Guimauve
Japanese people can go crazy about touring from shops to shops, cafes to cafes exploring new kinds of luxury cakes and confectionaries, but this is probably the first time for luxury marshmallows to catch attention.
One TV show featured luxury marshmallows in Tokyo the other day. It seems like the petit boom started a couple of months ago around the White Day season (White Day = March 14th, a day for boyfriends to give their girlfriends a gift in return for the Valentine's Day gifts. For Valentine's girls usually give boys chocolate, and for White Day boys give white sweets like white chocolate and marshmallows).
Luxury marshmallows are those that are given labels of luxury hotels and restaurants, and they are available at the confectionary/ pastry shops of those places.
At first, I was only like, "how could marshmallows be so different?" but I happened to have a chance to buy these marshmallows for my aunt so I got a box for myself. The place I went to is the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo and they actually call them not marshmallows but "guimauve" (French, I think?), and Park Hyatt's guimauve looks like the one in the picture (I didn't bother taking a photo until the last piece so it looks kind of odd...).
The shape is like a slightly bigger version of kiss chocolate, and the texture smooth and moderately springy. As compared to regular marshmallows sold in supermarkets this one is a lot softer and delicate, and you'll feel that even more when you take one into your mouth. It's really delicate and fine. I was surprised how it melts on the tongue. It feels more like meringue barely keeping its form... and the flavor too was very rich. This one in the picture is raspberry flavor and it tasted like I was tasting raspberry puree. Very rich.
Park Hyatt had two kinds, raspberry and passion fruit, and I bet the passion fruit tastes as rich as the raspberry. A box costs Y800 (US$6.7) so although they call it luxury, it's not like it's unaffordable. I think it's certainly worth a casual gift for someone or even for yourself.
Baseball
About 10 months ago the entire country was literally stirred by the two highschool baseball monsters Saito Yuuki and Tanaka Masahiro. The same fever has now shifted to university baseball league and professional baseball league.
Winning pitcher Saito Yuuki decided to go on to higher education and entered Waseda University this past April. Waseda is one of the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League (Tokyo's uni sports conference, sort of like the equivalent to the IVY League in US) and its baseball team is strong enough, but with Saito joining the team looks like its gotten even stronger and energetic.
The participation of Saito in the Big6 didn't only vitalize his own university but brought a huge influence on the popularity of the Big6 League itself. University baseball, back 60 years ago was the most popular amateur sport that attracted the largest number of crowds (people waited in ticket lines overnight... thought this was a modern phenomenon, nevertheless...) but the popularity kind of sank in the following decades. Eventually the center of baseball became the professional leagues (we have two, the Pacific and the Central) where the top players play every night.
However, by entering university baseball instead of professional Saito brought his fans to the Big6 games and now tickets for every game he plays sell out in seconds. More games are being shown live on TV, and the goods are selling out as well as the tickets.
This weekend is going to be a festival around the Jingu Stadium and at the campuses, for the game taking place is fought between Waseda and Keio. Known as "Sokei-sen" (So for Waseda, Kei for Keio, sen means match/battle) the match-up between these two are traditionally the most popular especially for baseball, and this weekend is even more special because if Waseda wins it automatically makes Waseda the winner of the spring tournament. The game is going to be aired live on two channels which is needless to say an irregular case.
Besides the baseball game itself, Sokeisen provides a stage for another kind of battle, which is the cheering. Called "Ouen-gassen" the cheering for both schools (and other schools of the Big6 as well) is another feature of the Sokei-sen and no doubt the most important leader of the crowd. So that's another something to look out for. As for Saito, he's doing pretty well improving his baseball skills and marking good records.
The other mammoth pitcher Tanaka joined the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, a relatively knew team having its home base in Sendai. The team despite its unwell team performance in the past couple of years is quite popular and the popularity rose higher with Tanaka joining the team. He's expected a lot from the fans. Though his debut game was not really a good one for him (as far as I recall which is not too much) he's been dedicating to the team a lot in terms of results in numbers and as a stimulator for the other players. His influence on the team can be seen in the team performance of Rakuten this season. Pretty good ;-)
I wrote a while ago about Japanese food nationalism, that some of the so-called, so-sold and so-thought Japanese food aren't really Japanese. Well, this morning it was in the news that Japanese food, particularly sushi is really really popular in Moscow (and probably other parts of Russia too). So many people dream to become a sushi chef (we calle them sushi shokunin) and have their restaurants, and so many more like to enjoy sushi even though sushi by no means is inexpensive there. The news also mentioned that there are competitions for sushi chefs, and the participants as well as their art and ideas are truly amazing.
