JasonTrue

Do you have an allergy to any antibiotics? My understanding is that the problem with rGBH was that it was associated with more frequent infections in the cows, and that these are typically treated with large doses of antibiotics. rGBH isn't in the milk itself, but some antibiotics do get into the milk.

Osaka is probably far more food-obsessed than Tokyo. Kyoto is probably more important from the "haute cuisine" perspective than Osaka, but Osaka is certainly more indulgent. Also there are areas with regional specialties that aren't necessarily fancy but have some kind of notable following, like Fukuoka for its milky-white tonkotsu ramen broth, Nagano for oyaki (grilled stuffed buns, for lack of a better description), Hiroshima for negi-yaki and "the other kind of okonomiyaki", etc.), Hokkaido for various lamb specialties. Perhaps less cult-inducing, but still local distinctions, are things like godoufu in Arita and houba miso in Takayama, Noppei stew in Niigata, various western-influenced foods in Aomori.

Are you talking about sake (sah-kay)? There are quite a lot of variations in sake production. I like some versions which have been aged in cedar barrels, as it imparts a nice aroma. (I'm not sure if it's sugi/cedar or hinoki/false cypress) But most sake is not aged at all, so I don't think they ever see any wood. Shochu is sometimes aged in wood barrels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sake

The Specialty Food News mailing list that I subscribe to linked to this reaction from the ministry of health. "But there is no doubt that mercury intake is harmful, and eventually destroys brain tissues," Ekino said, citing symptoms of Minamata victims, whom he has studied. "We should cut down tuna consumption to as little as possible." The New York Times, in a story published Thursday, reported that eight of 44 pieces of sushi sampled from local restaurants and stores had mercury concentrations over 1 ppm, a level the paper reported would allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to take the fish off the market. Ejima said the most dangerous thing he took from the report was that it could spread "groundless rumors." "Seafood is an important source of nutrition," he added.

I've never used a recipe exactly, but you basically need cooked kabocha and cooked potatoes. If you can't find kabocha, use a nutty, mealy variety of squash like butternut squash, rather than a more watery variety. I usually use about 60% kabocha to 40% potato. Use a potato ricer to mash the potato when it has cooled to between 140-160F. (60-70C) The kabocha is less temperature sensitive, but try to mash it while it's still warm. Add salt and blend the ingredients together. You may like to add a little shredded pork, but most kabocha korokke that I've seen in Japan were actually vegetarian, which isn't true for most other varieties. I typically refrigerate this mixture overnight because it's easier to shape when chilled. If I'm in a hurry, I at least try to bring them down to room temperature. Form into balls, dip in flour, a cold egg-water wash, then panko. Fry at 375F/190C until deep golden brown. If freezing, flatten the balls to an oval shape about 1cm/a shy half inch. You may want to fry then at closer to 360F/180C because frozen ones tend to brown faster than they cook inside.

The substance is correct but the details are a little off. This thread covers more. Tokyo has more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris, though I don't know how it compares in terms of 3-star restaurants.

You can sometimes find maltose in non-Japanese Asian markets, typically in small plastic jars. The maltose in such containers is usually more yellow than the Japanese mizuame.

Oshinko is pickled vegetables. Oshiko is, well, a bit more scatological in nature. I hope it was a typo in the menu, though I don't think　many Japanese would make that mistake. (actually the word "pee" is usually romanized as oshikko).

Funny, "groupie" is exactly the parallel word that makes me slightly unhappy about it. And also the association I draw from the word to people who are more interested in food trends than food quality... On the other hand, I'm not so fond of "gourmet" because it's overused in other ways. I don't care all that much, especially if someone is just trying to explain me, but I'm probably more likely to use the phrase "food geek." If I want to be flowery, maybe "passionate about good food." I'm a geek in other worlds, so it works for me.

I don't really have a prayer of answering that meaningfully. Even Japanese living in Japan with a fairly substantial passion for kaiseki and pocketbooks to match probably couldn't answer authoritatively. There are chefs that get lots of press, and perhaps there are chefs who are "famous," but I wouldn't think that anyone would be able to answer in any meaningful or authoritative way. Seattle is small enough that I can name the best pastry shop or two, and I can fairly confidently name the best three or four Italian restaurants in town, but in Tokyo I wouldn't even have a chance of doing that, much less if I added on Kyoto or Osaka or Fukuoka, where I've spent far less time. Also, unless I'm missing something in sources that my Japanese isn't good enough to make sense of, there's not so much of a presence of the New York Times style restaurant critic in Japan. Most of the guides to restaurants I've seen published are more PR-like than anything else, and it seems to be considered gauche to say anything harsher saying they have "interesting" or "unfamiliar" food in either printed or televised contexts, both of which typically, but don't always, mean that the taster was not fond of what they were served.

