Bamboo shoot (takenoko) article in the Japan Times

This month’s Japan Times article is about bamboo shoots (takenoko in Japanese, written either as ??? (‘child of bamboo’) or ?). Vacuum packed or canned bamboo shoots are available year round these days (and it’s the only way many of us can eat bamboo shoots at all), but fresh bamboo shoots taste better and have a much better texture. If you have a chance to get a hold of one, I hope you give one a try! There’s also a recipe for takenoko gohan, bamboo shoots with rice. The usual way is to cook them with finely chopped upr aburaage (thin deep fried tofu), but you may want to try the bacon variation I have written down too. The salty-fattiness of the bacon goes very well with the crunchy texture of the bamboo shoot.

This is a display of premium bamboo shoots on sale at a store in Kyoto. They were impressively big. Digging out such big bamboo shoots is awfully hard work, but with bamboo shoots, the bigger ones tend to be more tender-crisp rather than fibrous.

I remember going on a takenoko digging trip when I was a little girl with my aunt and cousins in the Chichibu mountains in Saitama prefecture. The big bamboo shoots need to be dug up with a sharp, angled digger like this one:

As I said, digging those beasts out is very hard work indeed. (You can’t just go into the mountains on your own by the way — you can only dig with permission.) Us kids were not allowed to touch the digger since it was too dangerous, so we were relagated to digging around the shoot and pulling it out. Were the fresh bamboo shoots worth it? Well…not for an 11 year old. But I guess I might think differently about it now…although my lower back may have strong objections.

View the original article here

An article about Kyoto in Asia Eater, a brand new magazine about food

I have an article in the premier issue of a brand new food magazine called Asia Eater. Published by Sabre Media, a company in Bangkok, Thailand and printed in Singapore, it’s a quarterly printed magazine all about food. As their website states:

Asia Eater is a quarterly print magazine about Asian food and food culture in Asia. Through features, essays, photo series, guest contributions, interviews and recipes we aim to cover all aspects of Asian food and drink including cooking, eating, farming, production, sustainability, trends and chefs. The magazine does not feature restaurant reviews nor any paid content.

I just received a copy of the first issue, and I really love it. It’s really refreshing to see a brand new print magazine in this day and age anyway, but one dedicated to food? From Asia? That’s not all about poncey restaurant reviews, but rather features in-depth articles about food, interviews with chefs, and even some recipes? I’m in, even if I didn’t have an article in there. Each feature is copiously illustrated with full color photographs (including mine) too. It’s slightly smaller than regular magazines, sort of a National Geographic size but wider, so I can see keeping the issues for referring to again and again. I highly recommend it if you are interested in Asian cuisine in general. The first issue has articles about Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and a lot more.

My article is about the kanmidokoro, or traditional tea and sweets restaurants, of Kyoto, with a bit of the long history of wagashi in that historic town. If you enjoyed my Postcards from Kyoto series or plan to visit Kyoto someday, I think you will enjoy it.

In any case, as I said it’s really nice to see a well put together food magazine make its debut. Check it out!

Asia Eater website I’m was interviewed by editor in chief Terry Blackburn for the latest edition of their podcast too. (I have such a hard time listening to my own voice. >.<)

ETA: You can also buy a digital copy from this link (Sorry I forgot to mention that earlier!)

View the original article here

Umeboshi (pickled 'plum') article in The Japan Times

This month’s Japan Times article is about umeboshi, the sour-salty pickled fruit (usually called a pickled plum, though it’s actually more related to an apricot) that’s practically a national symbol.

I’ve written quite a lot about umeboshi on these pages before of course, including how to make your own if you can get a hold of the fresh ume fruit, following my mother’s instructions. This time though I’ve gone a bit more into my memories of this sour-salty treat growing up, as well as its symbolism. The picture you see at the top of the article is of a hinomaru bento - a bed of white rice with a single umeboshi. It looks rather like the Japanese flag, which is called the hinomaru, thus the name. The hinomaru bento has been alternately a symbol of poverty, and a symbol of wealth. During times of peace and plenty, it was a symbol of poverty; if you could only afford to eat rice and not much else, you could somehow get the rice down with the help of an umeboshi. Even looking at an umeboshi could help, since it got the salivatory glands going. But in times of war, rice itself became a precious commodity. All domestic rice production was reserved for feeding the army during WWII, and while the rich and influential could get their hands on some, regular people had to make do with other grains like millet. After the war, rice was imported from Southeast Asia to make up for deficiencies, but people hated the gaimai (rice from ‘outside’) that was so different from the type of rice they were used to. (See Looking At Rice.) So a hinomaru bento with ‘real’ japonica rice was a coveted luxury.