The chef I saw in this feature makes a lot of his original menus that are, from a Japanese point of view, extremely unique and unimaginable in a positive sense. The one he showed was called "fusion sushi" and as far as I can remember it had sushi rice, almond, salmon and chocolate sauce. I don't know if this is counted as a dish or a dessert, but more than I can't distinguish which it belongs to, I can't imagine what it tastes like. It sounds impossible, but since he came up with the idea and the final menu over several trials (I assume), and because there are people who like his other creative menus I bet it tastes pretty good.
I did say that authenticity is a difficult issue to talk about once something leaves its native origin and especially if it wants to be accepted from the destination it lands. But developing and changing is always a part of adjusting and adapting, of evolution in a way so I'd say this sushi chef's fusion sushi is something good. I even feel like it's outside of the authenticity issue. One of the judges for the sushi competition, an experienced Japanese sushi chef, praised the ideas of the fusion sushi chef that they are innovative, and also commented that sushi or whatever the food is should flexibly adapt to the culture it travels to.
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Switching the subject to trendy food in Japan: doughnuts
It's not like we never had doughnuts before, but doughnuts are people's favorites these days. I mentioned Krispy Kreme Doughnuts causing a crazy fad in Tokyo, well, the fad and the crazy popularity of its glazed doughnuts kind of stimulated the other doughnut shops and now there's a doughnut battle emerging (not that it's that visible).The hottest doughnuts these days are the mochi-mochi doughnuts. It isn't the name of a particular doughnut or a brand, but is the name for doughnuts that have mochi-mochi texture. Mochi-mochi is an onomatopoeia for this texture that is sticky, glutinous, kind of opposite of crisp... how should I explain... I think the expression comes from "mochi", Japanese rice cake even though I don't think it's cakelike at all. Kind of like the texture of tapioka. Anyway, the mochi-mochi doughnuts are doughnuts that have a slightly glutinous texture when you eat them and they're good :-) Um, I can't describe any further in words... maybe you'd like a look at this website: Mister Donut (Japanese)
Today's update on Japan Mode: Cherry Blossom Festivals in northern Japan
I read a news article that the Malaysian ministry of health is considering of banning advertisements on fastfood like hamburgers due to its adverse influences to health, and the article also noted that the health minister commented that hamburgers are silent killers. Well, fastfood hamburgers in Japan are also somewhat understood to have bad influences on health and yet they are pretty populat, but increasingly popular these past one or two years are what we call the "gochiso burger" which I guess can be translated to "feast burger".
Gochiso burgers, as compared to McDonald's or even Mos Burger (Mos Burger is a Japanese hamburger chain which serves pretty good hamburgers and fastfood at twice - 2.5 times more or less the price of McDonald's), are first of all large in size (much much thicker), have rich amount of meet, have lots of fresh veggies and sauce, all sandwiched by good buns. Usually they cost about anywhere b/w Y500-Y1,000, aren't wrapped with paper, can't make them to go, but are instead served with chips (fried potatoes / french fries) on a big plate. Perhaps a lot of you reading this, especially if you are an American, might think this is rather normal (maybe except for the price), but because to Japanese people the image of hamburgers are directly and immediately associated with fastfood burgers, these relatively large volume fresh burgers are considered "gochiso burgers", special "feast" burgers.
Before the gochiso burgers had become to be acknowledged as gochiso, burgers served at T.G.I.Friday's or Kua Aina were kind of like the representatives that not so many people knew. But then, someone - or rather some media apparently cast spot light on these big burgers, burgers that are not from McDonald's or Mos or Wendy's or any of those chains soon became part of slow food, luxury food and eventually gochiso burger.