On your question of whether it's possible to do kaiseki outside Japan: It's probably impossible to duplicate a kaiseki meal in Japan somewhere else, but it's not impossible to do kaiseki. There are some places in the West Coast of the US which offer kaiseki, usually requiring advance reservations since it's not easy even in Japan to do an all-kaiseki place. Even within Japan there are regional variations in seasonality. Before refrigerated trucking and the elaborate air freight network that makes Japan's highly globally interconnected fish industry possible, there was a lot more regional variation in what fish was available. It's easy to forget that Japan's ingredients are far less "local" than ever before. Some vegetables aren't widely available outside of Japan, and sometimes Japan outbids other countries on certain seafood items so that you might be able to, for example, get fresh California uni more easily in Japan than at the dock where they are brought in. But it's possible to use locally available ingredients from other places in a Japanese tradition, and source even many specialty Japanese ingredients outside of Japan. Some ingredients may require adjustments; for example, North American matsutake have a milder aroma but a stronger flavor than Japanese matsutake. However, I think that most of the very good kaiseki chefs won't bother to leave Japan, because they can earn better in Japan than they would by trying to run a restaurant outside of Japan.

I had the issue with garlic and onions with an acquaintance in Germany who claimed not to like them. She would ask me to reduce or eliminate these ingredients in my tomato sauce or whatever. I would bob my head indistinctly in a manner which could be construed as nodding, and put in the amount that I had planned to use. She loved the tomato sauce. I learned that she asked another friend of hers to make a tomato sauce "like Jason's" and would make the same requests, only to have her demands entertained. She would complain that the sauce didn't taste as good. She never made the connection. I've since learned that people who are picky about the seasonings I use should be invited to arrive when dinner is ready to serve. My picky little brother thinks he hates onions, but only complains if he recognizes the texture. What he doesn't know about Salisbury steak (or Japanese hamburg steak), most tomato sauce, and hash browns won't hurt him. I also ignore demands/requests about salt. If someone really has a medical reason to avoid salt I'll make a couple of dishes that should accommodate their needs and maybe try to be more careful about oversalting things that I might unintentionally use a heavy hand with. But many dishes taste terrible with the sharp taste of salt added after the fact, without a chance of being absorbed by the ingredients as the salt dissolves. So, if I felt so inclined as to explain myself, I'll say that I know this particular dish needs to be seasoned while it's still cooking. Coarsely mashed avocado and lime juice with maybe a little salt is actually my favorite guacamole when the avocados are good, perfect as a condiment for savory dishes, though sometimes less interesting as a dip for chips if it's the only option. But cilantro and garlic and onions are a must-have in my salsas I'm occasionally slightly bewildering to people who are serving food to me thanks to my vegetarian habit, but I usually remedy that by offering to bring something, helping to cook, or just eating what I can. I'm also far more flexible when someone else is doing the cooking. I don't tend to serve "simpler" or lower quality cuisine when I have people with more basic tastes than mine, because I want people to have a chance to enjoy the same things I do, and perhaps see why food can matter. I make concessions for religious reasons, people on special diets, and allergies, but not for people who are simply picky. Nearly everyone appreciates it, though I've had one or two vegetable-fearing hardcore meat eaters who skip all of the green things and end up eating only the breads, rice, white vegetables, and the like. I consider that their own fault.

I seem to recall an issue in the Philadelphia area many years back that involved food poisoning subsequent to careless practices using an electric iced tea brewer at a restaurant. I don't remember the specific bacteria as I first heard of it at least 12 years ago and I don't even remember my source. As I recall, the problem was related to rather basic cleaning practices. E. Coli in vegetable matter (including lettuce, tea, and so on) is primarily an issue with cross-contamination or direct fecal contamination. Since there's no significant water activity in loose leaf tea itself, I don't think e. coli present at time of harvest would survive after the tea is dried. In drink or food preparation, I'm pretty sure your primary risk for e. coli with tea in your ganache is the same issue you face with any other food preparation; hand washing and proper glove usage and avoidance of cross-contamination risks should be enough.