Nowadays of course we live in times of plenty, and that extends to the umeboshi. Not that many people make their own umeboshi anymore in Japan - and why should they? The variety of umeboshi you can get just about anywhere is staggering. This is the umeboshi display at a typical Tokyo department store food hall.

And here are various kinds of umeboshi on sale. Some are low-salt, some don’t use any red shiso (perilla), some are marinated in dashi stock, and so on.

Prices vary wildly too. You can get a packet of serviceable umeboshi for 100 yen, at the 100 yen shops like Daiso or Lawson 100, or ultra-gourmet varieties that cost 500 to 700 yen and more per umeboshi.

I know, I have not been updating here much again. I don’t know what to say, except that I’ve not been feeling too well. My energy is way low, my back keeps hurting, and now my eyes are bothering me a lot. The last one really cuts down on my online time. All this is attributed to the cancer treatments and so on, and is supposed to get better with time. I certainly hope so. T_T

View the original article here

Eating sakura (cherry blossoms and leaves) article in the Japan Times

My latest article in The Japan Times is about edible cherry blossoms and leaves. Japanese people love the cherry tree so much that not only do they eagerly look forward to their all too short flowering season each spring, they use the whole plant. They eat the berries of course later on (cherries are called sakuranbo and are in season in June and July) but they also eat the blossoms and the leaves, pickling them in salt and umeboshi vinegar (a by-product of making umeboshi). The wood is used for various things too, as well as the bark. See how sakura bark strips are used in the making of magewappa (bent wood) bento boxes here on JustBento. The bark is also boiled and used as a medicinal tea.

Some photos that didn’t get into the article below.

This is how salted/pickled sakura leaves and flowers are typically sold. The flat package contains leaves, and the jar has flowers. You can find them in well stocked supermarkets or in department store food halls in Japan around this time of the year.

Closeup of some cherry blossoms straight out of the jar. As you can see they are quite salty, so for most uses you need to soak them in water for a bit. But for sakurayu or sakura tea, just put a blossom or two in a cup of hot water. The ‘tea’ is salty and sour with a subtle fragrance.

The easiest way to enjoy the taste of sakura in Japan is via wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets). This is a sakuramochi - an an (sweet bean paste) filled mochi cake wrapped in a sakura leaf. The salty-sour taste of the leaf is a perfect foil to the sweetness of the cake inside.

Here’s another kind of sakuramochi; the mochi cake is made of Doumyouji rice, which is medium grain instead of short grain.

How the sakuramochi looks inside. It’s a nice couple of bites.

This is a sakura manjuu. The filling is an again, but the dough is different from mochi (but still made with rice). The top is decorated with sakura flavored salt. You can also find sakura manjuu with a salted cherry blossom on top.

Finally here is a sakura-flower shaped nerikiri, a delicate confection made just from smooth an. Beautiful, isn’t it? It doesn’t actually taste like sakura, unlike the more rustic sakura mochi and sakura manjuu, but it’s meant to enjoy the season via the eyes. This one is from Kagizen Yoshifuka, a famous old tea room in Kyoto that I have written about previously a couple of times.

You can also buy seasonal sakura flavored candies, chocolates and the like but to be honest, most of these are pretty but just taste like sugar.

I have noticed that a lot of people (at least in my circles) are travelling to Japan this spring. This is a good thing. If you’re in Japan or planning to go there soon, enjoy the sakura season!

View the original article here

Setsubun and beans article in the Japan Times and food superstitions

This month’s Japan Times article is about the traditions and superstitions surrounding Setsubun or Risshun, the first day of spring, which is coming up on February 3rd. The focus of the article is on the tradition of mamemaki, or the throwing of roasted beans to drive away oni, the fierce evil spirits that embody bad luck. I’ve always wondered myself why beans are thrown - and now, through my research, I know. It’s really fascinating to find out about all the rituals and traditions of yore, and I get to explore them at depth through writing about them.

While I did know about the bean-throwing tradition, and I have previously written about the ehoumaki tradition of eating a fat, uncut sushi roll which has become popularized all over Japan in recent times, I didn’t know about the tradition of hanging grilled sardines (iwashi), until I talked to my mother about it. I’d never heard how she and her siblings used to hang sardine heads under the porch when she was growing up. I love the idea of the neighbohood cats coming to feast on the anti-evil fish heads in the middle of the night, probably thumbing their paws at the silly superstitions of humans.

Here is a lucky setsubun meal with grilled sardines, stewed beans, and mame gohan (soy beans cooked with rice), something they ate in my mom’s small hometown in Saitama.