Now there are many restaurants and hamburger shops that serve gochiso burgers scattering around big cities particularly in Tokyo, and going to those places for lunch on a weekend has become a kind of little relaxed luxury for some people.
In Sasebo where there's been a US camp for a long time now, there is this kind of burger called Sasebo Burger. Having said that though, Sasebo Burger isn't a specific kind of burger with specific kind of fillings, but is a generic term for Sasebo style burgers which are made by hand only after the order is made. There are many shops selling different styles of Sasebo Burgers and they are all different (although it's said that the majority use secret mayonaise). Today Sasebo Burgers are very popular and have established themselves as a local specialty of Sasebo City, but I learned recently that until it started to gain immense attention as part of a city promotion campaign of Sasebo hardly anyone cared about it. I guess its social debut is part of the gochiso burger boom.
...And now that I wrote about burgers I am dying to have one.
Oh, and completely unrelated to the topic, this song called "Fake" by J-pop musician Mr.Children has been playing over and over in my head while I write this. It's the main song for the movie Dororo which I've seen, plus their album is coming out tomorrow so I think that's why. Random songs and music play in my mind pretty much all the time while I work and it is very tempting to hum them but I dare not in office. This place needs music...
Japan Mode Update
Cherry Blossom Events in Tokyo (and other cities also)
Milk seems to be losing popularity in Japanese society recently.
This year it was the winter vegetables that were overproduced and went to waste cuz the amount harvested was just impossible to consume by ourselves, but this was because of the irregular weather. As for the situation for milk, it's not because the irregular weather grew the cows better and so the cows gave more milk. A huge amount of milk is going to waste simply because we don't drink them so much anymore.
This was the situation last year. And the situation continues if not grows worse this year.
A dairy farmer in the northern island of Hokkaido grieving the situation of the milk demand dropping extremely low, tried to come up with an idea so that the area's only industry (and therefore the chief source of income) won't completely die. Making more dairy products wouldn't improve the situation, so he had to come up with a different brillant idea.
Well, Hokkaido, besides being the top producing prefecture for a variety of vegetables, fruits and milk, happened to be Japan's prominent beer producer. This dairy farmer consulted a beer maker whether it would be possible to make beer from cow milk - and they did.
It was way off common sense and was thought to be close to impossible to make beer from milk due to the unique characteristics of milk (basically it's hard to ferment it for liquor) but wow, they did it in a year (perhaps it took longer, I'm not sure). They say the taste is rather fruity and the drink looks like filtered beer. One third of the drink is milk, so if this "bilk" catches on it would contribute largely to local economy and milk consumption. At the moment, though, it is only available at only six stores in Nakashibetsu Town in Hokkaido. I wonder what it really tastes like - I can't imagine.
That's about it for today :-)
Anybody who's a big fan of any of the following, who is living in Tokyo periphery or are planning to visit Tokyo during February check out today's update on Japan Mode <Tokyo Maniac Event February Ed>
>> Sgt.Keroro (Keroro Gunso) / CLAMP / Japanese swords (katana) / Sakuran (...more like Edo courtesans and dazzling kimono)
Japanese food culture seems to be getting increasingly popular around the world, is what I understand from different articles and TV shows lately. Most of what makes it popular comes from the healthiness which I guess we can be proud of, but personally am not too sure of. Certainly, our diet takes in a huge variation of vegetables and fish, and it is commonly known that fish fat is easier on your body than fat from other meat like beef and pork. But has anyone picking up Japanese cuisine gave attention to how salty the food on the whole can be?
Anyway, the amount of sodium is not what I wanted to write about today. Today I want to cast an eye on the fishing industry in relation to the global expansion of diet based on fish.
A couple of nights ago I saw a portion of this TV program called Spaceship Earth (Suteki na Uchusen Chikyu-go). Its topic for the night was "See the world from the kitchen : sea-bream, blowfish and flatfish are mountain delicacies!?". Well of course, these fish definitely come from the ocean.
The show started with an introduction telling us how Japanese food culture is becoming more and more popular around the world, of how the global diet tendency is turning their eyes on healthiness, and how the stomachs of the world are wanting fish. A prominent example of this is the sudden increase of the demand of tuna, save tuna-eating cultures such as Japan (I know we overfish), and the variation of fish being eaten globally seems to be expanding more and more. If the current situation continues, experts calculate that all the natural (=noncultured) fish would go extinct by 2048.