This time of year I break out my sweet potato or kabocha ice cream (skipping the usual American convention of pumpkin pie spices because the ones I've had in Japan kept it simple). Either one is ideally served with kuromitsu, a black sugar syrup (muscovado sugar syrup with a little honey works too). Sometimes I make a very, very simple, refreshing pear or apple sorbet, usually flavored only with sugar and pear brandy or calvados. Chestnut ice cream is nice too. I've had good results with a black sesame and chocolate ice cream, too. If you wanted it to be a plated dessert, you could serve the ice cream in cream puff shells. I might serve a panna cotta style dessert or custard topped with a little kumquat marmalade. There's a simple dish made with kumquats, caramelized dried figs (soaked in wine or spirits for a little while, ideally), a little sugar, and a gentle amount of cornstarch or katakuriko, which is nice served with a little candied ginger mascarpone. Candied ginger isn't exactly popular in most of Asia, at least not as a confection, but it works surprisingly well. I've stolen the concept and altered it to my whims from a Nadine Abensur cookbook, but it's hard to mess up unless you overdo the cornstarch or the sugar. You could serve it with a little cookie or wafer to make it more "plated".

I have to say most of the hascap-flavored products I've tested haven't been that memorable, generally recalling "bubble gum flavor" more than any berry I know.

Well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer, but the larger companies tend to delay translation of their web sites until they have some plan to enter a particular market, or they may limit their English language literature to trade shows (Hoteres, for example, in the hospitality and foodservice world) until they have some sort of deal in place. For electronics, thanks to differences in regulations and market expectations (UL Listing in the US, for example), most companies don't bother to translate unless they are targeting expatriate customers inside Japan. For example, I can find English-language information on many Japanese cell phones, since most foreigners resident in Japan need to carry a cell phone in Japan and the standard technology in Japan and Korea isn't compatible with the standard technology in most of the rest of the world. But I may not be able to find English-language information on things like the cheap induction cookers that are staples of Japanese studio apartments with inadequate kitchens, because they don't really have much of a market. It took until last year before I even saw an English web site for the Clean Fryer system, which I've been fascinated with since 2004. If they lobbied with insurance companies to offer lower accident insurance for restaurants that used that fryer, they could clean up in the US market, but they aren't really aggressive about selling outside Japan. For research, the use or non-use of English has more to do with the confidence of the researchers in their English ability, and sometimes no amount of cajoling will lead them to provide even coarse translations of their work. In Germany, academics write in English so that they will get more exposure to other people in their field, even if they don't think their English is very good. But in Japan, it seems like this is less so. Even fairly skilled writers of English often seem reluctant to publish in English, though I've seen some papers in my field on, say, Japanese word segmentation algorithms, written by Japanese authors. A small subset of academics, like writer Murakami Haruki, write in anticipation of translation of their work. I've done some proofreading of research written in Japanese English but I think it was due to several years of pushing by a German university's Japanology department. By the time the book was published, several of the professors had died and we couldn't even ask them questions to clarify what they meant. Anyway, I think the answer is that it's mostly a cost/benefit thing, combined with a bit of excessive self-deprecation.

I use solid butter and medium heat, and frantic whisking. I've had fewer fiascos using this technique than using the classic melted butter drizzling approach. The "just in time" melting makes it easier to keep the emulsion stable than the two-handed pour/whisk technique requires. Typically I try to use good, fresh butter. Many standard supermarket butters in the US have a flavor/aroma that I don't love, so I tend to use something better than that, but not necessarily artisan. Even Kerrygold works well enough. I've worked with clarified butter for hollandaise, and although I love clarified butter for many things, I find it not quite as luscious as the emulsion from butter. I'd certainly not decline it when someone else is cooking, but I've had better results from butter. I, too, use a bit of water mixed with the citrus juice (lemon or yuzu), usually close to 1:1 water to citrus, sometimes less water if I'm using sweeter lemons like Meyer. I'm adding it along with the lemon juice, after warming the egg yolk(s) in the pan.

I'd also say that "Brie cheese" doesn't seem as silly as "chai tea", which is actually the same word repeated. Brie is just a province, after all, not the French word for cheese. Challah is also not a word for bread; it's a word for knots, if I remember correctly. Pita bread is potentially redundant, given the etymology. Gazpacho soup isn't terribly redundant either, since it doesn't contain the word "sopa." I was at Via Tribunali in Seattle about a week ago and was reminded that dumbing-it-down isn't always a bad thing... the entire menu was in Italian with no translations. I can vaguely recall things like salsiccia or rely on cognates for a few other items, but I couldn't always translate things in my head, even coming from an ostensibly Italian-American family.

