helenjp

Nope, but they have this annoying clause about moderation About job's tears, coix lacryma-jobi, known in Japanese as hato-mugi (pigeon's barley). Used in CHinese and Indian cooking too, I believe. They don't disintegrate on cooking and actually stand up to freezing better than some grains, so I like to toss them into soups and stews - they absorb flavors nicely, though possibly the most boring grain known to man eaten alone. I lose more weight if I stick to sweet potatoes and job's tears than if I eat whole wheat bread and brown rice. cooking job's tears and other whole grains photo of job's tears Low-carb in Japan...it's just coming back into focus now. A sugarbusters-style plan known as the "Low Insulin Diet" was popular a couple of years back, advocating replacing white bread and rice with brown, but whole wheat bread is impossible to buy here, most people HATE brown rice, and the book skirted round the issue of smaller portions of starchy foods. However, it did produce a stack of GI charts for Japanese foods, and also gave alternatives to the increasing sweetness of "sweet-salty" Japanese food. For example, I make my own umeboshi (salted plums) and now can't eat the supermarket type, because they are too sweet - when did it become OK for a famously sour food to be made sweet?! Sweet drinks are becoming very popular here, and I see bloated fat kids and adults around these days - never saw that particular kind of fat when I first came to Japan 25 years ago (I've spent almost all my adult life here). Another funny quirk is that not only do you lose weight faster if you stay away from added sugar, you seem to lose weight faster if you eat sour foods - yogurt, lemon juice/vinegar used as a seasoning or condiment, sour pickles, sourdough, etc. I'm puzzled over this, but it isn't just hearsay, it's my experience too. Scott 123, I think that Sugarbusters revised book is guilty of trying to please everybody, and is inconsistent on the fat issue. The original book talked about moderate fat in quite generous terms, and simply advised people to use more vegetable oils and less saturated fat, but now some people seem to be trying to keep fat AND carbs ultra-low, which is just hard to do. However, if I eat Atkins induction style, I get pain...I just have to back off. Drinking more water always helps, and I think it should be emphasized more in the moderately low-carb plans. The benefits you describe are definitely there, though - I have two jobs plus a demanding extended family, and until I changed my eating, I didn't have enough energy to get through the day. Depression vanished, colds and rashes disappeared - it works for me! Disliking eggs...a good breakfast is definitely key to low-carb eating, so I eat a bit more than I really want to, but stick to lighter things such as fish, canned fish, yogurt cheese grilled on whole-wheat toast drizzled with a little olive oil and herbs, and add nuts and seeds to my yogurt and fruit rather than hoeing into an egg. Soy burgers are nice for breakfast too. Curd rice as described over on the Indian forum is also great for moderately low-carb plans and a wonderful non-sweet breakfast. I imagine South Beach is similar (anybody?) in emphasizing vegetables at every meal - that is the hardest thing for me to carry out, because I have a cooked breakfast for 4 people plus several lunchboxes (also cooked dishes) to prepare before leaving for work. Bean salads with plenty of other vegetables keep overnight in the fridge - any other hints welcome.

