helenjp

I am sure you are right, Norm. Now I am curious - how many people have drunk unfiltered wine? And if you have, is it something you would go looking for again? I have drunk some Japanese wine that appeared to be attempting a "natural fruit" take on wine, I think it had probably been filtered a little bit, but it was almost as cloudy as grape juice, and the flavor was heading toward the juice side too. It was OK, but I thought it lacked aroma, and the flavor was just .... boring.

It went down the sink, unfortunately - and Japan, not China! I visited a very new winery up country a few weeks ago that was showing some Americans around. I had the impression that they were potential investors.

What an interesting thread! I used to work in a Chinese grocery when I was a student, and some of those sugars I haven't seen since! I remember the owner's wife sometimes making flowers of tofu with natural rock sugar syrup as a Friday night treat. We have some of those sugar types in Japan, but not as many.

No chance of my drinking it! It really was the most undrinkable wine I remember encountering. It was a gamay wine from Morgon, so not the best wine to park on a shelf for 6 years anyway, I suppose. It was undoubtedly too old - the choice was pretty much $5 French or this unfiltered but elderly item. Since summer the variety of imported wines available in supermarkets near me has really plunged.Over half of the wines are Japanese in my local supermarkets, but nothing that I want to buy there - Japan does make some good wine, but it is not on sale in supermarkets. Japan has just released plans to raise the tax on wine so that it is the same as for sake, and I can't help wondering if the sudden drop in availability of imported wine is part of a drive to wean wealthy consumers off it. (To give you an idea of how import-driven the wine market here is, just under 30% of bottled wine on sale is made in Japan, and just under 25% of THAT is actually produced from fresh grapes rather than from largely imported grape concentrate). Now I'm curious, I just might buy the next bottle of unfiltered wine that I come across!

Curious, I bought a bottle of 2010 unfiltered red "something" organic French wine, as I hadn't seen an unfiltered wine on sale in my local Japanese shops. I HAVE had Japanese-made wine which was not labeled unfiltered, but which certainly looked and tasted unfiltered, to my rude, unlettered senses. This, however, produced a slight fizzing sound as the cork came out - cork looked okay though. Smelled very raisiny, so I assume it was doing a little extra-credit fermentation. Poured some out - hmm, looks faintly on the brown side of red to me. Taste cautiously....tasted sour and faintly funky, as well as that raisiny, too-long-on-the-shelf port aroma. So now I'm even more curious. Should I turn my back on unfiltered wines, only buy those made very locally and pretty recently, or just do a whole lot more reading before buying. I think I won't mention the winery, as it has a swag of organic certifications along the bottom, and I think I just made an unwise purchase. I did pause when I saw that it was the only bottle of its kind on the shelf...

Yes, ours is in a heavy ziploc bag too. I agree about the weigh and add salt part as well - if you don't, either you over-salt, or a well-used bed very quickly runs low on salt and starts getting...funky.

Better late than never! I no longer keep a year-round nuka bed, because my husband and I just don't eat enough, and even he eventually gets sick of them. However, I do regularly toast and salt bran from our rice-polishing machine to add to the nuka bed that my husband keeps from spring thro fall - he's taken it over. He says he's planning to keep the current one going over winter this year now that he works from home most of the time. How long to pickle??? That depends largely on the maturity of the pickle bed (an over-mature one will pickle most vegetables in half a day, but they will be very sour and possibly more funky than tangy). And of course it depends on whether you keep it in the fridge or not. Currently, in the fridge (fridge nukamiso benefits from being left out on the counter overnight when you put a fresh batch of veges in, then put it in the fridge in the morning, before the day gets too hot): 2 days - Japanese cucumbers snapped in half, halved Japanese eggplants 3 days or more: daikon quartered vertically, carrot probably about the same, but he hates carrot Myoga buds are a favorite of mine, they take a day or two. Cabbage chunks are good too. When the nuka gets too funky, and you want to replace almost all of it, you can use it to pickle fish such as fresh sardines (grill the pickled fish, and keep the whole thing in the fridge from start to finish).

Could be dangerous! A person can get through a surprising amount of toasted seaweed in a lifetime.

Wow, never heard of patan, even though one of my sons is nicknamed for a resemblance to Kodoku no Gurume (the manga, not the movie version)!