In France and England, there were two fashions called "Chinoiserie", "Japonism", and later "Japanoiserie" which were influential in art, landscaping, interior design, and architecture. It would be very surprising if there was no influence from these "style" movements on cuisine. Nouvelle Cuisine (the 1960s-and-beyond version) is generally acknowledged as having a strong influence from Japanese cuisine, though I would imagine it is possible to trace earlier Japanese influences on European cuisines. The focus on fresh ingredients and relatively simple preparations and elegant presentations certainly doesn't owe everything to Japan, but this approach is far more Japanese than it was bourgeois European. Once some of the pretentions of nouvelle cuisine wore thin, the idea of emphasizing ingredients rather than elaborate techniques had become mainstream enough that it's hard to imagine it was once not at all traditionally French. Of course, one of the things that the preference for white porcelain in higher-end French cuisine (the technology for which wouldn't have been possible without Chinese influence) created was 1) Large plates for small servings, which is not Japanese at all, and 2) The need for chefs to play with 3D effects (towers and stacking), and painting of the plates with dabs and dots and brushstrokes of sauces and such. Japanese dinnerware is smaller in scale, tends to have distinctive brushwork or glazing, and is chosen to decorate the food. The "tasting menu" aesthetic often requires complex plating so that the food decorates the large, plain ceramic pieces it's served on. This is a pretty substantial divergence from Japanese aesthetics, which, even in formal or even kaiseki meals, tends to have a fairly minimalist plating style. A simple garnish, an attempt to evoke something seasonal, a consciousness of the choice of cutting technique, and avoidance of "mounds" of food, characterizes formal presentation.

Somehow not confusing to me... Stinky tofu is a literal translation of a common dish in Taiwan. Vegetarian goose is likely a wheat gluten based food that comes from the vegetarian Buddhist tradition in China/Taiwan (and is linguistically no stranger than "veggie burger"). Sea blubber is, I presume, a variety of jellyfish?

Hiromi and I had our first dinner together at Tofuya Ukai (the Kawasaki/Saginuma branch) September 19, 2003, just before things became complicated, and we were planning to have our wedding dinner there for our Japanese ceremony, which was postponed due to my mother's health until next year. Anyway, I remember that place fondly, even though Ukai was a bit tough for a vegetarian (lots of duck and duck stock on the night we were there). It's worth seeking out.

I'm fond of shopping for food. The only two things I like shopping for, in general, are food and ceramics. Everything else--clothing, gifts, household needs--is a chore. That being said, I like some types of food shopping more than others, and I find some places more frustrating than others. I like shopping for prepared foods in Japan, which I don't enjoy at all in the US. I'm regularly disappointed by the quality of the ready-to-eat items in supermarkets in the US, in the delis or hot food section or salad bars or whatever, and the closest equivalent of Japan's ready-to-eat market in Seattle is in a few specialty markets, usually focused on fresh pastas and so on. Ready-to-eat is especially disappointing at places like Whole Foods, where I find the quality mediocre and the prices high; I've been satisfied, but not impressed, by some of the pastry counter things, but the steam tables and salad bars and similar items never fail to disappoint. While I've certainly had some mediocre, additive-laden stuff from Tokyo supermarkets and department stores, the standard is so much higher that I keep trying things in Japan, but I've mostly given up on the idea of buying anything in the "deli" sections of US markets. However, I generally prefer vegetable shopping in Seattle, at least at the Pike Place Market and some of the better supermarkets (Central Market, Ballard Market). That's mostly because heirloom varieties are more available, and produce from smaller-scale producers who emphasize quality over durability are easier to find (where I live, anyway). When shopping for vegetables and fruit in Japan I can find beautiful, but often fairly flavorless ingredients. There are certainly exceptions, but the only real advantage is that I can find some things easily which are either premium, specialty ingredients in the US (maitake, enoki, various kinds of shimeji, mitsuba, nagaimo), or are almost entirely unavailable (yuzu, sudachi, nanohana, hinome). In Japan, tomatoes are pretty on the outside but watery and flavorless, even in season; that's true enough in most supermarkets in the US, but I know how to work around that in Seattle, and I've never found a solution in Japan. (I don't usually buy the crazy expensive showpiece fruits sold at Japanese department stores, since those are nearly always given as gifts, so I don't know if those defy the pattern I see of prettier-than-tasty in more ordinary ingredients). My need to buy something as a "reward" is fairly rare; I tend to find myself doing this at Trader Joe's where I buy a snack or drink for the drive home, especially if I make the mistake of waiting until 4 or 5 pm on a Sunday to go there. I sometimes do the same thing at PFI, a local import specialty store that carries mostly European and Middle Eastern ingredients; I usually buy some sort of little nougat thing, some crackers, or sometimes just a Chinotto, Bibicaffe, or lemon soda. In other cases, the ingredients I'm buying are more rewarding than any quick indulgence. I know I'll have a chance to create something more exciting when I get home. I typically only shop two or three days a week right now, but if I lived or worked a bit closer to the Pike Place Market, I might do smaller amounts of shopping more often. When I was a student in Germany, I made a lot of small shopping trips, roughly 4 or 5 times a week. Most trips were only for $4-10 of ingredients. I might have burned more calories walking to the market from my dormitory than I consumed. Now, I tend to shop in noticeably larger volumes. On Sunday, my "large" shopping trip for the week, I went to Sosio's (Pike Place Market produce vendor), Beecher's (local cheese place), and Trader Joe's, and I don't expect to need anything else until Friday. (Thursday nights I have an event that interfere with dining at home). When I buy less at once, I tend to need to buy something at a neighborhood market or make another Pike Place run midweek. When Hiromi is with me in Seattle, I may make one or two more trips, or Hiromi may take care of some specific needs. Of course, I often buy things primarily as an indulgence, but not necessarily as a reward for the shopping itself.