The recipe for the beans and rice is in the article. By the way if you live in Japan or nearby a well stocked Japanese grocery store, you can buy canned cooked soy beans. These will cut down your cooking time considerably.

And speaking of beans - aren’t these gorgeous? Can you believe that three of them are variations of soy beans? The ones on the upper left are regular white-beige ones, the ones on the upper right are green soy beans, and the ones on the bottom are red soy beans. (The beans to the left and right are azuki and kuromame or black beans). They are big, round and absolutely delicious. They were sent via my mom by Kamo Dofu Kinki in Kyoto, who makes spectacular soy milk and tofu from them. (Read more about Kamo Dofu Kinki and their tofu-centered restaurant, Sosoan.) Ah, I’m missing Japan so much right now.

The main memory of setsubun that I have as a kid is going to the local Shinto shrine and trying to catch the bags of roasted beans the priests threw while chanting oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi. I would always get an upset tummy from eating too many of those roasted beans, but they were so good.

And finally: remember my stepfather dressing up as Santa for Christmas? It looks like he has more plans for dressing up…

Japanese traditional culture is chock full of food related rituals, superstitions and beliefs. How about your culture? What kind of food related traditions does it have, and what are their meanings? One that comes to mind for me in Western/European culture is the one about spilling salt being unlucky, and throwing a little pinch of it over your shoulder to counteract that bad luck. What are some others? The more regional and obscure, the better!

View the original article here

Asian Souper Bowls (my Wall Street Journal article)

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January 22, 2012Asian Souper Bowls (my Wall Street Journal article)

Last week was kind of a neat media week. Along with the Asian tofu story coming out in Martha Stewart Living magazine, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece I wrote on Asian soups. Why is the Wall Street Journal doing food? It’s been doing it for years. In fact, the Journal regularly published great food stories. Some are reportorial and business-y while others are practical with recipes.  

I was assigned to write about wintry Asian soups so I came up with a concept built on a master chicken stock recipe and four (4) soup recipes based on that stock. The pan-Asian collection of soups included Chinese hot-and-sour soup; Thai tofu, pork, and seaweed soup; Vietnamese chicken and cellophane noodle soup; and Japanese gyoza dumplings in smoky chicken soup.  The Chinese and Thai recipes are from the upcoming Asian Tofu cookbook so if you're inclined, give them a try!

If you subscribe to the Journal, “Asian Souper Bowls” ran as the cover story in the Journal’s weekend “Off Duty” section and jumps to the second page.  If you don’t subscribe, you may be able to read the article online. (WSJ has a tiered subscription so there may not be a way for you to access the story. If you can't see Crystal's workaround below. She shared a link through GoogleNews!)

As a teaser to the story, the Journal also had me do a Skype video interview on Friday's "Lunch Break" live news show. 

 

So on Tet Eve, I wanted to wrap up the Year of the Rabbit with by sharing this post. You may or may not have a big to-do for tomorrow, but maybe you’ll brew up a cozy pot of soup in the Year of the Dragon!

Chuc Mung Nam Moi
Gong Xi Fa Cai
Gong Hay Fat Choi

(Happy New Year in Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese)

 

Posted in Asian food news, Recipes: All, Recipes: Chinese, Recipes: One-Dish Meals, Recipes: Soup, Recipes: Thai, Recipes: Tofu | Permalink

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Comments Asian Souper Bowls (my Wall Street Journal article)

Last week was kind of a neat media week. Along with the Asian tofu story coming out in Martha Stewart Living magazine, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece I wrote on Asian soups. Why is the Wall Street Journal doing food? It’s been doing it for years. In fact, the Journal regularly published great food stories. Some are reportorial and business-y while others are practical with recipes.  

I was assigned to write about wintry Asian soups so I came up with a concept built on a master chicken stock recipe and four (4) soup recipes based on that stock. The pan-Asian collection of soups included Chinese hot-and-sour soup; Thai tofu, pork, and seaweed soup; Vietnamese chicken and cellophane noodle soup; and Japanese gyoza dumplings in smoky chicken soup.  The Chinese and Thai recipes are from the upcoming Asian Tofu cookbook so if you're inclined, give them a try!

