torakris

the "weirdest" ice cream I have tasted was wasabi, it wasn't bad as a taste, but I couldn't eat a whole cone or bowl of it.

word for 6/20: 松皮造り or 松皮作り matsukawa-zukuri This is a technique for preparing sashimi that tenderizes and sweetens the fish, it is commonly used on tai and other medium sized scaly fish. This can translate as "pine bark method" as the resulting fish is said to look similar to the bark of pine trees. In this method the fish is placed skin side up, preferably on an overturned coalnder, and covered with a piece of cheesecloth or dish towel, freshly boiled water is then very carefully poured over the skin and then the fish is immediately plunged into a bowl of ice water. The resulting fish will have slightly whitened flesh and shrunken skin. tai no matsukawa-zukuri: http://www.plusm-tokyo.com/fishing/img/RYO...UKAWA_MEDAI.gif

nope

Yeah, I never really thought about it until now. That would be a nice function. Everytime I post I keep hoping I will push it into a second page! maybe this will help !

prasantrin, I love your pictures (all of them!) why is that no one got a really clear shot of that foie gras? Were we all too busy drooling over it, too eager to eat?

I am not sure it is limited to sweet mochi which is the reason I was asking. I am working on a list and it is proving a lot harder than I thought! and I hadn't even taken into account the non-sweet mochi types....

mmmm...... http://www2.aia.pref.aichi.jp/voice/no10/10_tasty_treat.html So now are we talking about just "sweet" style mochi or all kinds of moshi?

words for 6/19: While we are talking about sashimi, let's look at some of the different ways of cutting the fish for eating raw. 平作り hira-zukuri this is the thick slice that is usually rectangular or triangular in shape, best with soft fragile fish 薄作り usu-zukuri this is fish that is very thinly sliced, normally firm pale fleshed fish 角作り kaku-zukuri this is the "cube" cut, works best with soft flesh fish 糸作り ito-zukuri "thread" cut, very thin slices on things like squid 細作り hoso-zukuri "thin" cut, this is a thread like cut but thicker than the ito-zukuri pictures of the first 4 can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/5789/sashimi.htm and hoso-zukuri: http://www.jf-ymg.or.jp/recipe/tatiuo_03.htm

I too was quite surprised by the number of times pork was served! and by the lack of chicken... I wonder if there is some kind of connection with a pork farm..? The only thing that I can think of is that it is easy and probably requires no prep (cutting,etc) as it probably arrives already thinly sliced. There is monetary help for low income families, we all receive a form at the beginning of the year and if you qualify the city pays for everything I think including extra money to pay for things like pens, notebooks, gym uniforms, bathing suits, etc.

wow, that's scary! I love hijiki and actually eat it quite a bit.... I will post recipes anyway in just a bit.

The history of curry in Japan: http://www.house-foods.com/imported_products.html

word for 6/18: 刺身サラダ　　and 　カルパッチョ sashimi sarada and karupaccho Sashimi salad and carpaccio These are both ways of serving sashimi style (raw) fish sort of dressed up. In general it will be referred to as a sashimi sarada if it has Asian style ingredients, "Chinese" sashimi salads using tai seem to be quite popular. If it has the word karupaccho in the title in is more likely seasoned with "western" ingredients. tai no sashimi sarada: http://www.sawanotsuru.co.jp/sakana/menu/2001_03/menu_02.htm tai no karupaccho: http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/tun/karupattcho_tai.htm

I must have read that about the soy sauce somewhere too. I also make a space in the middle, pour in the soy let it sizzle and then mix it together, I am not sure why I do this though....

Actually it wasn't vegetarian, there was ground pork in the mabo-nasu. There are actually very few vegetarians in Japan, meat seems to be added (though in small amounts) to most everything. Of the 21 days they eat the school lunch in June they are served the following: fish/seafood 6 times beef 3 times pork 16 times chicken 1 time tofu 3 times and one time they have a sausage with liver added (I am assuming it is a pork sausage with chicken livers but it doesn't specify.... There are no meals served that don't contain any meat and in some cases there are more than one kind of meat/fish served on the same day.

That is a good question and I am really not sure of the answer. You would probably have to have a REALLY good excuse like multiple severe allergies or something like that , since they see this as part of the education. I don't know of anyone at this school who doesn't eat the lunch.

The children eat with either a spoon or chopsticks depending on the menu. In the case the mapo-nasu was meant to be poured oved the rice and eaten together, it was quite saucy. My children just informed me that they use chopsticks almost everyday. I put it in Adventures in Eating, because it is a little different from what most people are used to eating, at the least the style of eating, but most of all because if I stuck it at the bottom of the 5 page kyushoku thread no one would see it.

I love both! I love the complexity of the spice blends and the heat from Indian food and I love the subtle yet flavorful Japanese dishes. That being said I could never spend the rest of my life eating traditional "Kyoto" cuisine that I find to be subtle AND completely lacking in flavor.... The Japanese do have many condiments to add heat to foods, karashi (mustard), sansho (pepper), togarashi (chiles), etc and spice mixes like shichimi togagarshi (7 spice belnd) and yuzu-koshou (green chile and yuzu paste), but they are added to the finished product normally, rather than blended in from the beginning. This gives a different taste sensation and I really enjoy both kinds of heat.