Ramen noodles are fresh noodles - the dried, crunchy ones that you sling in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes are "instant ramen", and the ones that come in a polystyrene bowl or cup that you add hot water to are known here as "cup ramen". As Huiray says, people don't usually add much to instant ramen, the whole point of them is that they are a mindless midnight snack. As for eating the fried & dried type raw, you can buy them as a snack called Baby Star Ramen! "Dry" styles of fresh ramen....ramen salad in Japan is usually "hiyashi chuuka" (chilled Chinese noodles), served with say cucumber, tomato, chicken, ham, or omelet strips. And the other one would be stirfried ramen ("yakisoba"), usually fried with onion, carrot, cabbage, and pork, and seasoned with a kind of thickened worcester sauce.

Stick it in a wardrobe and walk away for 2-3 years...

Untoasted oil - it's a very rare product in Japan. I've only regularly seen it in Middle Eastern groceries. Kadoya sesame oil - that's what I use here in Japan, too. It's pressed, not chemically extracted. It's quite common to just add a small proportion of toasted sesame oil to a milder oil for dressings or even frying here - unusual to use it neat unless you are only using a very small amount. Some cheaper brands taste just fine, you really need to just try what's available and see what you like "Yellow" miso is usually a blend of soy beans with other grains, and is not fermented for very long. Because it's the type that most people use, there is a huge variation - "pale" miso can be quite mild or quite salty. I don't know what you get in the US, but I would look for something that has been made with whole soybeans and actually fermented, and something that doesn't contain sake lees, barley malt, or other sweeteners to make it taste blander. Whether you like it with chunks of bean in it, or ground to a fine paste, is a matter of taste.

Huiray, amazing photos! David, I can't say I have ever heard of adding daikon to the broth at the stock-making stage, especially without blanching it, as it can sometimes leave a bitter taste in the stock. Adding soy sauce - it's usual to add soy sauce when serving - all the seasonings, including extra fats or oils, are placed in the serving bowl, then in go the noodles, hot soup, other ingredients and garnishes. Soy sauce loses its fragrance quite easily, so if you wanted to add it earlier on, you should probably reserve some to add when serving.

Do you want to make fresh, salad-type pickles (e.g. asazuke or quick marinade pickles, momi-zuke or salt-rub pickles), where salt just helps to soften and season the vegetables, or do you want to make the classical pickles that are designed to keep for weeks, months, or years (umeboshi, takuan, hakusai-zuke or other leafy vegetable pickles)? In the first case, proportions of salt are pretty much up to you, and you can find recipes on the net and in books quite easily. In the second case, you want a book that will tell you exactly what percentage of salt (coarse salt) to use, and how to use weights.

Rural "food deserts" - report from 2007.

I like the food truck idea (I'm sure that's what keeps a local middle eastern restaurant afloat in a sea of pachinko parlors nearby), and I really like the food club idea. A food club can be flexible - anything from gardening to fast food reviews, and encouraging people to take pride in their food heritage by sharing their family favorites and heritage special occasion items might lead to change from the inside out.

Never seen those, but I learned a lot from the illustrated recipe book type of comic when I started cooking from Japanese recipes - this instant ramen "recipe" hardly needs any words!

Looks tasty! And I agree that the matzo balls look like a good match...I have never seen, much less eaten one, but it looks like a starter!

Not exactly cartoon strips, but this seems like a good place to talk about nonfiction comics and graphic novels (by which I mean a comics-format story that is complete in one book) about food. Etienne Davodeau's The Initiates (translated from French) was a really good example. The art encourages musing as well as providing detail about the wine-making environment, and while it may seem far-fetched to compare a comics artist's job with a wine-maker, I actually enjoyed the give and take of the two main characters. Christophe Blain is a WONDERFUL French comics artist who is very good at depicting the kind of high-octane people who make great chefs. Alain Passard is more of an illustrated recipe book plus interviews with the chef...it's interesting, but not as wide in scope as The Initiates. There should be lots of great food manga from Japan, but either they are not in English, or they don't go much farther than being illustrated recipe books. I'm quite enjoying Jing Takao's Kuu Neru Marta (Marta Eats and Sleeps), about a supposedly Portuguese girl living in Japan, who sometimes cooks Portuguese food and sometimes Japanese. I like the no-fuss eclecticism!

Miso ramen - usually not dashi but a chicken or pork & chicken broth seasoned with miso. Adjust with a little salt, soy sauce, and if you like, sake or sugar, and a tiny bit of garlic. Ginger if you like. Ground, semi-ground or whole toasted sesame seeds go well with miso ramen, chopped scallion to taste.