It is of course important to prevent overfishing, yet it is as important to find some kind of alternative ideas to prevent fish from completely dying out from this world. One of those alternatives a Japanese professor came up with is the invention and development of this mysterious water.
What is so mysterious about the water, you'll know immediately once you see the scene of a goldfish and snapper swimming in the same watertank. It is a water that enables saltwater fish and freshwater fish to swim together. If you see it from the conclusion the fish grown in such environment would be cultured fish, but this mysterious water has characteristics that can save culture fishery from various problems they have today.
First of all, the water composed of minimum amount of kalium, sodium and other minerals prevent fish from being affected by various diseases. Then these elements encourage fast growth of the fish, and cuts down dramatically the culturing cost. In addition, it doesn't limit the location of culture fishing to the ocean meaning in the future, there may appear saltwater fish which its production area is in the depth of mountains.
At the same time of anticipating such future, I fear the destruction of the eco-system. The best way is not to make the future into something that requires these kinds of alternatives, but the question is, is it already too late or not? There's a lot we need to think about: for us, reflect upon the amount we fish because we're definitely fishing more than we can consume - which means waste - and for the others, find out the right amount of supply that meets the demand before they fall into a situation like us.
Speaking of healthy food and Japanese food culture, the daily update on Japan Mode is Japanese Tea Culture vol.3 - which talks about the three most popular green tea refreshment drinks (canned and bottled drinks) and the Green Tea War in 21st Century Japan.
A HUGE national event is coming up this weekend. It's not so important culturally or traditionally or religiously, but it could be the crossroad of life for many youths in Japan - it's called the "center-shiken", the "center examination".
The center-exam is kind of like an equivalent to SAT in the States and though I'm not sure of the name I think there's a similar one in South Korea too (sorry, I don't know the educational systems in other countries). It's a big exam most people who want to go on to college are required to take, and the scores for this exam become the guideline and indicator of whether you have chances to go to the school of your choice.
If a Japanese person wants to go to college/university, the most common way is to take a written entrance exam (juken) and simply get high scores. But since this style of exams only pushes students to remember facts and hinders them from obtaining real learning skills in their teenage years, an increasing number of colleges/univs are getting started with interview-style and other exams based on self-presentation and self assessment. The center-exams are used for both methods though not for all schools.
You can read more about Japanese education system and issues in the educational policies here at my ex-bosses blog. It's a pretty good and detailed series and it's up to date, too.
Anyway, this center-exam is the starter of the whole college entrance exam battle, or "juken-sensou" as we call it in Japanese. It's been around for decades, and sadly it seems like even with the gradual change in education tendencies and the decline of birthrates (= scramble of students) this so-called battle won't disappear for a while.
As mentioned a bit in the past entries (fortune telling / blood type characters ) Japanese people are pretty superstitious. And together with the millennium-long tradition and natural character of playing with words, there is this funny custom of wishing best luck with objects, animals and food. For example, there is this little ornament of a frog at the entrance of my house and this is for safe return because frog is "kaeru" and "kaeru" is also the verb for "to return (home)".
Similar beliefs (though by no means serious worship) exist with good luck on passing exams. The most historical one, at least among the ones I know, is tonkatsu. Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish of pork cutlet, and I don't knot about the "ton" part but "katsu" means to win. So what people do is to eat tonkatsu before an important test.
The custom spread rapidly in the food business especially in the snack industry. A famous one - and a product even originally non-Japanese - is KitKat. KitKat pronounced in Japanese "kitto-katto" is somewhat close to the sound of a short sentence "kitto katsu" which means " (I'll/you'll probably win). "Probably" here is a pretty strong possibility. A corn puff snack Carl (kaaru) turns into the verb "to pass" if you add an "u" sound on the top so that too is an exam-lucky snack. If you switch the order of the sounds of the name of the famous chocolate stick snack Pocky, it (the sound) becomes "kippo" which is good news.
