helenjp

Salt...I crossed that line! I use cheap iodized for things like salting water for boiling pasta, and save the sea salt for special dishes, or cases where the salt will be tasted directly. I don't think there's any such thing as "never" - the choices aren't "good wine or bad wine", they are usually things like "good wine or pay my bills" Baking your own bread - that's a tricky one! I know that baking my own bread is not cheaper than buying it, even in Japan, because making bread from the quality of bread flour I can buy in the supermarket plus vegetable shortening and water produces something I don't want to eat, while adding things like olive oil , eggs, or milk costs more. However, bread is a major part of breakfast, and I think that the cost of home-made bread is worth the nutritional gain. Yogurt - making your own yogurt and yogurt cheese saves money on many fronts - the yogurt is good for a snack and for desserts as well as breakfast, good in salad dressings, excellent mixed with more expensive cheese on grilled toast, and a nice sub for butter!

...when I justify any purchase with "needed for eGullet experiment", my kids point out that there is No Such Thing as an "eGullet experiment". Outed!

I guess food will always be political - as my husband used to say (or rather sigh) as he dealt with tourist complaints "Tabemono no urami wa fukai!" (Resentments based on food run deep!"). I noticed the average height of young Japanese university students increase even over a decade. Unfortunately, the sight of fat children has become more common along with the sight of tall young men. And I'm not the only person to notice that average height of school children still appears to vary between the affluent western Tokyo suburbs and the less affluent eastern suburbs, so both income and socio-economic preferences probably come into it. Milk and bread - I often wonder what the opposite would be - my kids used to get a handful of small dried fish on their lunch trays, which I guess would come as a surprise to western schoolkids! It would be great if differences in taste were the only problems with food aid.

Mountain food - it's worth remembering that the hunter/gatherer society in Japan was ethnically different from the later agricultural Yayoi society. So suggesting that modern people "go back to" a pre fish/rice diet is problematic, and in no way adequate to sustain Japan's current population levels. Some people say that most yamabushi tales are a romanticized version of the Jomon people who were driven into the mountains - certainly yamabushi were often seen as scary, just like the mountains they came from, and you can imagine why mountain food has been adopted only in a low-key way by the agrarian majority population. There are good reasons why rice became so popular in Japan - it's one of the few cereals that can withstand high aluminum levels in Japan's volcanic soils, and those same high aluminum levels (if I remember correctly) keep certain plant diseases at bay. So switching to other forms of agriculture or other crops would not be easy - even if the oft-heard tale of the beneficial nature of paddy cultivation is not entirely accurate (rice paddies are second only to cattle-raising as an agricultural source of methane!). Japan's native vegetable plants are very few, and remain close to their parent forms, showing their hunter/gatherer origins as clearly as the highly bred imported plants such as rice or brassicas show their agricultural origins. Very likely, none of the "5 cereals" are native to Japan either, with the possible exception of a wild strain of hie (e. crusgalli), which is only marginally cultivated. Apart from being stigmatized as "peasant food" the less popular grains are mostly not as high yielding as rice, though they can be cultivated in some places where rice is hard to grow. The kind of forests that support Japan's wild foods have been much reduced by forestry plantations, and the river valleys needed for rice cultivation have been hugely reduced by urbanization. Mountain paddies are only a small part of Japan's ricelands, and were reduced first by mulberry cultivation, and then to urbanization and forestry/crops such as tangerines. During the Edo period, when Japan was self-sufficient under the classical diet, there were quite a number of severe famines - but at least these were mostly local. With Japan's current dependency on imports (especially for staples, and especially because of extensive reliance on single countries for certain vital food products), disruptions to food imports now would have nationwide impact, and sadly, much of the land that once supported Japan is no longer usable for agriculture. Marginal land in colder areas such as Hokkaido or in mountain areas is no replacement for the rich alluvial land that has been lost. Most lamb eaten in "traditional" Hokkaido Genghis Khan restaurants is from China or New Zealand. As cultivars suited to the colder climate and different Hokkaido soils were developed, rice cultivation has grown, as has cultivation of other crops such as potatoes or onions. However, moderate yields of rice in Hokkaido are no substitute for the higher-yielding cultivars double-cropped in warmer areas. Although Japanese rice prices are so far fairly stable despite rising prices elsewhere in the world, I can't help wondering if extensive regulation of the rice market and prices since WWII is partly responsible for driving the current young adult and adult generations away from rice as a staple food, and for driving farmers away from specializing in rice production. Over recent years, Japan has produced only around 14% of the wheat that it consumes annually - a shockingly low amount when we consider how many people eat bread (pastries, cakes), udon, or ramen every day - not to mention tempura or other battered and fried goods. For soy, the proportion hovers around 3%. I believe these figures are calculated on a calorie base. Fish prices have been manipulated to high levels (I know of catches being discarded to avoid lower prices), and so people turn to cheap pork or chicken - but only something like 5% of the pork eaten in Japan is raised on domestically-produced feed. Overall, Japan produces (I don't think this figure is adjusted to account for foreign/domestic sources of feed, fertilizer etc) about 40% of its food on a calorie base, and 70% on a monetary base. It's worth remembering that as the proportion of single households grows (among middle-aged and elderly, not just the young), the proportion of "classically Japanese" family dinners being prepared every day will also drop, making this reliance on imported staples even more shocking. Considering the difficulty of abandoning rice as a staple food in Japan, it's a situation which deserves action rather than handwringing.

