The Building Blocks of Japanese Cuisine

http://luckypeach.com/guides/building-blocks-japanese-cuisine/

by Vigier • 10 years ago

111 112 10 years ago

noelwelsh2• 10 years ago

I wanted to like this article---adding some new ideas to my cooking could be fun---but it quickly descended into food snobbery (how one should eat sushi properly etc.) and I checked out.

sushisource• 10 years ago

Yeah, definitely a bit intense in it's snobbery. This makes sense if you're trying to run a high quality restaurant, or don't mind spending a bunch of money. But, for most home cooks, you're going to be hard-pressed to taste really meaningful differences in most kinds of dishes you'd be making at home.

SamBam3• 10 years ago

(how one should eat sushi properly etc.)

Missed this in the article. It only mentions sushi once, at the top, so not sure exactly what you're referring to.

I think there is a difference between describing what makes something a quality ingredient ("Well-made miso should taste good. The salt and the fermented beer-like notes should balance each other out") vs telling people how to eat something properly, and I didn't feel like I saw much of the latter.

noelwelsh2• 10 years ago

My bad, it was the section on sashimi I was using as an example:

"For dipping sashimi: pour a small pool in the center of the soy sauce dish rather than filling the whole surface of the dish. You can always add more. (And please, no wasabi in the dish. Dab a bit on the slice of sashimi, and dip a corner in the shoyu before eating. The shoyu is used to complement the fish with a hint of salty roundness, but not as a full-on marinade or soak.)"

Iv3• 10 years ago

If you want to cook things that "feel" asian, simply add soy sauche and garlic to anything you fry.

rabboRubble5• 10 years ago

1 item forgotten in that list: fresh, tasty ingredients.

Japanese produce and meats are just fussed over to such a degree for which an American consumer has no frame of reference.

The fruit and veg tend to be larger, less bruised / browned, and overall of better taste. As ingredients this makes for better food. Perhaps less commercialized farming? IDK.

They do spend a larger portion of their household income on groceries, so this is part of the answer.

Edit: By "larger" I don't mean serving size, I mean natural size of the fruit and veg. I lived in Japan for 15+ years. The produce there compared to the produce in my US Trader Joe's, was larger. And tastier. I don't know how they did it, because I too would have assumed that larger meant less tasty. Coming back to the US and seeing scrawny fruit was a shock. I wonder if the US producers are sending their largest / best overseas? Or perhaps TJ's and Fred Meyer is buying B class produce?

hx87• 10 years ago

The fruit and veg tend to be larger

This is certainly false, as few heritage fruit and vegetable breeds approach the size of their commercial counterparts. Larger isn't better most of the time though, and smaller versions tend to haver stronger, more intense taste.

SamBam3• 10 years ago

Agree, and this is the case world-over.

Coming from Italy, I'm always amazed how large US tomatoes/zucchini/eggplants/etc are, and those big, watery vegetables are almost always tasteless in comparison.

I think it's a combination of selecting varieties that produce bigger fruit, as well as waiting longer to pick, so as to produce the largest (most water-heavy) produce.

leemailll• 10 years ago

The Fuji apple and some kind of peach can be super large compared with ones sold in US and they also taste much better

mikekchar7• 10 years ago

It's not actually false, but you are also not wrong :-) I will explain. Japan has a very different agriculture system from most places I've lived in. After WWII a million people died of starvation. Japan had very poor food distribution practices in place and had been importing nearly everything. When the Americans blockaded Japan, they literally starved. Even when the occupying forces started to distribute food, it was impossible to get it out to the starving people.

The US occupation of Japan was remarkable in many ways and they made many laws which are still on the books (including the bizarre pornography laws that still exist here!). Japanese culture is such that people don't tend to question authority and so they will follow the law even if they think it is strange. Many of the really good laws in Japan were put in place during the occupation, but they are things that you would never be able to get away with in most other countries. The current agriculture system is one of those things.

