Japanese Food

Natto.
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Here I will talk about some of the foods and sweets that have become the staple of my diet (and some that have definitely not!)  Sweets in Japan are mostly made of beans and sugar prepared in different ways.  This means that about 90% of the time, they are VEGAN!!  It has been so nice to walk into a sweets store and buy something I can eat (this never happens at home!)

The first thing I need to tell the world about it (surprise, surprise) Kurodama!! Kurodama is a Japanese-style sweet made pretty much exclusively in Kofu.  It means `black ball` and is made from mushed up edamame mix with sugar which is then formed into balls and covered with black sugar (brown sugar boiled down until it looks and tastes like molasses).  It is delicious! I would eat 100 a day if they weren`t 100 yen each.

Natto is one of those `one mouthful is enough for a lifetime` types of delicacies.

Kurodama
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The other sweet sold at the same sweet shop is called Shirotama, which means white balls.  It is sweet rice cake (very different from the rice cakes they sell at home--this is a sticky soft cake of rice) filled with sweet red bean paste.  The ones at this shop are then sandwiched between two Yuzu leaves and tied with a bow.  Yuzu is sort of a cross between a lime and a lemon and the leaves are very aromatic!  The faint flavour of citrus is transferred to the rice cake (but you don`t eat the leaves).

Ankodama. These are the same colour all the way through and are usually better if you peel the agar off.
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While we`re on the subject of balls, another sweet is called ankodama.  This is coloured balls each a different flavour made from red beans and covered with agar.  This is available throughout Japan and is very tasty (not as good as Kurodama but that`s just my opinion).

The one bad apple in the Japanese sweet roster is Manju.  This is the same old red bean paste but this time surrounded in dough.  Sometimes the dough is green and sometimes it is white.  They are both disgusting!  The dough isn`t even sweet.  It isn`t even as sweet as bread dough at home.  And it is raw!  So you bit through this sticky pasty bland layer of dough to get to the good stuff.  There is another version of manju that is deepfried.  This is usually not vegan as the covering is more of a batter (made with eggs) than a dough.  I tried one that I found that was vegan and it wasn`t too bad.  It is still a bizarre mix of sweet and bland but at least the texture is a bit better.  In general, my advise would be to avoid Manju in all varieties, at all costs.

This is how to unwrap a convenience store Onigiri. It goes top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right. There is a layer of plastic that separates the rice from the seaweed so that the seaweed is kept absolutely dry until you remove the wrapper in the exact way demonstrated above. It`s kind of neat.
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While in Asakusa I picked up some other sweets that were crunchy and in bags.  One variety was sesame and peanuts with sugar, one was soybean and sugar, and one was peanuts and sugar.  These were all very good and just tasted different enough that you knew they weren`t run of the mill crackerjacks or peanut brittle.  A definite Japanese flavour and certainly deilicious.  This is also where I had the fried Manju and kibidango.  Kibidango is small balls of red beans in rice cake on a stick fried and dipped in soybean powder.  It is actually better than it sounds but I still prefer the damas.

This is how it looks on the inside (this one is the Ume variety).
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Now I will move onto to some savoury foods that I have come to rely on!  There are several cheap, easy vegan foods that you can get at convenience stores in fresh made bentos or in the `foods to go` section of the grocery store.  This seems to be where 90% of Japanese people buy every meal!

One of these is called Onigiri.  It is rice filled with something and wrapped in nori seaweed.  There are two varieties that are vegan: kombu (which has a marinated seaweed and sesame filling) and ume (which has a sou plumb--ume boshi--filling).  Both are pretty good and pretty filling and will cost around 100 yen.

Inari.
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The other convenience store staple, and something that has become one of my favourite foods, is inari!  This is simple deep-fried tofu pockets boiled in a mixture of sugar, soy sauce, and water and filled with rice.  It is best when served with pickled ginger (but not every convenience store does).  It usually costs around 120-200 yen for three pockets.

I have had inari in Halifax before but only once.  It was in the Japanese restaurant in the bottom of Spring Garden place and I can`t say I really remember what it tasted like there.  I would venture to say that it is better here even in the convenience stores.  If you can buy the tofu pockets at a Japanese supermarket at home.  I recommend making these.  Oh, and I should mention that all rice in Japan is the sticky `sushi style` white rice.  (This paragraph is here to space out the text a bit so that the pictures will line up better with the writing.)

Kibidango.
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Last night I tried making it myself for the first time and it was so easy!!  It takes just as long as it takes to boil the rice almost and cost me 88 yen to make 10 pockets.  (The deep-fried tofu pockets are available from the grocery store and cost 88 yen for 5 long strips that you cut in half).

The other food I have bought ready made while here is vegetarian sushi.  It is much cheaper and more delicious than anything we have in Halifax.  I have not tried making it myself here yet but Ithink it is probably cheaper and easier to just keep buying it!! Although, with all my free rice and nori from Ayami`s mother I may try my hand at home made sushi and onigiri soon.

Green and white manju.
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A few of the tasty dishes I sampled at Ayami`s house I will try to make myself.  The most surprisingly delicious of these was the fried eggplant.  The eggplant was cut lengthwise in half, the moisture blotted out, and the skin scored in a diamond pattern all the way around to better absorb the flavours.  It was then fried in plain oil.  On my plate I mixed soy sauce and ginger paste (as instructed by Ayami) and dipped the eggplant in it before eating.  It was amazingly simple and oishi!!

Hot soba (without the tofu pockets)
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Lastly, the biggest savoury staple of my diet has been Soba.  Ayami and Junko showed me how to make it when they visited Kofu.  It is so quick, easy, and delicious!  Soba is a type of whole wheat noodle that is served in a broth either hot or cold and sometimes with a tofu-pocket floating on top (empty).  In some restaurants the broth is made with fish but at home I just use soy sauce and kombu (seaweed) flavouring with Japanese green onions.  It takes about 10 minutes to make the whole meal and it is delicious!!  I have yet to try making any other types of noodles though (such as udon or houtou--the latter of which is apparently another Kofu specialty.)

Convenience store onigiri.
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The other largest section of my diet consists of fresh fruits and vegetables (fresh figs, kiwi, Yamanashi grapes--famous throughout Japan, oranges, bananas, carrot and celery sticks, etc.) and crackers.  Most of the drinks that are available at the grocery store are cold green and wheat teas with various flavours added (usually fruit juices).  It has been a bit tough to find just plain fruit juice with no caffeine or added sugars!!  And that is a long, detailed, draw-out summary of what I eat.  I know. It`s fascinating!

I think the one on the left is Kombu (that`s what it looks like anyway)
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The one thing I will never eat again was one of those `one mouthful is enough for a lifetime` types of delicacies called Natto!  Natto is a dish of fermented soy beans mixed with mustard and soy sauce.  It is incredibly sticky and tastes something like rubbing alcohol and rot mixed together.  This is a food that is commonly eaten for breakfast in most parts of Japan, although, according to Ayami`s mother, the sensible people of Osaka despise it as much as most foreigners.  I don`t know why anyone would ever want to willingly subject themselves to the nauseating experience of consuming Natto more than once.