JustKay, you would know if anybody did! Did you try logging in and asking the poster? You don't think it might be a typical hot-weather frosting like meringue buttercream, made over steaming hot water??

Not starving, supermarket shelves are groaning as usual, but as Hiroyuki says, there are serious issues which seem to be getting the "elephant in the room" treatment. Food prices have been going up steadily over the past year. There are all sorts of contributing factors: 1) General anti-China scare, partly seems to be copied off US moves to avoid Chinese manufactured goods, but in Japan, it also affects high import level areas such as fresh vegetables. This has peaked again with the pesticide-contaminated frozen gyoza (possibly sabotage) problem of a few months back. 2) Biofuel-"fueled" price rises, as in other countries. 3) Pressure from popularity of non-rice based Shochu ( distilled rice liquor), especially barley and sweet potatoes. 4) Milk shortage, yep, there really is one. Government "recommendations" led to downsizing of "excessively large" herds, unfortunately the demand for fresh milk (not reconstituted from powder etc) and other dairy products, coupled with a swing away from imports, has led to a sudden shortage of domestic milk, most of which goes into producing fresh milk rather than butter. Cheese is less affected, because it seems to be considered more acceptable to import cheese! Butter is back in my local shops this week, but limited varieties and quantities, and higher prices. 5) Almost all foodstuffs subject to government control of prices have gone up or are about to go up, in some cases very sharply. Few of these increases are less than 5%, and some are 20-30%, and this is the 2nd or 3rd round of increases over the past 6-12 months for many products. 6) Increasing affluence in the region means that Japan is no longer the only buyer, and poor harvests have accentuated this competition, which I suspect Japanese importers have not really adjusted to. 7) Ever since the rice panic that ensued after a poor rice harvest back in 1993s, there has been remarkably little public or media mention of harvests or the impact of typhoons, cold weather etc on crops. When Chinese vegetables become politically sensitive, suddenly everything in my supermarket has a Japanese place-name on the label. Nobody mentioned last year's rice harvest, yet I see more old/new rice blends for sale than usual. Unfortunately, this lack of discussion means that urban Japanese don't get a realistic idea of Japan's current food supply. 8) Self-sufficiency - some of Japan's lowest areas of self-sufficiency are in staples such as soybeans. I feel that the curiously high prices of Japanese rice rather than the much-touted "western tastes" have driven modern Japanese to eat more bread and noodles, and of course, Japan is much less self-sufficient in wheat than in rice.