What they did was mandate that designated farm land could never change designation. So it is illegal to build on farm land. They also made it illegal to sell farm land. The only time farm land is for sale in Japan is when the owning family dies out. The resulting sale has really complicated rules which I don't understand. The result of this is that all farms are small and they are owned by a wide variety of families. The modern factory farm basically just doesn't exist here (except up in Hokkaido where there is a lot more room -- and I think people are farming on non-farm designated land).

In addition to this, they set up a food distribution monopoly. This food distribution monopoly was mandated to distribute food locally. The intent was to have many, many small farms making many, many different products and to have very good distribution from the farms to cities -- because all produce is local. This created an incredibly robust (if inefficient from a price perspective) production and distribution system.

The third piece of the puzzle is that they made the import of all essential food products illegal. Although due to external pressures this is very much relaxed now, it is still illegal to import rice for anything other than glue manufacture, for instance (although possibly it is legal now for alcohol production... I can't remember). This allowed the distribution monopoly to dictate prices that would allow local production to continue.

This system works fantastically well. Many foreigners are skeptical (and frustrated with their inability to trade -- a fact that constantly amuses me given that it was set up by the US in the first place). However, I live in the country side. When I go to the grocery store the food in it is grown by my neighbours. They even write the farmer's name on the bags of produce (and even have a picture of them!) Some food is grown one or two prefectures away. A very small amount (like dairy products) is produced in places like Hokkaido. Only recently have I started seeing produce from other places in the world.

What has this to do with the topic? I'm glad you asked! Produce is picked fresh and put in the store that day or the next day. I know this because the JA (now a private semi-monopoly food distributor) is down the road from me. Anybody can go in and watch them work (farmers are going in an out of there all the time).

So when you have tomatoes, for example, they are red when they are picked. They go to the JA, sit for a couple of hours and then go to the store. The store holds produce on average for 2-3 days, apparently. Fruit is sweet because it is ripe. It also doesn't last. Many foreigners are surprised when they buy a basket of strawberries and it is rotten in 2 days.

So even though Japanese farmers choose to grow larger varieties, the produce in the store is dramatically better than the produce you normally find in grocery stores around the world.

The other thing is that fruit and vegetables are expensive. Normally I think it's nearly twice as expensive as what I was used to in Canada. What this means is that for fruit production, they often limit yield. Not only that, but they do things like manually tie paper bags around fruit when it is growing so that it does not get eaten by birds. When they grow melons (one of the specialties of my area), the farmer gets up every day and turns them so that the sugar is evenly distributed through the whole melon (if you don't do this, the side that was nearest the ground is dramatically sweeter -- you can test this yourself by cutting a melon in half and tasting it blindfolded). Production is very, very small and prices are very, very high so they can do this kind of thing that would be crazy anywhere else.

For the very best fruit, the farmers charge insane prices. The best apple from a crop of apples will be sold for upwards of $10 US -- for a single apple. Melons can go for as much as $100 US. A perfect bunch of grapes, picked at the perfect time can be $20.

I have friends who own businesses and thanks to the gift culture in Japan, they often receive these super-fruits from their farmer customers. Since they receive more than they can eat, I sometimes benefit from a re-gift (also part of the wonderful Japanese gift culture). I seriously have never eaten fruit like this before -- even from a home grown garden. These farmers are professionals and it shows in their work.

So you are correct, but are discounting the impact that the Japanese agricultural system has on the produce. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the Japanese people would get over their obsession of big fruit. I can't imagine how delicious they could make good varieties.

emodendroket4• 10 years ago

Vegetables and especially fruits in Japan are very expensive.

And I agree with the other guy; the fruits and vegetables (and portions of most other things you buy) are smaller.

vmarsy• 10 years ago

The fruit and veg tend to be larger, less bruised / browned, and overall of better taste.

I disagree about the size & appearance. I wouldn't say this means the veggie would be more tasty. But I definitely agree on the taste part.

This is something I found in common between French and Japanese cuisine: Simplicity, but very good quality ingredients. (maybe this is why there's so many 3 Michelin stars in Japan)

In the US I would say it's hard to enjoy good French/Japanese for that reason. On the contrary, it's easier to enjoy the cuisines which relies more on spices, such as Indian cuisine, because those spices taste good everywhere.

rory096• 10 years ago

(maybe this is why there's so many 3 Michelin stars in Japan)

You may be interested in this recent reddit thread about Japanese French cuisine.

https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/537bio/spoilers_shok...

asimov42• 10 years ago

Not really, I know quite a few (conservative) Indians who haven't been able to stay in the US simply due to the taste of food.