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Splendid Table Radio Interview
Sat, 3/3/2012
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Asian Tofu Book Talk
Tues, 3/6/2012, 7:30pm
A little tofu tasting too!
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Asian Tofu Workshop
Tues, 3/13/2012, 6:30-9pm
Demo class w/ participation
Draeger’s San Mateo, CA

Asian Tofu Book Talk
Sat, 3/24/2012, 3-4pm
Celebrate spring: Think, talk & taste tofu!
Omnivore Books, SF, CA

Int'l Assoc. of Cul. Prof.
Thurs, Mar 29 - Tues, Apr 2
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Asian Tofu Workshop
Sun, 4/1/2012, 6pm-10pm
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Mochi and New Year's article in the Japan Times, plus a very rich buttery mochi dish

I am a few days late posting this, but this month’s Japan Times article is about the traditions surrounding mochi or omochi, the sticky pounded rice cake. Mochi is both eaten and displayed in the display alcove of Japanese homes through the New Year’s holiday period (which usually lasts until the 3rd). The main display piece is a kagamimochi, or “mirror mochi” (read the article for the origins of that name). I didn’t get to include a photos of a kagamimochi in the article, but here’s a nice photo of a typical modern version by David Z. from flickr:

As you can see, the satsuma or clementine on top is plastic, and the mochi itself is sealed in a plastic container, which keeps it fresh for eating later. In the olden days the mochi stack was exposed for days, developing cracks along the surface. Some people interpreted the cracks to mean the year would be good or bad. The modern plastic-clad version is not as picturesque, but it probably is a lot more hygenic.

Ready-to-grill dried mochi cakes are easy of course, but if you want to make mochi from scratch and you don’t have a mochi making machine, here is my method for making mochi with a heavy-duty mixer, such as a KitchenAid. I’ve tried this many times and it always comes out pretty well! Although I do have to watch my mochi intake..they are basically compressed and condensed white rice - pure carbs. Ouch.

Speaking of caloric…did you know that the bland taste of mochi is a perfect foil for very Western ingredients such as cheese and butter? When I was a kid, my sister and I used to love making ‘mochi pizza’ - pre-grilled mochi spread with ketchup (we didn’t have pizza sauce in Japan back then), topped with shredded cheese and a bit of Italian seasoning.

I saw the original version of this buttery mochi dish on a Japanese TV show about a small nori maker. I’ve since tweaked it quite a bit, using brown butter (or in other words, letting the butter cook a bit more until it’s browned) which I think improves it quite a bit. The nori maker’s wife said it was her favorite way to enjoy mochi. No wonder - it s is absolutely delicious…and so very bad for you. Not the best thing to start off a new year filled with good intentions maybe…so perhaps save it for a special occasion, like surviving the first day back at work/school.

Serves 1 to 5.

5 square mochi cakes (available at a Japanese grocery store in the dried foods section) 1 stick or 4 oz / 120g unsalted butter (see recipe)1 Tbs. soy sauce 1/2 cup (approximate) chopped green onion 2 sheets of nori seaweed, crumbled

Pre-grill the mochi cakes on a mochi grill, or in a toaster oven or regular oven. If using a toaster oven, cook the mochi cakes for about 5-7 minutes or until they puff up, and are blistered and slightly browning on the surface. (The puffing will deflate once you take them out.) If using a regular oven, preheat it to 400°F / 200°C , put the mochi cakes on a baking sheet lined with kitchen parchment paper or silicone baking sheets to prevent sticking, and bake for 5-10 minutes until puffy and blistered. If using a mochi grill, put the grill on a burner set to medium-low, plop the rice cakes on and watch then puff up. Flip over once.

Melt the butter in a hot frying pan over medium heat until it starts to brown a bit (for a more detailed description of how to make brown butter, see Elise’s method). Drizzle in the soy sauce - be careful, it may spit a bit.

Put the grilled mochi cakes in the pan in a single layer and cook until the mochi starts to just brown a bit and the whole thing smells caramel-y and marvelous. Flip over and cook for another minute. Be careful not to let the butter burn.

Transfer to a plate, pouring any residual butter over the mochi. Sprinkle the crumbled nori (your hands are the best tool for crumbling) and green onions on top. Serve while piping hot, making sure each mochi bite is well covered in that butter. Tell yourself you’ll go on a diet the next day.

If you use salted butter, reduce the soy sauce to 1/2 or simply omit it. You can season with a little salt instead of soy sauce.

If you don’t like nori, the green onions alone are pretty good. Or try…crispy bacon and green onion. Really.

View the original article here

Setsuden article in The Japan Times, plus suzumi or 'keeping cool' the traditional way

In my Japan Times article this month, I talk about setsuden or cutting down on electricity use, a critical topic this summer in Japan due to so many power plants (both nuclear and otherwise) being offline temporarily or permanently. This is not just in the devastated Tohoku region, or the Tokyo-Kanto region that TEPCO covers, but nationwide. With daytime temperatures nearing 40 degrees celsius already, it may be a long and difficult summer in Japan. Hopefully the article will give some ideas for making setsuden a bit easier, and even a little fun. (Incidentally, I’m sort of hoping setsuden becomes a widespread word; it’s so compact and descriptive, much better than ‘cutting down on electricity use’, isn’t it?)

