here's what should happen.

Make a little fire of rice straw, char the outside of the fillets in the flames while whapping them with damp rice straw (to keep them from going up in smoke) and serve with katsuo dipping sauce. The dipping sauce is usually about half soy sauce and half a mixture of viengar (rice vinegar, of course) and sudachi juice. Sudachi is a small, round, intensely green citrus fruit grown extensively on Shikoku and not much anywhere else. And don't forget the garlic!

Garlic is pretty rare in Japanese cooking. In fact, here in Tokushima Prefecture, if you buy your tataki in a supermarket as I usually do, it will come with sliced onion and/or grated ginger plus a little packet of dipping sauce. But in Kochi Prefecture, on the southern side of Shikoku, where katsuo is king and tataki is a little bit of heaven, sliced garlic is de rigeur. Why? I don't know. But I'm glad it is.

New Rice, New Wine, New Whatever

We're eating a little white rice this week becaue we were given new crop rice (called shin mai -- new rice) and you can't look a gift horse . . .

New anything is generally a big deal in Japan, interesting for a country that sticks to so many traditions. But "the tradition of the new" is a tradition too. TV and radio ads love to stick in the term shin hatsubai, new goods, as a strong selling point, and so it is with rice, as well as wine.

Even though Japan isn't much of a wine producing or consuming country, you can buy wine in any supermarket and nearly any convenience store. Now that fall is here, can Beaujolais nouveau be far behind? November 19th is the third Thursday in November and, all over the world, afficionados will be lining up at their favorite wine shops or, in Japan, their favorite convenience stores for a taste of mildly fermented Gamay grapes (as you can tell, I'm not a fan). Are there any other countries in the world where you can reserve Beaujolais nouveau at a convenience store?

Maybe it goes well with new rice. Let me know.

Shiso Pepsi!

Shiso is a member of the mint family. It's a strong, sharp-tasting leaf that's sometimes served under or wrapped around other foods here. This is the first time I've seen it matched with anything sweet. I haven't tasted it yet.

Rice: The Japanese identity

I wanted to refresh my memory of nihonjinron and kokugaku writing, so of course I looked up those terms in Wikipedia. What a disappointment! Usually, when I look up something there, I find myself admiring the authors' grasp of their subjects and wishing I knew as much as they. But when it comes to these studies of writings about what it means to be Japanese, I find a glaring omission. THE WORD RICE ISN'T MENTIONED ONCE!

. . .

Now that you've looked up those terms in Wikipedia, let me continue and explain. The kokugaku writings of the 19th centruy and the nihonjin writings of the 20th, especially newspaper articles, continually make references to rice, specifically Japanese rice. Over and over again, the authors mention Japanese rice and its unique taste. Twentieth century writers, and now 21st century ones, love to extoll the value of white rice, Japanese white rice. Almost every week, I read in an English language edition of a Japanese newspaper how some scientific study "has proven the healthfulness of" or some people "always refer admiringly to" "the Japanese diet" with its emphasis on fish, fresh vegetables, and white rice. Of course, as you probably know, brown rice (which is also available here) is much healthier than white rice and it was the standard rice in Japan until sometime in the 19th century, when a combination of manufacting developments and economic expansion led to the spread of white rice among the middle and, eventually, working classes.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the presence of comments in 19th century Japanese writings extolling the virtues of Japanese rice is the fact that noone of the authors would have ever seen so much as a single grain of non-Japanese rice in their lives. Even today, rice imported into Japan is used exclusively in industrial processes such as making sembe (rice crackers). None of the journalists for those Japanese newspapers would have ever tasted a bowl of non-Japanese rice unless they were traveling outside Japan. Most likely, none of them has ever tasted a bowl of Japanese or foreign brown rice such as y family eats every day.

When I first came to Japan to live, several Japanese asked me if I liked Japanese rice, and of course I said I did. But really, in a way, Japanese rice is a little disappointing in the flavor and aroma departments. It tastes fine, but the flavor is so delicate and the aroma is so minimal that, for an aging person like me, it's almost impossible to taste of smell it at all. On my recent visit to California, I really appreciated the stronger aroma of Thai Jasmin rice and wish I'd had occasion to eat some Indian Basmati. Still, Japanese rice is fine, especially Japanese BROWN rice. Too bad so few Japanese eat it.

Back in action

Sorry I've been neglecting this. First my daughter was sick, then I was sick, then I had to go to California. Now I'm back and ready to resume, just in time for the rice harvest.