OK, so I'll come out of the opposite corner then... I couldn't imagine (for me) a longterm diet that *did* involve ketosis! A friend suggested Sugarbusters to me about 18 months ago, because I was ill and depressed after a period of intense physical and mental stress. The emphasis on moderate but not ultra-low carbohydrates, choice of lower processed foods, and emphasis on no added sugar, but no restriction on naturally occurring lactic or fruit sugars (except limiting the very sweetest fruits) made this a diet that I could follow easily in Japan. On the other hand, the emphasis on no added sugar and unrefined foods makes this diet a hard one for people who don't like to cook. I had kidney stones for no obvious reason in my 20s, and my mother and grandmother had gallstones, so a very high protein/high fat diet really scares me. I can see that Atkins works fine for lots of people, but a more moderate approach is also successful - I've kept off almost all the weight I lost initially, and still plan to lose a bit more. What are my staple foods? Brown rice is also fairly high on the GI (glycemic index), my starchy foods are usually sweet potatoes (a great choice in Japan), weirdo grains like barnyard grass (hie in Japanese) and Job's tears (hato-mugi, ultra-low GI but needs thorough soaking and cooking), sometimes amaranth, often oats (especially whole-grain rolled oats - yum!). Many Japanese low-carbers eat spaghetti al dente in small helpings, but I more often have beanthread vermicelli, or 100% buckwheat soba noodles. I make my own whole wheat bread, and when I had a sourdough going, it kept moist even better than regular yeast-baked bread. Although whole wheat wraps can't be found in Japan, I count regular wraps as a good alternative, especially as they are much chewier than sandwich bread or buns. I eat homemade yogurt and yogurt cheese more than milk. Fish. especially oily sea fish like sardines or mackerel, is very successful on this diet. I try not to eat meat more than once a day, but I'm also a bit allergic to most beans, especially soybeans. Fermented beans like natto or tempeh are a great option for me, and tempeh is very quick to fix for a packed lunch. Nuts and seeds are a handy alternative to beans or meat too. Condiments...Japan's sweet/salty cooking had me puzzled, until I substituted sweet rice wine (mirin, reputed to have a much lower GI than sake or sugar) and even vinegar for the sugar. Vinegar cooks away to a very faint sweetness. Chocolate - not a problem. Red wine, on the other hand...

We're just getting used to this too...12 year old started growing and developed pimples at the beginning of summer. So how to provide food for him, without feeding the zits?! 1) No sweet drinks. Japan's cold barley tea is a big help here. 2) He drinks a LOT of milk, and it's his first choice when hungry (you know, to hold him while the snack is being prepared...or when it's less than 2 hours since he ate, but he SAYS he's hungry). I'm thinking that it might be zit-food, and hope that yogurt might be better than milk. 3) Hint from another thread -- keep sandwich makings/toast toppings such as tuna/egg/chicken salad in the fridge. Hummus also, plus yogurt cheese or cottage cheese. 4) Another Japanese item - natto is a high protein food ready to eat right out of the packet. 5) Roast vegetables - easy to do an ovenful, and then keep the (regrettably few) leftovers in the fridge. 6) I'm thinking of starting the dinnertime miso soup at lunchtime, because it's easy to drop in an egg, some tofu, etc. for a quick snack.

Been watching "Airplane" have we...where a passenger eats fish and starts vomiting eggs??

..No, so be sure to let us know what happens when *you* try it!

How about Rokkatei? They make confectionery which is in-between western and traditional styles. All nice, though I don't much care for the potato manju-like item! Rokkatei site in Japanese about Rokkatei sweets in English My husband's favorite tastes of home are squid sashimi, and Hokkaido ham and sausage. He's fond of salmon pickled with Chinese cabbage and cultured rice, too.

A new slimy food! Okra blossoms! (Hana-okra, tororo-aoi) okra blossoms

I recall that my parents used to toss mushroom peelings and scraps onto the back lawn. Quite often we got a small crop!

Sorry for confusion...I meant that ipomea batatas sweet potatoes are thought to have (maybe) reached Southeast Asia on Portuguese ships (which I seriously doubt, because if ipomea could make it to NZ nearly 1000 years ago, it could surely get itself to Borneo before the Portuguese turned up), not the taro (calocasia) or yam (dioscorea spp.) Sorrryyy! I'm curious about root crops in "Island Asia" (including Japan) and Southeast Asia before the introduction of rice cultivation. Japanese historians say that prehistoric (pre-continential immigration) people ate acorns and nuts, but I can't help thinking that might have been a more northern thing, because even now, the southern half of Japan eats a lot more taro, sweet potatoes, and yams than the northern half. Also wonder why Borneo rice is traditionally mainly upland rather than paddy-grown? But I guess that's another topic for another day. Thanks to both Laksa and Ms. Congeeniality for an interesting look at such a tasty part of Southeast Asia!