I have posted a photo essay about the kyushoku at my children's school here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=45272&st=0

more about kyushoku can be found at this thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=15429

My children attend the neighborhood public school here in Japan are are currently in grades 1 and 3. Today was the day the parents could go to the school and watch how the lunch is made everyday, learn about the considerations that go into the planning of the menu and then we were able to eat the lunch. Kyushoku, as the school lunch is called in Japan, started after WWII to provide kids with a healthy meal at a time when good food was hard to come by. It is also viewed as part of the children's education, they learn manners including expressions said both before and after the meal as well as good habits such as washing your hands before eating. They also teach about different foods, explaining varieties and origins hoping to encourage the children to avoid likes and dislikes. The lunch can be made in facilities at the school or at a central location and then taken to the schools. My school is quite large with 892 students (and 56 teachers/staff) to feed and has its own kitchen, the school also employs 4 cooks, 2 part time helpers and one nutrionist. Everyone eats the same meal and the teachers eat in the classroom with the children. The meal is paid for by the parents, we pay 3700 yen (about $35) a month and it works out to about 221 yen ($2) a meal. The city of Yokohama plans the meals and schools all over the city will have the same menu for the month but often varying the days to avoid ingredient shortages. The main dish today was mabo-eggplant (like mabodofu but with eggplant instead of tofu) and used 500 eggplants at our school alone! The nutrionist for the school who gave the talk today stressed the use of seasonal vegetables as well as those from local sopurces and that everything is amde from scratch, all of the dressing, sauces, rice toppings, etc.. She also explained that the chosen menus should provide 1/3 of the childrens daily nutrional needs as well as 1/2 of the daily nutrional needs of calcium and certain vitamins that the Japanese tend not to get enough of. The amounts of food are different for the different age groups and second helpings are often available for those who want it. Leftovers aer then collected and weighed and decisions are made about how to improve the dish in the future if needed. How kyushoku starts its day! The food (vegetables, meat, etc) is all delivered to the school in the morning, all food is prepared on premises and prepared the day it is to be eaten. Preparation of the food starts around 9:00, this includes the disinfecting of all surfaces in the kitchen, the washing of cans (of corn), cartons (of milk), etc and chopping of the vegetables. We were told that the chopping of the eggplant today alone took one hour. Then they start the cooking, all foods (except fruit) are heated, even salads and dressed dishes. The sample dish is made for display and another dish is made up to be stored for 2 weeks. Every day a complete meal is stored in a special refrigerator along with samples of all the ingredients in their fresh/raw state in case there is any case (or suspected case) of food poisoning. The sample dish is put on display in front of the kitchen so everyone can see the menu. Today's sample next to the sample on the wall is a board describing all of the ingredients usedin todays's meal broken down into their food groups 30 minutes before the meal is to be eaten, it is served to the principal, if he finds the taste satisfactory (and doesn't die, as the nutrionist joked) the food is prepared for the classrooms. The "buckets" of food are separated by class according to the number of children and the ages and are labeled. These are the buckets of rice and the bowls of goma-shio furikake (a rice topping made with salt and black sesame seeds) In the back you can see the large vats used in the kitchen, another view of the kitchen, the preparation area For children that have allergies, food is separated and labeled with the child's name, today there was a salad that had a dressing with chopped peanuts and this class has two children who have peanut allergies The children are responsible for carrying the food and dishes to the classrooms, serving it to their classmates and then carrying it back to the kitchen. This rotates on a weekly basis and at the end of the week the smock and hat they wear to do this comes home and the parents are responsible for washing and ironing it. Here are the children lining up in the hallway, each class goes in a group together of about 8 kids. carrying the food up the stairs and dishing it out The food is dished in the bowls, then carried on trays to the desks where the children have laid out their cloth napkins (brought from home) and the food is neatly placed in front of each child. Once everyone has received the food and everyone is seated, they repeat in unison "itadakimasu" which is an expression that shows their gratefulness for the food and then they start eating. My lunch for today salad of bean sprouts and cucumber with a peanut dressing, mabo-nasu (eggplant cooked in the style of mabodofu) with the addition of green peppers and bamboo shoots, sprouted rice with sesame-salt topping and milk Here is a look inside a first grade classroom setting up the desks into "tables" for lunch and my 3rd grade daughter (butterfly shirt) with friends At the end of the talk the nutrionist shared the 3 best and worst lunches as picked by the children BEST 1. curry rice 2. yakisoba (stirfried noodles)/kara-age (fried chicken) 3. bibimbap WORST The least liked foods were the more traditional style Japanese foods, hijiki (type of seaweed), beans, and kiri-boshi daikon (dried daikon radish strips) The nutrionist encouraged the mothers to try to make more of these foods at home so thta the kids learn to like them/become use to their flavors and they even passed out recipes for them! It is far from restaurant fare but it is much better than what other children from around the world are eating for lunch.

That is actually the type I am more familiar with as well, I normally receive them even still packed with a little water. These were much drier and the shiro-an filling I thought was unusual, that is why I bought them! and because I love anything with sakura.....

I missed the show... Hiroyuki or Pompollo, when you add the eggs to the hot oil in the pan, do you mix them or just let them sit for those couple seconds? I think the hot rice vs cold rice has to with the the type of rice you are using. In my experience the non-sticky rice has a tendency to clump up when hot but sticky rice (Japanese style) can be very difficult to break apart when it is cold, thus you end up with clumps.

there were some things on sale but it wasn't really any different than another other sale......

some of the other answers: sembei? also ebi- sembei? inari-zushi?

in honor of wagashi no hi, I picked up some mizu-manju yesterday. they were made with salted cherry blossoms and shio-an.