Since my Japan Times article is in the Food section, I do focus on things you can do in the kitchen, but there are other low- or no-electricity ways to keep cool too. As I mention in the article, many department stores in Japan have set up suzumi or “keep cool” product sections, where they sell a lot of traditional items that help you feel a bit cooler. These range from things like fans, absorbent towels, bedding and handkerchiefs, to more aesthetic things like fuurin or wind bells. I bought the one pictured here and in the Japan Times article in Asakusa, Tokyo. They’re called Edo Fuurin, and they have been made in the Asakura area since the feudal Edo period. (Yep, even in modern Tokyo some traditional crafts are kept alive.) It’s very thin handblown glass, handpainted with irises. They had other summery designs too, like morning glories, hydrangeas, and goldfish.

Goldfish are associated with summer because they are, or at least used to be, a ubiquitous part of any summer festival or omatsuri. I remember trying to catch those elusive goldfish with wire rings lined with the weakest ever paper. If I managed to catch one, I would carry it home proudly in a little plastic bag of water, and dump it into a bowl…where it would live for a week or so at most before dying (I had no idea about filtering the water, etc.) and I had to give it a fishie burial.

Here’s another suzumi item - a little strap or netsuke to hang from a cellphone or, in this case my coin purse. It’s shaped like a tiny glass eggplant-shaped fish bowl, and it has a miniscule goldfish and a gold coin inside. It doesn’t physically cool you, but looking at such a cool, cute item does perhaps make you feel a tiny breath of imaginary cooling air. It’s resting on another traditional item that helps to keep you cool, a woven cotton cloth called a tenugui, which is used in all kinds of ways, including just to wipe off sweat.

In any case, if you happen to be visiting Japan this summer, do be aware that trains and stores are not blasting the air conditioning as much as usual. You may want to carry a little fan with you to keep cool. Japan has terrific absorbent handkerchiefs, made of toweling and cotton gauze and things like that, which are great for mopping your brow with. And why not look for little, cool suzumi items too? You may learn a little about Japanese traditions as you combat the hot, sticky weather.

View the original article here

Spring vegetables article in the Japan Times

I seem to have vegetables on my mind a lot these days - it is springtime after all. This month’s article for the Japan Times is all about spring vegetables that are more or less unique to Japan. You may know about takenoko or bamboo shoots, but do you know fuki, and warabi, and udo? And did you know that the young leaves of the wasabi plant are a great delicacy, only available in the spring? Well…read and find out!

If you are in Japan, you can get these vegetables is to just go to your local well-stocked supermarket or department stall food hall. Unfortunately, as far as I know most of these vegetables are not available outside of Japan, unless you grow them yourself or are very lucky and find them at a Japanese grocery store or something like that. (But most readers of the Japan Times live in Japan so I can get away with writing about only-in-Japan things a bit more there ^_^;.) I don’t even know if you can get the seeds for them. You can get the roots of some things, such as fuki (butterbur) or wasabi and try your luck. My mother used to grow a ton of fuki in her garden on Long Island, NY. It even became a bit invasive. So if you can get some roots, give it a go!

I have to admit that as a kid, I used to hate all of these wild vegetables, especially fuki and fuki no tou, because of their bitterness. Now I crave them. Modern hybridized vegetables seem so uniformly bland, that it’s rather nice to have a zing of extra sharpness or bitterness from varieties that have not had all the bite bred out of them.

Here are some more spring vegetables sold at the Nishiki market in Kyoto and Tsukiji Jougai (outdoors) market in Tokyo these past couple of weeks. (I’ve written about the Nishiki Market here, but not about the Tsukiji Market. And I should, because all in all I prefer the more raucous Tokyo market. I’ll get to it soon.)

So, this is from Nishiki Market. If you can read hiragana, see how many unfamiliar vegetable labels you can make out. ^_^ For instance, I have no idea how “aloe shoots” (aroe no me) are supposed to be eaten, or that they were eaten at all.

Another from the Nishiki Market. On the right are some gorgeous looking mitsuba - you should be able to get mitsuba at least at well stocked Japanese grocery stores. On the left are bunches of flowering wasabi. I’ve never had these but I imagine you prepare them the same way as wasabi leaves (called wasabi-na in the eastern part of Japan, ha-wasabi in the west).