Usually the cake yeast common in Germany is portioned for roughly 500g of flour for normal bread recipes, or a bit less flour for rolls. It looks like this recipe is assuming a higher yeast percentage, so use to packets of dried yeast or about 2 tablespoons. However, if the rising time is long, I suspect you would want to use less yeast. I'm wondering if perhaps the recipe was adapted for the somewhat smaller size of cake yeast sold in the US on the (probably erroneous) assumption that more is needed to get the same "size" that the German cake yeast had. But with the roughly 600g of flour in your recipe, perhaps that's how much you need. Oleo is an older term for margarine, but I think you would get better results with butter. I found a similar combination of ingredients called "Kaffeeklatschkuchen" (coffee chatter cake, roughly), with the addition of lemon peel. That version uses 500g flour, 40g yeast (probably cake yeast), 50g sugar, 1/4 l lukewarm milk, 80g butter (a bit less than a stick), a pinch of salt, and lemon peel. There's no egg in this version. The filling/topping consists of raisins, almonds, chocolate, butter and sugar.

When I was a student in Germany (around 14 years ago) I didn't immediately warm to bittersweet, 65-77% cacao chocolate bars, but I immediately noticed the difference in quality in the German, Italian, French and Belgian produced milk chocolates compared to the Hershey and Nestle of my childhood. My 20 year old palate hadn't quite learned to recognize the nuances of the less sweet varieties. These weren't "premium" single-estate chocolates or anything particularly esoteric; fairly good chocolate was, at the time, available for 65 cents to around 2 dollars at the exchange rates and prices common at the time. (I haven't been back recently enough to know how different prices are now). Sort of like the mocha or the Frappucino are the gateway drug of the not-quite-adapted-to-coffee palate, milk chocolates of better quality are a good starting point if you can't distinguish between the flavors of less sweet varieties. Some of the super-premium chocolates are available in milk or lower-cacao concentrations, but even if you just try a variety in the mid-market and gradually move up to 60% chocolate you'll start to recognize differences. While your point about the aroma of chocolate not being as obvious when you first smell a solid chocolate bar, as the chocolate melts in your mouth the aromas become more intense, unless you're just eating too quickly. Most of the flavor in chocolates is in the aroma, like with everything else; bitter and sweet only carries a chcolate so far.

Tokyo has plenty of these small places with obsessive, quirky chefs that "nobody" knows about, so it's not surprising that it's evaded the attention of Michelin and others. The author of that piece, Matt Rudd, doesn't seem to have many other food-focused pieces, so it's hard to gauge his preferences and biases anyway. If you can't find your way to that particular restaurant, there are countless other interesting options to try. The ones that tend to impress me the most in Japan are usually not doing terribly elaborate or innovative preparations; they just track down good ingredients and treat them well.