IMO Indian spices are much harder to get right, whereas French cuisine relies much more on very expensive ingredients.

rabboRubble5• 10 years ago

Thinking about my "size" comment more. Some anecdotal observations:

Asian pears : Japan softball sized, US hardball sized

Carrots : US carrots are hard to cut Japanese style (really is just julienned) because they are so narrow at the fat end. Roll around on the cutting board like a marble. US carrot about the thickness of my thumb. Japan carrots were fat like a silver dollar and were easier to slice into stackable sheets.

Apples : I liked the cheaper apples (Fuji) in Japan. Weirdly the more expensive ones were less tasty and larger. The Fuji's probably size-wise same as the US.

Grapes (the expensive hot house types) : Japan's were sized like a small plum.

Strawberries : seemed more uniformly large. Still damn tasty.

Anyway, those are my kitchen observations.

rawnlq2• 10 years ago

Larger probably just means they have embraced genetically modification more? (Unlike americans who place ridiculous premiums on "organic" produces)

coldtea3• 10 years ago

Nope, they ban GMOs. And nothing ridiculous about it either.

Even if fears are wrong, GMOs are used to create bottom of the barrel, mass market consumption food.

They are for crops to be yield faster, fend against diseases etc, become bigger, and general give cheaper mass quantities -- that is, meant for the same kind of producers that pile in pesticides, hormones, etc, and create stuff to look big and shiny (sometimes due to added food colouring) on supermarket shelves -- not exactly known for their carefully produced fruits and vegetables.

Rooting for GMOs is like cheering because one eats fast food, or smokes cigarettes, just because there's food science involved in making them more addictive...

wdewind6• 10 years ago

Japanese produce and meats are just fussed over to such a degree for which an American consumer has no frame of reference.

The Japanese are famous for high quality Kobe beef, but the truth is most meat in Japan is actually not very high quality at all and Kobe is a relatively rare exception. Same with poultry. Most people don't want to believe it but, despite all the McDonald's and factory farming, America has the best meat on average, and at maximum too.

linkregister• 10 years ago

I assert that anyone who has visited Argentina or Uruguay would strongly disagree with you that any country in North America would outperform their beef in flavor.

I would easily be disproven if you had some kind of authoritative source.

I would agree with your assertion that Japanese beef is not high-quality compared to Australian or U.S. meat. I think the parent poster was talking about produce, though.

gkanai2• 10 years ago

Same with poultry.

Not sure where you are getting your information- sources would back up your claims.

Japanese restaurants can serve high-quality chicken raw. Japanese eggs are eaten raw by a majority of Japanese. This would be unthinkable in the salmonella-filled chicken foodstream of the US.

mattnumbe7• 10 years ago

Kobe is a relatively rare exception

What about Hida? Not as well known in the US but many believe it's better than Kobe beef.

Japanese style beef is just different than the types found abroad. Every piece of Japanese raised beef I see in the supermarket here is beautifully marbled with fat and extremely rich in flavor. High quality Australian and American beef are also imported but are used for different purposes and lack the white flecks of fat.

kgarten• 10 years ago

Seems you don't know anything about beef if you are talking about Kobe beef. It's just like Bordeaux Wine, it's beef from a certain region ... it says nothing about quality. Try Miyazaki Beef next time you are in Japan ... http://www.rareedibles.com/miyazaki-beef/

Then we can talk. It depends on how you define best. Honestly, Japan has on average the best food, the maximum too (see michelin star restaurants). Average food in US sucks (I think you mean US when talking about America...).

mattnumbe7• 10 years ago

The fruit and veg tend to be larger

The natural size of the fruit/vegetables here are exaggerated when you go to a normal supermarket. Chain supermarkets only sell visually appealing fruits and vegetables. Throwbacks go into juices, restaurants, and B-grade supermarkets, where you can buy a 5 kilo bag of "misshaped" carrots for a few hundred yen.