This display is from the Tsukiji outdoors market. (Outdoors or jougai means it’s outside of the wholesale area, where the famous fish auctions take place. Tons of little shops line the streets and are worth a trip even if you can’t get into the wholesale area.) The main thing on show here is kogomi, a mountain vegetable similar to warabi. You can also see gyouja ninniku in the back right - these are sort of like bärlauch or wild garlic.

And finally, some pretty nice looking wasabi roots for sale at Tsukiji, in case you’ve never seen the real thing.

The Japan Time article has a recipe for tempura using some of these spring vegetables. Another way to enjoy them is to simply blanch them (some vegetables need special de-bittering treatment, which is described in the article) and serve with a dressing. Here’s a little dish of blanched nanohana with the thinly sliced raw mountain udo core. Udo is a bit like parsnip; the outer part is a bit tough, and the core is tender and nice eaten raw in a salad. The sauce here is sumiso, a mixture of white miso, vinegar and a little sugar.

As I say in the Japan Times article you don’t want to eat a big amount of these vegetables, but in small quantities they are really wonderful, a sure sign of spring.

The very fact that these vegetables are even eaten at all (tree shoots? Fern sprouts?) shows how resourceful people used to be - or maybe how desperate they were for food. Kind of puts those people panic-buying cup noodles from convenience stores to shame. Anyway…eating these bitter vegetables is a reminder of our past, not only in terms of our food culture, but showing us what we are capable of.

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Hinamatsuri (Girl's Festival) article in the Japan Times, plus my aunt's antique hina dolls

The new Japan Times article by me out today is about Hinamatsuri, or Girl’s Festival, which falls on March 3rd. I’ve talked about Hinamatsuri on this site previously, but the article goes a lot deeper into the traditions and origins of the day, which is to celebrate the well-being and happiness of girls and women. There is also a recipe of course - for a Hinamatsuri-colored spring chirashizushi (scattered sushi), which is great for parties since it’s so easily scaleable. I hope you check it out! (If you’re looking for daintier, but fiddlier, Hinamatsuri-appropriate sushi, try shell-shaped Hamaguri zushi, or little ball-shaped Temari zushi.)

Hinamatsuri is a day for girls. There’s also a day for children on May 5th (Kodomo no hi), but I guess to the people of the olden days the only children that counted were boys, because just about all of the Children’s Day traditions are boy-centric! Only households with boys are supposed to put up a flagpole flying koinobori, or carp-shaped wind socks, and the only doll displayed is of a little warrior. Growing up in a household with only sisters, I always vaguely resented the colorful koinobori flown by our across the street neighbors, and never related to Children’s Day much. Girl’s Day on the other hand was just for us.

Although the Japan Times article is mostly focused on the food-related customs of Hinamatsuri, I also talk a little about the centerpiece of the day, the hina dolls. The prince and princess dolls (odairi-sama and ohina-sama) shown in the article belong to my aunt - they are an antique set she inherited from her mother-in-law. Here’s the complete display. There’s the newlywed prince and princess flanked by two lanterns (bonbori), three ladies in waiting (san-nin kan-nyo), 5 musicians (go-nin bayashi), and two bodyguards or soldiers, one an archer and the other a spear carrier. The three bearers of goods on the bottom rung accompanying the princess’s dowry chests are rather unusual - most sets don’t have them. (The custom of bringing a chest of drawers (tansu) with you when you get married still lingers today, especially out in rural areas.) Then there’s the couple’s wedding feast trays with bowls, and two peach trees, one in full flower and the other one with fruit.

Even the most expensive and elaborate modern hina doll sets with handcrafted dolls made of wood or ceramic and real fabric, are let down by the cheap-feeling plastic accessories that come with them. They look okay from a distance, but up close they are well, plastic. This set on the other hand has real lacquered wood and cast-porcelain accessories. According to my aunt, the set originally belonged to an aristocratic family, who had to sell it in the postwar period when their finances got tight. It was most likely custom made for the family in better times. It’s quite fascinating to imagine all the little girls who must have taken out these dolls every year to display and admire them, so many years ago.

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Toshikoshi Soba (year-end soba) article in The Japan Times, plus a bit about my niece and nephew

I’ve had an article with recipe in The Japan Times every month since August. Writing for them is a bit different than writing for my blogs; I try to focus more on the story behind the food, and I also write for English speaking people living in Japan, who are the main audience for the paper. It’s an interesting challenge every month! Anyway, for this month I have an article about Toshikoshi soba, or year-end soba. It goes into a lot more of the historical background and origins of the custom of eating soba noodles on New Year’s Eve than my old toshikoshi soba post from back in 2003. The recipe is also a bit different; instead of using pre-made kaeshi or storebought mentsuyu, I give instructions for making the soup totally from scratch using konbu seaweed, bonito flakes, soy sauce, mirin and sugar. Again I’m assuming that most of the readers have ready access to these ingredients, as well as the kamaboko topping. Anyway, I hope you’ll take a look!