This is interesting. I do think that the supermarket tray approach to meet creates a huge disconnect - a block of frozen beef could be a block of mild cheddar for the consumer, though they are hardly the same for the producer. As for upbringing and general familiarity with meat production, I guess that even seeing farm animals around, even if not animals being raised for meat, makes people think differently about meat production. I had a fairly extreme experience as an interpreter for a group of meatpacking industry people, visiting every major slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in New Zealand (a looong time ago). The people involved (except for me) had all been working in meatpacking for many years, and had no illusions about the nature of modern meat production, but they were not inured to the slaughter process. They found it hard to eat during the trip. People working daily in the slaughterhouses, on the other hand, varied - some obviously identified more with the supermarket end than the farm end of the process, while others were very aware of what we visitors were seeing and experiencing. The environment is figuratively and literally chilly - there is every attempt made to keep animals calm before slaughter, but not in terms of human contact (and of course, herd animals would feel differently about being patted or held by humans than animals raised almost as pets, with close daily human contact and interaction - I imagine that having its head patted or held would panic a herd-raised animal). The chilling that prevails right through the slaughter line, and the fact that everything is kept very clean, remove the thought of warm life much faster than a farmyard slaughter and butchering would, because smells are deadened (in some parts of the process) by the cold, the carcass quickly chills, and blood and waste disappears almost before you know it's there. It's unavoidable, partly because of modern hygiene requirements, and partly because of the mass-production approach made necessary by the fact that we eat so much meat. And it's ironic that one reason for that is that it's become less hassle to toss a steak on the grill than to wash and peel vegetables! I think you're right about waste though, knowing that this animal or that plant is no longer alive where I last saw it, entirely because I wanted to eat it, makes me much less cavalier with leftovers.

Very pretty! That wouldn't be double mustard from Costco would it? I bought a jar, which is getting a solid workout in bento too.

Yes, vinegar/citrus is good. Kelp or kombu are good but need something to counteract the mellowing tendency. Also sprinkles such as toasted sesame seeds, toasted and finely chopped nuts etc are good. Try making a dukkah mix without the salt. Summer savory is a much maligned and under-used herb that is particularly good with salt-free food. The trick is to either grow it or get a GOOD source of dried herb. I was pleased with some I got from Penzey's.

I haven't a clue, so I'm obviously the right person to chime in! Datemaki is made with a paste of white fish - maybe that's why it's a sushi-shop special?

Now that makes better sense! Thank you! Thank you for your research! I did wonder if it was still used very much. Please continue your research if you come across a yarrow beer, or a nettle beer!

More and more supermarkets are starting to charge for plastic bags in Japan. The resuable bags I like best are the square canvas freebies from the donut shop, and the rectangular canvas freebies from computer shows! The square ones are perfect for bulky and heavy things like cabbages or flat packs of meat, the tall ones are great for bottles, cartons of milk, etc. The home-made drag bags are capacious but not cool, and the nylon fold-up bags are compact but not so strong, not so easy to pack, and often narrow at the top (stupid idea!). As for "I-forgot-my-bag"-itis, a furoshiki or Japanese wrapping cloth is great, because I can fold it flat and stick it straight into my bag again, all ready for those days when I can't walk past the green grocer's without falling in love with something bulky but cheap.

Happy travels! And don't forget to check in from the airport! P.S. Give us your considered thoughts on beer and sort-of-beers some time - either here or in the beer topic.

Zhacai! My husband is looking out his passport - you can buy it in Japan, but in small, expensive packets only. However, I had to laugh at the jaiozi section - at present, several cases of food poisoning mean that imported frozen jiaozi are heavily discounted, but you can barely give them away...has there been any debate about the safety of frozen jiaozi in China itself? Those breads lookg really great.

There's a general shortage of dairy products, and most particularly of butter. You don't notice it so much with the cheese, because so much is directly imported in a processed state, but for some reason butter is almost never imported directly - even the supermarket brands that used to use imported butter switched to domestic product a few years back.

Sushi: back, left to right: anago (conger eel rather than freshwater eel), salmon (lemon is a giveaway, also the orange color), uni front, left to right: kazunoko, hamachi (at a guess), squid, prawn I'm not 100% sure that's hamachi (young yellowtail), but it looks right, and it's Osaka, so hamachi!

Finally found this topic again! What I wonder is, resting after gluten development is one thing, but when (out of sheer curiosity, groan) I tried resting a wetted and mixed, but not kneaded, dough for several hours before adding yeast and kneading, it affected the rise quite markedly. I was using a medium-coarse whole wheat flour. So why would it be a good idea to have a long soak before adding yeast, rather than giving a yeasted dough or a sourdough a slow, cool fermentation period?

Wow! I was just about to ask which regional cuisines were popular in Beijing! And lamb too. Were the "lamb mcnuggets" flavored with cumin as well as the garlic? Thank you for all the photos!