The taste also seems to be standardized. For example, I prefer the carrots you can buy in the US to those you find in Japan. Japanese supermarket variety carrots have a much milder flavor than those I've had in other countries.

Standardization is a key word in Japanese society ensuring a certain type of quality at a cost.

camtarn• 10 years ago

Might be better phrased as "the building blocks of high-end Japanese cuisine" - as the article says, its recommendations for products are far fancier than even Japanese households use in their day-to-day cooking. But certainly an interesting read - I did not know that Japanese fish sauce other than dashi was even a thing, and the insight into the various varieties of soy sauce was pretty cool.

emodendroket4• 10 years ago

I'm really skeptical of the idea that one salt is at all distinguishable from another.

hood_syntax• 10 years ago

If you're talking naturally occurring salt, there may be noticeable amounts of other minerals or salts besides NaCl that could affect the taste. I understand your skepticism, however.

crygin2• 10 years ago

The point of fancy salts is that they're not just NaCl -- sea salts, in particular, have a lot of other trace minerals with their own flavors (to say nothing of the texture -- generally not so important in flavoring a dish as in finishing).

NikolaeVarius• 10 years ago

The minerals themselves are completely irrelevant in taste. They're extremely trace.

Once dissolved, the salt is completely undifferentiatable. The only difference is that if sprinkled on top of food, the size/shape of the salt will change how strong the salt taste is on the tongue and how long it lasts,

carlob• 10 years ago

I'm as skeptical as OP, but if anything it's not the minerals that change the taste, it's algae and fish residue.

showerst• 10 years ago

Different salts have different trace minerals, different molecular shapes, and are ground to different textures. Why wouldn't they taste different?

tptacek6• 10 years ago

Because people have done triangle tests and concluded that there's no taste difference, holding texture constant (you can tell the difference between kosher and finishing salt because the latter is flakier).

There's a good essay about this in "The Man Who Ate Everything".

logfromblammo2• 10 years ago

Pure NaCl and pure KCl are easily distinguished by taste. Salts with different mineral contents will have different taste characteristics.

But that's really more for distinguishing pink Himalayan salt from Utah salt, or similar comparisons between other salt deposits from long-gone ancient seabeds. Fresh sea salt all comes from the same ocean, and salt dried from pools on Japanese shores will taste largely the same as salt from the California coast, or from France.

But much like audiophiles, you will get people who will insist they can taste a difference, right up to the point where you do a double-blind comparison and prove that they can't.

kaybe• 10 years ago

Well, using KCl instead of NaCl is a thing. While the taste is still salty, it has a very weird aftertaste, not pleasant. I've been told it's common in Spain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_substitute

emodendroket4• 10 years ago

OK, well, let's exclude "salt substitutes" from consideration; as the name suggests, that's not really what people generally mean when talking about "salt" in a culinary context.

RickHull2• 10 years ago

This passage raised my red flag:

Harshly produced industrial salts interfere with the symbiosis of salt, air, and sun, which are part of the salt preservation process. Natural sea salts don’t overpower the base ingredient that is being preserved and allow the inherent strength of those ingredients to interact productively.

emodendroket4• 10 years ago

Yeah, that sounds like hocus pocus to me.

wyager3• 10 years ago

This article falls into the wine critic trap of using meaningless terms like "round" to describe flavor.

If you want an example of really high-quality science-based treatment of cooking, take a look at Modernist Cuisine. Minimal bullshit, plenty of chemistry.

beat5• 10 years ago

And Modernist Cuisine falls into the usual failings of western reductionism - if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist. That's nonsense.