Ones that can't really related the names to good luck for the exams related the goods with cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms is the symbol in Japan for the season spring, and spring is the season when the new school year starts. The term "sakura saku" = cherry blossoms bloom is used to describe happy situations, in which somebody's long effort finally achieves a goal. Cherry blossom isn't really a food but the petals and leaves are sometimes used for dishes and sweets, and it has a unique aroma too, so snacks add hints of cherry blossom fragrance or extracts or just color the food slightly pinkish to ride on the juken wave.
Like this, a good load of snacks are trying to increase their sales by relating these snack products to the national event. The tendency is escalating every year and this year I see more than the last. Not that many people take it seriously, but I find it pretty funny looking at the line-ups on the shelves of super markets and convenience stores. It sounds stupid, but I like this aspect of Japanese character of making everything into something else and doing stupid things seriously.
We're supposed to be stern, rock-hard serious people, right?
Today's update on Japan Mode: Yojijukugo - is a four-kanji-idiom which most derive from ancient Chinese sayings but are used commonly in Japanese language. I haven't had new posts for this section for nearly two months, so it's the first update in a pretty long time. For the first edition of the new year I chose ones that have ambitious meanings.
I'm not kidding and this isn't a title of a song or a book or anything like that.
It's the oyster season here and oyster is generally popular in Japan, but the business is about to collapse this winter. The Norovirus spreading so surprisingly rapid across the nation is been said to be a kind of a food poisoning coming from clams and shellfish and naturally when those kind of warnings go around the business faces a really hard time.
One of the ports in Japan's leading oyster fishing (fishing?) prefecture Okayama decided to sell this menu "Ice Cream with Fried Oyster" and it is selling off so well. I saw a picture of it, and it was a vanilla ice cream (actually what we call "softcream" and not really ice cream) with two pieces of fried oyster stuck into the top part of the cream, with a bit of sashimi soy sauce poured on top.
UMMMMM....... not for me, no thanks.
It's sold at Y250 per cone (that's about slightly more than a couple of bucks) and the inventors say that more than 100 cones sell on weekends. I bet a lot of those 100 were bought out from pure curiosity, but anyway, how did they come up with the idea of combining ice cream and fried oyster???
Speaking of ice cream (btw I love ice cream) Japan has a whole selection of weird ice creams like shrimp, green onion, gyutan (ox tongue), miso, chicken wing...... My favorites of course are regular flavors and I don't even feel like adventuring around these - but wow, I'm impressed by the creative brains of all these inventors.
What kind of abnormal ice cream do you have in your country?
One of my co-workers told me a few days ago that there's a new kind of doughnut not that just went on sale not too far from the office and that he was going to stop by that night for dinner ("Doughnuts for dinner!? - "Why not?"). At that time I wasn't really informed in details what kind of a shop it was so I didn't know that it was a brand new shop, but anyway a couple of days later I decided to go have a look on the way back home.
I found the doughnut shop and it turned out to be the American Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and as I tried to find the entrance.... I realized that there was a loooooong line stretching out from the entrance. The line went in zig-zags in front of the shop and the people who couldn't fit in the open space in front of the shop formed a line on the other side of the shop.
I asked the person holding the "end of line" board and asked him if it was always like that and he told me that it's been worse in that past week ever since its grand opening on Dec.15th as the first KKD in Japan. I was also told that even though the shop's business hours are 7:00-23:00 they close earlier b/c of the lack of supplies.
I wanted a doughnut but I wasn't in the mood of getting in a line of an hour so I gave up that night. I still want to try these KKD doughnuts though. Guess I'll have to wait for another month if I want it w/out the trouble.
Well so, that's one example of another something from across the ocean becoming hot in Japan. Anything new here has a great chance of huge success, especially if its targeted towards young women. Most of the people in line were women in their 20s to 30s and their boyfriends (who apparantly wore tired looks on their faces) and they do not mind the cold or the wind or the hunger at 20:00 if they could get the doughnut in the news. A good deal of people are easily influenced by the phrase "the hottest (product/service) in (country name)!" even if it really isn't THAT hot... so... if any of you are seeking a business chance in Japan, there's one tip. Whatever you want to sell has to have good quality, but with a little exaggeration people would jump at it.