I’ve used my favorite eating-model again for the top photo accompanying the article, my 9 year old niece Lena. (I’ve spelled her name phonetically as “Rena” on these pages before, but she apparently favors the spelling “Lena”. Her name in kanji is ??.) I love my nephew Lyoh, her older brother, just as much of course, but he tends to pull awful/funny faces when I point the lens at him, as boys will do. Lena-chan is a great model; she loves to pose for the camera when she’s aware of it, and when she’s not she has the most adorable, intent look on her face. Here she is eating some sushi. She’s checking under the fish for wasabi, since she doesn’t like it.

Lena and Lyoh are both great kids, though I may be biased as their aunt. They are quite rambunctious and can start a wrestling match in the back seat of their dad’s SUV at the drop of a hat, but they’re definitely not kids that their parents are afraid to take out to a restaurant at any time. Even when they were younger, they knew how to behave themselves. Here’s Lena-chan eating soba again when she was just 6 years old, with my mother looking on fondly. Even when she was little, she had great table manners.

I spent a weekend with my sister, her husband and the kids at Hakone, a popular resort area at the foot of Mount Fuji, in November. We ate out a lot of course, and wherever we went the kids behaved themselves impeccably. When we went to a kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurant, Lyoh even ordered some special items directly to the waitress just like his dad. (Tip: if you want to be ensured of freshly made sushi at a kaiten-zushi place rather than sushi that may have been around the track several times, just put your order in for something directly.) I don’t think they are necessarily unusual - most kids in restaurants are quite well behaved, especially in Japan. But I was reminded of how jarring kids in restaurants can be the other day when I was at a cafe, where a set of parents were ignoring the fact that their kids were running around rampant. It happens in all countries, and I really think it’s all up to how the parents react. Lyoh happens to have ADD and some other problems, so he can get a bit agitated sometimes, but when that happens one of his parents talk him down quietly so that he breathes and calms down.

I love this photo of the kids that I took at Tokyo Disney. It really shows their personalities. Lena-chan is trying to pose cutely for the camera, and there’s Lyoh-kun totally ignoring it and jumping up and down, full of beans.

Another fun thing about my niece and nephew is that they both prefer washoku or Japanese food most of the time over Western food. Sure, they do beg for a Makku (Japanese slang for McDonald’s) visit sometimes as all kids do, but not that much. When we went out for breakfast at a diner-type place, the adults all ordered “morning sets” with toast, eggs, and so on, but the kids both ordered traditional Japanese style sets with rice, miso soup, pickles and fish or chicken. When I took them to Tokyo Disney back in the spring, they grew tired of eating things like Mickey Mouse shaped pastries, so their mother went out to get them some bentos, which they tucked into happily. Lena is especially fond of Japanese food. Here she’s eating some mitarashi dango.

I really miss seeing the kids at this time of year, so please excuse my rambling on about them. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

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Marine Fights Vietnam's Dog-Meat Tradition: LA Times article

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December 13, 2010Marine Fights Vietnam's Dog-Meat Tradition: LA Times article

This is a touchy subject but it is part of Asian foodways. I was recently interviewed for a Los Angeles Times article on US Marine Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lucius's effort to change Vietnamese mindset on the eating of dog meat.

While serving as an attache at the U.S. embassy in Hanoi, Lucius locked eyes with a dog that was destined to be slaughtered. The event precipitated his becoming a vegan and launching a Kairos Coalition, an educational nonprofit that aims to end animal cruelty.

Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Chawkins and I talked about Vietnamese foodways and the eating of dog meat. Chawkins's provocative article was published today.

Take a read of his article. I've also found several others for your consideration.

Marine Fights Vietnam's Dog-Meat Tradition (Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times, 12/13/10)China Banning Dog Meat? (Robyn Eckhardt, Zester Daily, 2/19/10)The Dog Meat Mafia (4-part series on Southeast Asia's dog meat trade) (Patrick Winn, Global Post, 11/29/09) I've Got Dog Breadth and My Puppy Might Know (Mark Lowerson, Sticky Rice, 2005)What's Wrong with Eating Dogs? (William Saletan, Slate, 2002)

I've never eaten dog meat but understand that it has a special taste that some people love. Certain breeds are bred for food while many others are kept as pets. As Vietnam's economy improves, you see more people with pet dogs. Nevertheless, the practice of eating dog meat endures.