Huiray, the pack of noodles I used does say "mugi", but it doesn't actually mean buckwheat (just to be confusing!) It's a retro sort of name, where "mugi"　is a catch-all word for almost any kind of grain other than rice that is used for flour. Chris, the appeal of "tsuke-men" is probably the fact that it brings ramen closer to other types of cold noodles served in Japan. Hiyashi chuuka or chilled Chinese noodles (= ramen noodles) is a popular summer dish, but it has a real Showa feel to it, with all those '60s foods like cucumber, ham, tomatoes...and the dip is a bit sweet-sour. Tsuke-men is more straightforwardly savory, with the dipping sauce just a concentrated version of ramen soup, served hot or cold, as you like. A big bowl of ramen is hot, so it takes a while to eat, yet needs to be eaten as soon as it's served, so that the noodles don't go soft, and of course it's steamy and heavy in summer. Hiyashi-chuuka is chilled, but tsuke-men is served at room temperature - which is the default for Japanese food anyway. It's more adaptable when you are eating with friends. It is well worth giving the noodles a working over as you rinse them, so that they don't stick together when served. Images of tsuke-men with dipping sauce. As you can see, there are all kinds of dip. You just pick up a few noodles, dip them in the soup, and eat, occasionally fishing some meat or vegetables out of the dip to vary things. Including meat, tofu, or vegetables in the dip is quite common with somen or hiya-mugi as well, especially when eaten at home.

I don't know, to me it's more that ramen are one type of alkaline noodle...they are very similar to some other East or Southeast Asian styles, less similar to others. Ramen seem firmer than most Chinese alkaline noodles I have eaten, though. And sweet potato vermicelli or rice vermicelli are made from a different starch (not wheat flour) and a different preparation method (don't use any alkalizing agent) too.

I found a lot of interesting ideas in "A History of Chowder" (Walker & Cox). I like making layered chowder with crackers.

Huiray, yes, that's *a* traditional ramen, but even in Japan, there are a lot of very well-known variations in both noodles and soup, let alone garnishes. I decided to make a tsuke-men (noodles and concentrated soup for a dip) version as it's a very popular way to eat ramen recently. I bought a somewhat upmarket pack of fresh noodles: fat, straight ramen intended for dipping, with individual sachets of dip concentrate. Since spring cabbage is just coming in, we had some blanched shredded cabbage with the noodles. That worked well. Garnishes: "yaki-nibuta" cooked in the pressure cooker. One chunk of pork belly, and another of pork loin. If you tie the meat neatly, you get a neat little tube of pork. If you are a bit slap-dash, you get something that looks like a Victorian medical illustration of the dangers of tight-lacing. Pork was browned well, then fat drained off, and one star anise and a generous amount of green onion tops and sliced ginger added, along with half a cup each of mirin and soy sauce, plus a cup of water. Then pressure cooked for 20 minutes, allowed to cool, turned, and cooked for another 5-10 minutes and allowed to cool again, to ensure even flavoring. Sliced and put aside. Hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved. No special seasoning - this was a quick family dinner. Menma (slices of preserved bamboo shoot, seasoned with soy sauce), finely chopped white long onion, and torn nori were added to the bowls of dipping sauce. I quite like tsuke-men (dipped ramen) but none of us really enjoyed this. The super-thick ramen would surely have been better in a hot soup, and the dip (miso-sesame with ground small dried fish and a fair amount of lard?) was very salty and the "coarse" taste seemed to over-emphasize the coarseness of the noodles. When we eat tsuke-men, we usually make a much lighter dip, and leave the sesame half-ground...and that's what I'll be doing in future!

You can try making your own noodles - I have done it, a long time ago. If you don't want to go the lye-water route (which is not that hard now that people like Harold McGee have helpfully shared information on baking baking soda to raise alkalinity), what about making a Chinese-style egg noodle (eggs make the dough more alkaline too)? For ramen purposes, a little egg is enough, Although no longer common in Japan, I've eaten egg noodle ramen. Also, if you have soft water or normally use a water filter, you might want to use straight tap water or buy a "hard" mineral water to make the noodles. When I make ramen at home, I usually buy the noodles. I make a pork and chicken stock, and I make a boiled roll of pork. Usually each serving gets some menma preseved bamboo shoot, half a boiled egg, a few slices of pork, finely chopped scallions, and a sturdy green such as komatsuna (rape greens), broccoli rabe etc. Will try to make some over the weekend.