I'm always amazed to read this thread and think..."Oh yeah, we ate that recently, too!". Must be some kind of seasonal brain thing...hours of sunlight drop past X and we all start loading potatoes into our grocery carts, or something. We had...yellow rice, green mixed salad, palely pink shrimps and squid with green beans, flavored with shreds of lemon and ginger. This received a rave review from my husband, to my surprise, as the hasty preparation was rather too evident in the squid dish. Son2 was less easily fooled...but then he hates squid anyway.

I've made koshi-an various ways...the recipe for shiro-an (white lima-bean an) on the Konny site that Torakris found is an excellent guide to producing very fine koshi-an if you use azuki instead of lima beans. Konny's perfect White Koshi-an However, don't worry about rubbing the skins off by hand for koshi-an. This is how I do it (proportions to taste - the less sugar you use, the lighter color and more floury/grainy texture you will have, and you will also need to freeze it to keep it for long): Soak beans, cook over gentle heat until soft, draining off and replacing water 2-3 times. Drop a piece of greaseproof paper onto the surface if you are really determined to prevent any hard beans...but this is not likely to be a problem with small amounts and shorter cooking time. When beans are soft but not burst, drain, and mash roughly. Now rub through a sieve. I haven't had good results with a food processor (and I did try it!) but if you have a very powerful one you may be able to get a very smooth an without flecks of skin in it. A metal sieve works OK, but a horsehair sieve and a flat wooden rice spatula is best - no chance of getting bits of tough bean skin in the final an. The skins are discarded, and the seived bean starch is EITHER transferred to a pot and cooked (koshi-an) OR allowed to soak in cold water then water is gently tipped off, and bean paste is drained through a cloth before being transferred to a pot, etc. This extra step produces "sarashi-an" (bleached or refined an). Stir bean paste and sugar over gentle-moderate heat until enough moisture has evaporated that you can pull a wooden spoon through the mix and leave a clear trail on the bottom of the pot - the "walls" of bean paste don't immediately collapse together behind the spoon. The paste will thicken somewhat as it cools anyway, so don't try to make it really stiff. Now put dollops of paste onto a tray to cool, and fan to cool quickly (helps maintain good color). Chinese bean jam is cooked slightly differently, and sometimes contains oil.

I think that is a basic daifuku-mochi - the ones with fresh fruit in the middle are a subset/variation! You can grill daifuku-mochi or eat them plain.

Konny wagashi URL Now that's the real thing! I checked out shiro-an, and yes, there it is in the same hairsplitting detail that I recall from when I used to make it myself. Nerikiri...interesting that they are popular in Nagoya - definitely saw more of them in Osaka and especially Kyoto than I ever do in Tokyo. Must teach the kids how to make tsubu-an at least - that should be enough to satisfy basic expat cravings if they ever live out of Japan!

Well anyway, about the history of shaved ice!! There's a famous passage in Sei Shonagon's "Pillow Book" that lists shaved ice dressed with liana syrup and served in a silver bowl under "Elegant Things". That must have been stored winter ice, and I have no idea what liana syrup is, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that this dessert was imported to Japan from China or Korea...anybody know?

Sorry, one more thing....I checked out WWOOF in Japan and in New Zealand a year or two back, and spotted some inconsistencies, which surprised me because WWOOF makes a big thing about maintaining standards worldwide. The problems have since been fixed, suggesting that they are on the ball, and I've heard that WWOOF is especially strong in Europe. Right, and don't forget to have a great time!

Ms. Congeeniality thanks for the info on fern shoots and roots. And sorry, by "yams" I meant roots such as taro-related things, rather than sweet potatoes. In NZ we avoid all this confusion by calling sweet potatoes by their Maori name, "kumara". I've heard that they came to Southeast Asia from South America via Portuguese ships. I wonder if they really were that recently introduced. Japanese rice cookers mostly have a congee setting, very handy to be able to cook it on the overnight timer ready for breakfast. I haven't seen that type of rice cooker in New Zealand, but I was curious to find that they don't seem to be available in the US either. Laksa, we have the "eats roots and leaves" joke in NZ too. A kind of LCD of the joke world... I'm enjoying the blog - my Borneo friend's gift for blarney is second only to yours - is it something you guys eat? Is there room for Malaysia/Singapore, or at least Southeast Asia in the forums? "Rest of Asia/Pacific" covers quite a lot...