BTW I had a chance to go see the papabubble candy shop (see this entry) in Tokyo... and the tiny shop was full of people and barely had any candies left!
Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo (and it's the last week of 2006)
It was in the news today that fish sausage is gradually regaining social acknowledgment these days. Before, fish sausage was only something like a replacement for proper meat sausage and it was by no means a menu that was regarded as really a dish.
But in 21st century Japan, fish sausage is gaining attraction as a health food. It contains a rich amount of DHA and other nutritious components that reduces or solves various health issues. There even appeared a kind that became the country's first (government) specified health food product (no sure if that's the correct translation... sth like that) and it's selling sooo well among middle aged women especially.
Well, sounds like a healthy social tendancy. It sounds right that healthy food is being given more attention than before. But come to think of it, it wasn't just public unpopularity that made the fish sausage market shrink. A large part of it was due to the decrease of marine resources. I thought that the decrease hasn't stopped. Well then, how can the market grow bigger?
Anyway, fish sausage. Frankly I haven't had so many chances to taste it, but it's not so bad. It's just not the same as meat meat. Health conscious people, try some fish sausage.
Oooh, today's update: This week's events in Tokyo - December 4th Week AND Winter Illumination (finally finished it a week before Christmas.phew)
I am a tea-person and though I enjoy all kinds of tea, my favorite of all is Japanese green tea. Part of it may be the fact that all my grandparents live in Japan's top green tea producing prefecture, but put aside that, I like the fragrance and taste. Most times the bottled drinks I buy at supermarkets and convenience stores are green tea of one kind or another, and I like to pour some hot green tea after dinner.
It was in the news a couple of days ago that lately green tea's pretty big in many countries around the world. The day people appreciate it varies depending on the country but as far as I know most of the "drinking methods" involve a whole lot of sugar and flavor addition. Um...
Like I wrote in the "Authenticity" article I don't want to be to nationalist on the ways food and drinks from Japan are being enjoyed outside of Japan, but personally, I don't appreciate green tea to be sweet or fruity. I have experiences trying what was called green tea in the States and also in Singapore and I was shocked by the taste. They were nothing like what I expected to be. I mean, the taste was good as a beverage but it wasn't any kind of green tea that I've known of.
I hear that the reason for green tea to be so popular is because of its rich health effects, but how healthy is it if you add so much sugar...?
Anyway, green tea has been around in Japan for more than a millennium and it is so naturally a part of our daily diet, but it has been re-gathering attention and re-picking up popularity in the past couple of years. In another words, green tea is huge in Japan too like other parts of the world. The reason for its popularity is more or less the same as elsewhere, its rich health benefits. I won't go into it right now because I want to write an article about it not on this blog but on Japan Mode.
I also suppose that the whole movement of reflecting back on "Japanese-ness" or the "Wa" boom lately plays a role, too. Not so much about the fact of drinking green tea but the prints and patterns on the bottles and packages as well as the tiny free gifts or campaigns the manufacturers hold are deeply related to "Wa". "Wa" is like nationalism - NOT in the sense of politics, but culture and tradition. Since a large part of Japanese culture and tradition has to do with living in harmony with the nature, looking back at "wa" arouses a sense of comfort (which in Japanese English is called "healing") and relaxation in this society of chaotic busyness and overabundance of materials.
So, that's the 21st century green tea situation in Japan.
And today's update: Green Tea (go figure) - it's actually going to be a series cuz there's a lot I want to write about, and "Green Tea" is supposedly going to be the first series for this section called "Japanese Tea Culture" in which I plan to add the situations in Japan for Chinese tea and English tea.
There has been a minor but major dispute arising lately on Japanese cuisine outside of Japan. I'm sure some of you are quite aware of the issue for (at least what we hear on the news in Japan) the topic seems to be pretty hot on papers and news these days especially in the West.
To very briefly explain the situation to those reader who don't know about this problem: (I don't know who decided to pick on this question and how, but anyways) in a word, the Japanese government is complaining that very few of the so-called "Japanese" restaurants serve authentic Japanese food and is trying to start with the restaurants ratings system of how "Japanese" the place is, or to explain it a little clearer (but harsher) whether the restaurant is actually "Japanese" at all. Some media is criticizing this act as nationalism.