It reminds me of back when I used to do homebrew hi-fi (influenced by the Japanese, naturally). Once you start really listening rather than measuring, you start seeing the flaws of a measurement-driven system. For example, hi-fi equipment is often marketed in terms of THD (total harmonic distortion). Is it actually relevant? No. But it is easy to measure. Measuring the harmonic content of a 1khz sine wave is even less musically relevant than measuring how well a car drives at exactly 60mph in a straight line. It doesn't take into account frequency range, balance, dynamics, phase shift, intermodulation, back EMF from speakers (think about it - a speaker is not only a motor, it's also an alternator, that absorbs mechanical sound energy in its suspension and spits it back down the line as AC energy greatly delayed and distorted from its original form, and the amp outputs have to absorb it), etc. THD is a nonsense measurement. But every manufacturer brags about their THD specs.

That's what happens when you use a measurement-driven, reductionist approach to perception. You value what you measure, whether or not what you measure explains what you observe.

splawn• 10 years ago

I bet homebrew hi-fi is a great way for getting those "warm" "liquid velvet" sounds. I know if I settle for less when listening to my favorite oob meditation soundtrack (cage's 4'33") then my aura starts vibrating freaky purple all over the place and we all know what a bad day that can make.

xj9• 10 years ago

You are measuring things too. If there wasn't a physical phenomena happening you wouldn't experience anything! You are using different tools, but you are doing the same thing as us "reductionist westerners".

wyager3• 10 years ago

if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist. That's nonsense

How do you know something exists if you can't measure it?

frequency range, balance, dynamics, phase shift, intermodulation, back EMF from speakers

All of those things you mentioned about audio are measurable.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 10 years ago

What do you think about double blind A/B tests and the validity thereof.

haliax• 10 years ago

You're cherry picking your example. This is a single measurement that doesn't capture the relevant qualities of sound but is widely used for social/marketing reasons. That's not the a flaw in reductionism as a philosophical stance or a methodology, it's just PEBKAC.

That's what happens when you use a measurement-driven, reductionist approach to perception. You value what you measure, whether or not what you measure explains what you observe.

This is just silly. Your observations themselves are measurements, and reductionism done properly should end up systematizing those measurements. Even for subjective qualities, you can measure peoples responses (e.g. how "warm" is this sound, which of these two sounds more "energetic") and (to the extent that those responses are nonrandom) search for relationships to measured quantities.

And Modernist Cuisine falls into the usual failings of western reductionism - if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist. That's nonsense.

1. I keep seeing this without explanation, what about reductionism is particularly Western? Or is there some brand of reductionism that is distinctly Western versus one that is Eastern?

2. As far as "if we can't measure it it doesn't exist", to the extent that this is the stance of reductionism it's only insofar as measure includes "perceive the effects of". Warmth in music? Counts as a measurement. Roundness of flavor? Counts as a measurement. The goal of reductionism is simply to reduce these to simpler measurements of physical quantities and relationships thereof.

3. If you can't reduce the measurement to something based in physical quantities then either a) we humans consistently perceive it (e.g. in blind taste tests) and your physical quantities or possible relationships are lacking or b) we humans do not consistently perceive it and it's either a poorly defined quality (each person comes up with their own definition based on what it seems to them that it should describe) or it's just a randomly applied label picked up by social instinct. (Critics describe the same wine with different qualities based on the label it was served to them with [1]). Now, that's the nonsense.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/io9.gizmodo.com/wine-tasting-is-b...

cpdean• 10 years ago

you guys, japanese culture is ~omakase~

jnordwick2• 10 years ago

Alternate Title: The Building Blocks of Japanese Food Snobbery

contingencies• 10 years ago

... in a California clickbait context

draw_down• 10 years ago

I really enjoyed this, thank you.

state2• 10 years ago

As someone who has been cooking Japanese food at home for years, it's fun to see this on the front page.

One thing worth noticing is that most of the items discussed in this article are pretty tough to find in the US — even online, unless you read Japanese (which I don't). Even here in California at your local Japanese grocery it's quite tough. Finding a good source for Gyosho seems nearly impossible. I've been dreaming about opening a Rainbow grocery or Bi Rite quality Japanese grocery store. Don't see myself having the time for that in the near future...

On the other hand — the quality of produce from Hikari Farms [0,1] is really fantastic. And Good Eggs will deliver it to my door!

