So, you're going to Japan. If you're interested in all the rumours of the dieting world, you've probably heard of the benefits of so-called 'Japanese diet', and looking forward to all the pounds you're going to shift. Let me enlighten you on the subject here: unless you're lucky enough to live with a host family where the host mother doesn't work and devotes herself to cooking the elaborate Japanese dishes all day long, or you have a hell lot of money to spend on food in 料理屋, riouriya, traditional Japanese restaurants, chances are that instead of being head over heals with great Japanese food, you'll be eating unimaginable crap. And I mean - CRAP.
If you happen(ed) to know me in the real-life, you'd have probably noticed with fair clarity that I'm an omnivore. More to that: I generally am a really non-fussy eater, every host's dream - a kind of omnivore that would not only eat two portions of everything, you placed in front of them, but even lick the plate clean. Equiped by Mother Nature with no interest in the field and very limited cooking skills performed occassionally and VERY reluctantly (mostly because of my most hated activity that inevitably follows the process, meaning washing the dishes), foodwise, I really don't expect miracles. I am far from giving food the extraordinary healing powers and life-changing qualities. I can't be bothered with unnecessary efforts or diets. I do hold respect for the people who can tell the difference from shiitake and porchini mushrooms (remembering this this episode of Sex and the City, girls?), but it doesn't make me stop laughing at them. And I seriously can't produce a dish tasting exactly the same each and every time, probably due to my recipe dislexia. Hence - I didn't have massive expectations about Japanese food. Sorry, correction here - I had none.
How surprised were I to discover that the Japanese food sucks. Yes, I'm standing my ground here - it SUCKS. It sucks for me, person brought up in the country of proper cuisine and culinary traditions (Poland), and then although British at heart, following mostly Italian/Mediterranean diet with few international exeptions, because it suits my pallatae best.
Firstly, It's the taste, or rather the lack of it. Japanese food is just bland beyond my understanding. Let me just say that there is the reason why Korean and Chinese food are so popular here, and every Japanese knows what キムチ(kimchi) is... It's even more surprising when you realize it somehow manages to stay this tastless despite the fact that it's ouzing with salt and the really salty say sauce.
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| Looks quite innocent, but believe me - that was one of the most disgusting things that ever came from under my fingers, made exactly according to Japanese specifications. |
Secondly - it is plain boring. It's just rice with rice, on rice. Or with rice-made dessert, which almost always contains anko, sweet red bean paste, no other filling, unless you encounter some カスタード (kasutaado, custard - believe me, it has nothing to do with the real thing) or チョコレート (chokoreeto; in theory chocolate, in practice ib idem). Occassionally you'll find some noodles here and there, that are mostly a/ overcooked, and b/ you've guessed it, bland. There is no variety when it comes to carbohydrates. It's just rice and occassionally Chinese-style noodles. The bread and other baked goods here are absolutely inedible and bland, and it drives me crazy when they call it 'French' or 'European'. It proves the ignorance, I guess, the closest I can think of, with full respect, is American, but they would choke on the lack of taste as well.
Thirdly, it's too time consuming to prepare for what it's worth. It might look simple, but unless you apply the precise amount of ingredients in a specific order, dig them under the full moon in a damp soil and add a very secret ingredient that not only costs an arm and a leg, but is completely useless for any other recipes but one - it will simply not work. If you're very visual like me, and prefer Nigella Lawson's style of cooking (just a bit of that and that, now that, you can replace that and that, no worries, just relax and cook), you will come to this conclusion, too.
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| I managed to somewhat recycle the shrimps from the previous culinary disaster, though. This 'curry' invention was surprisingly edible. |
Fourthly, the ingredients are riddiculously expensive. Food is really expensive here. Few trays of meat cost less than a basketful of three choosen vegetables, unfortunatelly the meat is far from particularly tasty as well. It's mostly pork (豚肉, buta-niku) or pork and beef blend (牛豚肉 gyuubuta-niku), a chicken here and there (鶏肉, niwatori-niku). The better beef is more expensive, and usually imported, from Australia or New Zealand. I've once encountered American, but it was an exception confirming the rule. All in all - it makes Japan one of these weird places in the world where, illogically, eating out is more affordable than preparing food at home. But it does not necessarily mean it's any good, though.
Fithly, the Japanese don't use the oven. That leaves most dishes to be boiled, fried or, you guessed it, deep-fried. They do boil and steam some foods occassionally, but oil-ouzing deep-fried goes a long way here. And it's really dripping with oil. When I get a piece of deep-fried chicken occassionally, it takes 5-6 sheets of kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. There is something here called microwave oven, which basically combines a microwave, toaster and an oven, but unless you spend significant amount of money on a very good one, I doubt the results will be remotely similar to our ovens, even basic electric ones. I do have a microwave oven, and it was a very good decision to get one as soon as I got here, but the food prepared there is a far cry from what you can make at home, unfortunatelly.
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| Mushroom and beef curry, it was... edible. Enjoyed from a tupperware lid due to the on-going dishwashing crisis and aversion to the activity. And yes, I know it looks like a chicken that fell into a pit of manure... |
Sixthly, there isn't enough space to cook/keep the ingredients. Japanese kitchens tend to be really tiny and crammed, with little or no kitchen equipment. Just to give you the picture, my 'kitchenette' that probably is a symbol of a proper kitchen here has one electric stove for only one pot. Cooking requires not only putting things together, but also thinking about the order of cooking stuff and the space to put them. The stove surface heats up quickly and uncontrollably, mostly burning your things, then cools down forever, so no fine cooking with subtle temperature variations is even possible- no 'bring to boil and then boil on a low heat'. (And then, after half an hour of cooking, some emergency switch turns it off automatically without a warning, leaving you wondering why the heck isn't that curry ready yet. Probably the best option from the viewpoint of the student house management, according to whom students are too stupid and drunk to remember to switch the boiling pasta off.) Even when you're one of these who don't heat up their food, I'd like to see where you'd put all that vegetables, assuming you could afford them. I'm not a big veggie fan, but I still need to keep this symbollic amount all around the room, because there is not enough space around kitchen area.
And lastly, the (pro)portions are weird. I wouldn't call them too small (although my Texan friend would disagree on this one), but... ill-proportioned. There seems to be too much carbohydrates in the relation to protein and fibre. This doesn't satisfy me and my energy needs. I am too active, both mentally and physically, to eat just 80% instead of 100% stomach capacity, especially when it's in a form of rice that seems to burn out in an hour after a meal. And it's just unbelieveable that something that calorific (it has a hell lot of calories, when you compare it to other sources of carbs) can leave you that hungry so quickly after a meal. I guess Asian diet is just not for me.
SO, can you actually imagine my delight when for the first time in my life in Japan I actually managed to cook something that was not just edible, but also didn't give the fright of possible diarrhoea AND was satisfying on the deeper, emotional level? I even remember the date - November 3rd, 2011. Here it is, in full, long-ago eaten glory: an okonomiyaki-style homemade invention. A major breakthrough.
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| I was prepared for yet another disaster... but it was so nice to eat something so edible and even tasty! |
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