Dog is treated as a specialty food in parts of Asia.  It's an exotic meat, a delicacy so to speak. Not all Asian people eat dog. Sadly, there have been awful stereotypes of Asian people as dog meat eaters. It is not everyday food. There are many other things to eat!

In Vietnam, dog is mostly a northern thing. A head-to-tail rigor is applied to the carcass and little is wasted. The flesh can be skewered and grilled or simmered into stewy dishes. The entrails are made into sausages.

Robust galangal, lemongrass, shrimp sauce (mam tom), and turmeric are the common seasonings in Vietnamese dog preparations. In Vietnamese, dog meat is called "thit cho" and "thit cay."  There are restaurants that specialize in it so you'll likely see it on signage in Vietnam.

There are also a number of Vietnamese mock dog dishes that employ pork as a substitute. Cookbooks published in Vietnam typically list recipes for dog meat in addition to those featuring pork, beef, rabbit, and goat -- just to name the four-legged animals.

Chawkins' article points out that dogs are sometimes tortured before being harvested. The theory is that such an animal is good for the male libido. That's ridiculous. It is cruel to treat an animal with such disrespect, especially when it will grace your table. Seriously.

What are your thoughts on Asia's dog-meat eating tradition? With regard to Lucius's campaign to alter Vietnamese foodways, do you think that is it cultural imperialism? Cultural relativism? An animal rights/cruelty issue?

Thanks for weighing in. I realize that this may be an uncomfortable subject to ponder.

Posted in Asian Food Culture, Viet Food in Media | Permalink

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My father vowed never to return to Vietnam because the Viet Cong slaughtered his dog for dinner almost 40 years ago.

I have 3 dogs of my own and I find it repulsive that anyone would want to eat dogs. But I can see how someone would be intrigued by the taste of dogs' flesh. There are people who are adventurist eaters. Why else would someone eat monkey brains, horse meat, human flesh...? Conservative eaters have defined what is "proper" and "appropriate" to eat. These same people would problem die from shock and horror if they were to walk the streets of Thailand and Cambodia and see the bugs and insects that sold in the stalls.

Posted by:Thuy |December 13, 2010 at 12:01 PM

When we were wandering around in Hanoi earlier this year, I asked my spouse "What's that smell - is it roast lamb?" Turned out to be a street of dog-meat restaurants. We didn't eat any (still full of breakfast pho) but I can still remember how good it smelled.

Posted by:Eve |December 13, 2010 at 12:04 PM

I've never eaten dog, well I think I have never eaten dog. There was once or twice in China I was not sure what it was.
I've eaten horse and it was the best meat I had ever eaten.
But who are we to lecture other cultures on what they can and can not eat. Who are we Victorian era Christian Missionaries.

Posted by:Mzungu |December 13, 2010 at 12:57 PM

I am moving to China in a few weeks and your post has reminded me that I had better watch what I eat in restaurants there - that I had better learn how the Chinese call their dog meat...

The thought of eating dog, turtle, snake, horse, rabbit makes me sick. I have nothing against those who like them - but personally I cannot stomach the thought of eating those animals. I love a good steak so I'm far from vegetarian, but I like to pay for my meat and know that it has been farmed ethically, treated well etc. I'm also trying not to eat animals that have been slaughtered too young.

Best to eat lesser but better. There is enough meat to go around, no need to seek out the exotic in my opinion.

Posted by:Beaulotus |December 13, 2010 at 01:23 PM

I have to admit, the thought of eating any sort of predator (dogs, sharks, etc) turns me off. But if there's going to be a true sea change in Vietnam where animals are protected, langurs, various monkey species, tigers, rhinos, endangered lizards, plus species that exist only in Vietnam -- these seems to me to be far more needing of legal protections.

Posted by:Mary |December 13, 2010 at 01:49 PM

Lucius's focus (as a vegan) is not just on dogs, but on all meat. The LA Times piece is focused on dogs, and American donors to Lucius's campaign are focusing on dogs... but I think Lucius's actual outreach program in Vietnam is more about discouraging meat consumption in general, or, in his words, conveying "important social messages about animal welfare, environmental sustainability, empathy & tolerance."

I'm interested in why the dog aspect of this story is most interesting to Americans. What is the difference between raising dogs for meat and raising pigs for meat? Is the concern that pets might be kidnapped and eaten?

Posted by:Erica |December 13, 2010 at 02:12 PM

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