I'd be interested in hearing more about WWOOF - I have several horticulture students here in Japan interested in participating. I'm inclined to suggest that you pick the farm and the hosts that look best-managed and most interesting to you, rather than concentrating on the region - I guess (but don't know) that not all host farms are equally rewarding for participants!

I don't like the underfloor storage either - the plastic is too fragile to take the heavy large pots and pickle jars I only use occasionally, and even worse, things get moldy in there. Not to mention the dust and dirt... So how does everybody physically store their food stocks? I used to keep stuff in drawers, but decided that even tiny bits of broken noodle or whatever were attracting cockroaches, so now all packets are in vacuum-seal plastic boxes in cupboards. We still have cockroaches, but surely they're skinnier...?! Other than that, under the sink or along the corridors (cans and pickle barrels). Maybe because of the dirty air or because roads are so close, maybe because of our disintegrating house, dust is a much bigger problem than in New Zealaland, so my pickle containers all need some kind of dust-cover too. Anybody got any variations on that?

General term, Hiroyuki...think of it as "stock of non-perishable food items". I wish I DID have a pantry....although if I did have a western sized pantry, probably somebody in my family would try to move their futon in and claim it as a bedroom!

I forgot to mention that the Samoan "raw" fish salad also uses citrus juice which makes the flesh opaque. However, I am not 100% sure that the original dish included that step. Patrick Kirch's "On the Road of the Winds" is an interesting book about the spread of the prehistoric Southeast Asian Lapita peoples into the Pacific - but his ideas are still controversial. There are definitely links between southern China, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the Pacific right out to remote Polynesia and parts of Micronesia...but who can be sure when and where the links originated? There was prehistoric contact between Japan and Southeast Asian islands, but rice cultivation in both Borneo and Japan has had such a huge impact that it is hard to know what people ate before that. Since sweet potatoes are not native to the area, I guess yams are probably the oldest common link. Japan also uses starch from bracken-fern root, and roasted bracken-fern root was eaten in New Zealand...how about in Borneo?

"Ika-oka" - sashimi-grade squid minced or shredded up with fresh okra. Looks pretty, too.

I was just thinking about onigiri - we are often not in Japan in midsummer, so recent school trips have meant different types of onigiri! Nicest in hot weather was one with finely chopped shiso and scallions, stuffed with shreds of red ginger pickle. This homemade pickle was more gingery and less vinegary than commercial pickles, a nice warm contrast to the shiso. Meanwhile, those yaki-onigiri are looking pretty good, charred or not!

Was the bean-paste texture quite smooth, or could you see mashed beans (or more unlikely, whole beans)?

Char Kway Teow, neato! I gave my Japanese university students a recipe with anecdotes as a reading assignment a month or so back. As the noodles have just started to become readily available in Japan (and as the alternate choice was the history of manmade compound materials...), they were pretty enthusiastic. Laksa will be on our menu very soon - I have some chicken pieces and half a can of coconut milk calling out to each other in the fridge at this very moment. Ms. Congeeniality et al, thanks for the bitter melon suggestions. Son2 is home from school trip and his appetite for bitter melon is unabated. We had ong choy today too...in a kind of thin rice-noodle soup for lunch. And as for the raw fish, this is a topic which fascinates me...in New Zealand, we eat a Samoan version where white-fleshed fish is sliced and rinsed many times in lukewarm salty water, then dressed with onion and coconut cream, and sometimes other vegetables as well. Marinated raw fish dishes, leaf-wrapped foods, and earth ovens seem to be a big link between Southeast Asian and Pacific food preparation...presumably a common inheritance from Lapita peoples, but who knows for sure? Can you tell me whether raw fish dishes are part of West Malaysian cooking too?

...so how would you prepare/cook bitter gourd if you WERE going to eat it? The season is in full swing here in Japan!