Cooking in Japan Part 1

The Land of the Rising Sun is on the horizon and I'll be honest, more than half of my thoughts are centered around food. Food runs in my family on the mother's side. A Kramer will discuss lunch with you while they are eating breakfast. I'm excited about Japanese food, don't get me wrong, sushi, squid, fish, etc, I'm ready for it all.

No, when I say that I'm pondering food, I'm thinking about my acess to it and the quality of it. I have heard nothing but good things about the dining hall in Akita, so I'm not worried about starving. However, I'm going to spend 4 months in Japan, with full access to the sort of ingrediants that I can only find in specialty stores here in America. Restaurants are great, I have a whole different plan for them, but nothing can beat the freshness or quality of a home cooked meal with good ingrediants.

So I plan on cooking. I have access to a hot plate, sink, and refrigerator. For the essentials of cooking, I'll need a knife, plates, cutting board, and some other utensiles. So what do I plan to cook in Japan? Well lets start with what I won't be able to cook in Japan.

Coming from a long line of food lovers, I actually have very few recipes. The recipes I know, I know very well though. Cake, Cookies, Pasta Sauce, Pizza Dough, are my fairly standard repitroire.
-First hurdle, is a lack of an oven. Baked goods are hard to make if you don't have anything to bake them with.
-Second, flour and milk, I don't know much about the specfic stores that I'll find near Akita, but flour and milk are not very popular in Japan. Rice flour is used in many dishes, but I don't think that'll work for Chocolate Chip cookies.
-Lastly, and possibly the biggest hurdle, is that I don't know how powerful the hotplate is going to be in the room. I'm going to assume that I can use it to boil water, but that may be touch and go. Can I make noodles with it? Will it heat quickly and efficiently? One can only hope.

In any case I came to a quick conclusion, I won't be cooking much in the way of Western Foods. Honestly, I kinda built that up a bunch, because it makes sense, if I'm in Japan, I should make Japanese food. If I get my hands on ingrediants for chocolate chip cookies, I'm sure they will go over wonderfully. In terms of Japanese food goes, what should I make? I've been working on a list of assets that I can use to my advantage while I'm in Japan. I've classifed the foods into the sorts of meals that a college cook should pay attention to.

~Snacks~
Dumplings- Dumplings are a great snack food. Whip up 10 of them, each a couple whenever you're looking for something to munch on. Dumplings can be easily fried or boiled, so I have the means to cook them. Also the big thing is that dumpling wrapping dough is something that's hard to find in America, I believe they should be easier to find in Japan. Also you can fill them with just about anything. +5 to yummy!

Wontons- Same thing as dumplings, though I think both are more chinese in origin. Wontons are crispy and fried. Wonton wrapper is another hard thing to find in America, and I hope that they'll be easier to find in Japan.

Sushi- I love Sushi, though Jessi is pretty wary of it. Which is fine. Seaweed wrapper is expensive in the states, but should be better in Japan, and more delicious. Raw fish wrapped in rice, wrapped in seaweed, and cut into little rounds, easy to trasnport. Fish is another thing that there will be a lot of in Japan. Japan is known for the insane quality and quantity of its fish markets, but I'll get into that later. For a filling and delicious snack, I'll be packing sushi.

Musubi and Rice Balls- Rice and Fish are big in Japan. If you havn't watch Anime I'll explain rice balls to you. Take something awesome, kinda mush it all up together, and form a rice ball around it. I don't know if theres a lot of recipe's for rice ball filling, but I know that tuna works pretty well, so does bean paste, chicken, and pretty much anything else. Travels well, two or three of them make a pretty substantial meal.

~Simple Staples~

Rice- I may be mistaken, but I have heard it said, that the country of Japan does not import any rice. The people of Japan simply refuse to settle for anything less than Japanese rice. If an entire country of people say that this is the best rice in the whole world, I think I'll spend a little time making it for myself.

Fish- My mom doesn't really cook two kinds of things: fish or fruit. I havn't been brought up with much of an inclination for either, but I try more and more to broaden my horizons. As such Japan being as much of a fish capital as it is, I think I'll try my hand at fish as often as I can. I'm actually looking forward to bringing a whole fish back to the dorm, head, scales, and everything. That's definately something that I'm going to have to run by my roommate though. If he detestes fish, than that will probably severely hamper my fishcapades.

Noodles- Ah to live life beyond the cup of noodle. Ow. I think I can feel Jessi hitting me already for that. Cup of noodle is a college staple, and certainly a major part of the Jessi diet, but both of us agree that noodles in Japan are going to rock. Soba, Somen, Ramen, Udon, and everything in between. For noodle soups though I'm going to be looking for mirrin, dashi, and other seasonings that are rare in American cuisine. Again +5 to yummy.

~Just Desserts~

Sweet stuff- Desserts are probably going to be the hardest thing for me in Japan. Another important tip for Americans learning about Japan, is that sweet really isn't something that the japanese do a lot of. When I visited Japan after highschool, I made the mistake of bringing a box of See's candy to my host family. When I presented it to them, and my host sister tried one, she called it "sweet", her mother chided her immediately afterwards as though calling it sweet was almost taboo. In the same sense if someone were to give you some coffee beans as a present, and you tried a glass, you'd probably try a different word than 'bitter'. In anycase this just provides for some small challenges for desserts, especilly since, Jessi loves sweet stuff. There are a bunch of japanese treats that are pretty good though, and I'm excited to try making them.

Mochi- Rice flour dough, Mochi is a sweet and almost savory sort of dough that is ver gummy and stretchy. Seems pretty easy to make, one of my favorite things at Trader Joes is Mochi Ice cream. Which is flavored mochi wrapped around a scoop of ice cream and then chilled. Jessi and I get it at a Japanese restaurant up in Ithaca, it's good stuff.

Red Bean- It's kinda hard to describe the flavor and texture of "red bean". It's often used as a desert paste, but can be used for any part of a meal. The flavor is mild but powerful in such a way that it fills your mouth with flavor. Very seldom have I seen red bean as a raw ingrediant even in specialty stores. I can't wait to cook with it.

Pocky- Ok I won't be actually making pocky, but I have to put it down here. There are so many snacks available in stores in Japan, that you never have to look far for a quick treat. Generally,snacks aren't chocolate and they aren't as sweet as american snacks, but they are most tasty in my opinion. Chocolate pocky will probably be the best thing to stave off chocolate cravings.


So these are merely the begginings of many meals in this epic culinary adventure I intend to have. Don't be suprised if several posts that show up on this website are plastered with pictures of food. It will be a feast!


-Mack