0 - https://www.ccof.org/members/hikari-farms-llc 1 - https://www.goodeggs.com/hikarifarms

jacobolus2• 10 years ago

Have you tried Tokyo Fish Market in Berkeley? (I don’t know much about Japanese cooking, so I couldn’t advise you about specific ingredients.)

state2• 10 years ago

Somehow, no! Will check it out. Thanks!

mc32• 10 years ago

Of all places, it appears Columbus OH has a pretty decent Japanese supermarket[1]. They have things even "Japanese" supermarkets in California don't have.

To wit: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/11/476198119/a-s...

[1]http://tensukemarket.com/

dekobon2• 10 years ago

The finest artisanal Japanese soy sauces are becoming known abroad as shoyu.

Good soy sauce is being called the Japanese word for soy sauce - shoyu (which includes good and bad soy sauce)? If this is true, let's not encourage this language to spread. This is too confusing.

logfromblammo2• 10 years ago

But you're okay with calling it "artisanal"?

I'd much rather have English steal yet another foreign word than to beat a word out of its existing vocabulary into meaningless advertising nulls.

dekobon2• 10 years ago

Well, it is kind of like using the word ketchup to refer to only premium ketchups in some other language. Whenever a person who speaks that language says they enjoy ketchup, you wonder - what are they talking about.

As for artisanal, if there isn't an apprentice program for producing the good, then it probably isn't artisanal. Interestingly, by this definition there are artisanal soy sauces.

mikekchar7• 10 years ago

There is exactly one way to determine good from bad shoyu - long term natural fermentation. Good shoyu is fermented for at least 1 year. Better shoyu is fermented for 2 years. Top class shoyu is fermented for 3 or more years. It is literally that easy.

This is also shared by miso (although there are styles of miso that have a short fermentation, so it's not universal). The difference between 1 year old miso and 2 year old miso is profound.

Finally, note that high quality shoyu and miso must be fermented for integer values of years because the temperature variations are extremely important to its maturation. I've often wondered if there would be an advantage to controlling this fermentation with temperature control, but it appears not. All of the top quality shoyu and miso that I know about is made in very "rustic" environments.

Anyway, so there is no need to attach strange labelling to these products. Just do exactly the same as the Japanese do - "naturally fermented for x years". If "naturally fermented" is missing, then be suspicious. If it says "fermented for x months" then be suspicious. If it says nothing at all, then be doubly suspicious.

huac• 10 years ago

Something I recently found out is that nearly all wasabi in America (and the rest of the world) is fake - it's all horseradish and food coloring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasabi#Surrogates

gkanai2• 10 years ago

Indeed. Unless they are grating the wasabi in front of you, you should assume it is colored horseradish. (Unless you're at a 2 or 3 Michelin-starred sushi restaurant in Japan- then it's real wasabi.)

mikekchar7• 10 years ago

Real wasabi is amazing. I live in Shizuoka prefecture, so I have ready access to it. In Japanese they call it "hon wasabi" (or root wasabi). The taste varies considerably over the season, but in the winter it is especially sweet. I often eat it on its own (just grated) as an accompaniment to beer. It is not nearly as hot as the horseradish/mustard substitutes, though most Japanese people think I'm crazy until I invite them to try it.

In Shizuoka, anyway, hon wasabi is not so expensive. You can get a root from between $5-10 US. That's enough for probably 10 servings. If you are at any decent sushi restaurant/izakaya you will be given hon wasabi here. Even at cheap kaiten (conveyor-belt) sushi restaurants you can usually order it for a small price.

Iv3• 10 years ago

In Japan too.

Iv3• 10 years ago

Ok, I'll give you a trick if you want to make people believe you can cook asian food: fry stuff (anything, really, can be meat, pasta, mushroom, rice, potatoes, fish) and add soy sauce and garlic. Cooked garlic and soy sauce smells good, tastes good and is the "asian" taste we identify as westerners.

zumu• 10 years ago

Not enough mention of dashi, which is in everything. This article makes it sound like it's only relevant when sold as a mixture with soy sauce.

Interesting information and anecdotes, but far from an overview of the 'Building Blocks of Japanese Cuisine'.

The Building Blocks of Japanese Cuisine

Related Stories