I've heard that you can make "slow" onsen tamago using the "keep warm" setting on your rice cooker - I tried it, and mine is not warm enough ("kkep warm" is noticeably cooler than any other rice cookers I've owned).

I dunno, call me old-fashioned...seems that you might get all bounce (elasticity) and no stretch (extensibility/flexibility) if there is too much gluten and the dough is made very fast! When people use high-protein/strong flour instead of "medium" flour, they usually cut it with low-protein/weak flour. As far as I know, the initial kneading (walking around on it) develops the gluten, which is then relaxed during the rest period, so that you get a flavorful noodle which has a good balance of softness and bite, but is neither so soft that it disintegrates into a gluey mass in the water, nor so hard that it breaks up into short lengths when handled/boiled. I'm sure that using hard water would affect the dough, and so does salt. I know that the amount of salt is varied according to the season, but the site below gives a useful chart: Japanese page on sanuki udon The site recommend 8% brine for spring or fall, added at a rate of 44-48ml per 100g "chuuriki" or medium (8-10% protein) flour (but that would vary if you user different flour. As for recipes using udon, whenever I was in Takamatsu I ate plain "kama-age" udon with scallions, grated giner, soy sauce, and sometimes sesame or yuzu. I don't like to add egg, but you can. Whole egg is fine - I can't see Kagawa people wasting the white for no good reason! In those days, people arrived by ferry, and they would rush straight to the noodle stands on the pier for their homecoming noodle fix! Flour: Domestic flour - medium protein, high amylose, low gelatinization temperature and maximum viscosity temperature for starch/defatted starch, and high breakdown. Hokkaido udon flour similar to Australian ASW flour (the preferred flour for udon - I recall hearing long ago that udon makers used imported flour, and that is only changing now), and characterized by large size of starch granules, low protein, low amylose. Characteristics of Japanese wheat Desired characteristic for flour for sanuki udon - absorb relatively large amount of water. Characteristics of this wheat - yellowish color, low amylose - but not extremely low, high breakdown and viscosity. Sanuki no Yume 2000 wheat/flour for udon, compared with Nourin 141 (Chikugo-izumi) P.S. This old bat thinks you shouldn't hurry udon-making if you want optimum flavor and texture...

Apparently Kirin (Japanese brewery) made some gruit ale...just for research purposes . Looks to be quite different from the farmhouse type of small beer that I was thinking of. Thanks for the description of tastes! Thanks for the link, Christopher, as you say, the jargon is very specialized, but interesting reading all the same.

Vegetable cutters (flowers, leaves, turtles, and if you are lucky, moons, fans, butterflies etc) are small, inexpensive, and make good gifts as well as fun things to play with in the kitchen. You will certainly find them in department stores, as well as places like Tokyo Hands.

You can usually buy "chuuriki" or medium-strength flour specifically for udon. How do you find using a high-protein flour is in comparison, John? Sanuki udon are often eaten with the cooking liquid as a broth, so the taste of the flour is important. I usually use a Japanese-produced flour for noodles, mostly in the hope that it will be more freshly milled than imported flour.

Hmmm...it is worth remembering that it's still fairly common in Japan to collect domestic sewage by truck, and stormwater goes untreated into the nearest waterway. I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to sample the Inland Sea. On the other hand, beaches closer to the Pacific in Shikoku had very clean water (again, long ago). If it's considered safe to gather shellfish wherever you got your seawater from, let's assume that you will manage to live through a cupful of salt produced from it!

Thank you for the information on suitable styles. Your generous sharing of knowledge is a huge resource for me, living in Japan. Wacky herbal flavors - I think that the herbs most often used with/for beermaking are pretty much established by history, and if you substitute, it would be with plants that are either related or have similar properties. For example, if I used my local mugwort, I would be considering the fact that it is less aromatic than European artemisias. What I want eventually is to figure out how to make unhopped, herbed small beer or ale - the kind of not-very-alcoholic drink that was probably originally herbed to prevent spoilage as much as for flavor. I'm curious about the use of flowering tops - they do carry wild yeast, and I think that must be because starch in buds metabolizes to sugars in the process of bud-break - and those sugars are a good environment for wild yeasts. That's even true of leaf-buds, though not to such a pronounced extent. I wonder what the optimum stage of bud-break/flowering is for brewing purposes?