True, traveling around US, Europe and even in Southern East Asia I have had experiences encountering some... odd... "Japanese" food. Describing the food "odd" doesn't necessarily mean the taste is bad because in fact the tastes of food could be amazingly good, but there are some cases in which the ingredients or the recipes don't look Japanese at all. Tempura can be fries of many kinds of food, but hey, bananas barely grow in our country.
What happens a lot is the mixing of Far-East Asian cuisines. Something Japanese and Korean and Chinese can all be mixed and called authentic dish fromo either one of the cultures, and if you're not someone from those cultures or not a gourmet, it might be that those differences don't really matter as long as you enjoy the food.
The news tells us that only 10% of the Japanese restaurants in the US are actually owned by Japanese people, and there are many that don't even have a single Japanese cook. I wouldn't directly conclude that not having a Japanese cook or a staff would lose authenticity in the food they offer, but I am pretty sure the authenticity level would drop.
The largest part of the controversy is probably the ratings for the menus that evolved in the foreign culture but from original Japanese recipe such as California Roll Sushi. Sure, it's sushi but it was invented in California. But then, it's true that may Japanese residents outside of Japan enjoy the menu and we even reimported it into Japan.
Personally... I can't decide on which side to take without hesitation. Being a Japanese, I do have pride in our culture and food so I don't want people to misunderstand what's truly authentic and what's been created based on the original. At the same time, however, I do think that once a culture travels outside of its origin it's quite natural to adapt to where it lands. We too in Japan have all kinds of imported food cultures and many of us mix one with another at some point.
What I see a lot, and increasingly these days, are restaurants calling themselves "creative Japanese" "creative French" "creative Italian" "creative...". In many cases the cooks go through trainings in authentic cuisine of one culture or another, and then opens his/her own restaurant that serves "inspring" creative cuisine.
Sounds like the best solution, but then I assume that in the end, attaching the "creative" part or not requires some kind of rating system.
Today's update: This Week's Events in Tokyo - December 3rd Week
Do you know the self-sufficiency ratio of food supplies for your country? Our number is extremely low, somewhere between 20-40% depending on how you calculate it. That means that we are dependent on more than half or actually most of the food we feed ourselves with, including the main crucial products such as soy beans.
What I want to write about today, though, isn't about the ratio but how some of the food we can grow by ourselves is being wasted. Here I'm not talking about left-overs but raw vegetables in perfect condition waiting to be harvested.
Due to the perfect weather conditions for growing agricultural products this past autumn, we have more than enough winter vegetables in the fields. Chinese cabbage, Japanese radish, cabbage, onions and so on are being dumped in huge volumes like thousands of tons. It's so sad to see them being dumped or run over by agriculture tractors. They're not soggy at all, are in perfect shape and I bet the taste is excellent too.
The national government decided on this action to protect the farmers from vegetable inflation. Indeed, the prices for these vegetables have already dropped to less than half the average price. This policy adjustment of food demand and supply was adopted 26 years ago (I think, 26) and there has only been one year that our country didn't need to do this.
By just watching the news I bet a lot of people wonder whether those vegetables really have to be destroyed. There must be some alternative way - the TV commentators also say. Some people suggest on making them into pickles like we do with many kinds of food. Others say that because we are totally dependent on imports for ingredients for frozen food we can use part of it for that. Some others wonder if we can export them abroad or grant them to countries in need of food. But then in the end, the first two aren't so efficient in terms of volume because it will only use a small portion and a great volume will still be wasted, and the last one brings up other issues like hygiene problems and cost.
I guess crushing and dumping is the easiest and cheapest way to "adjust" demand and supply.
It's reasonable, but it's really "mottainai". I remember that not too long ago we were extremely short of green vegetables and the prices were 4 times expensive than average. Every year some part of the country suffers typhoon attacks that destroy the fields with fruit and vegetables waiting to be harvested in just two more days.
How does your government act to these kinds of situations?
Today's update: webmanga Charmy Nurse M Chapter 6 Preview
Guimauve
