Development of Japanese cuisine

[SobaAddict70]

I read somewhere that one of the main factors behind the development of Japanese cuisine is the tendency for almost every single cooking style or dish to have food which can be entirely consumed with a bare minimum of waste (i.e., bones, indedible parts) so as not to leave too many things on one's plate.

Perhaps someone can clarify for me: is this true, that one of the underlying themes beneath Japanese cuisine is the effort to minimize waste? In earlier times for example, people would place shrimp tails in the folds of their kimono. (Is that true?) This underlying theme seems to be entirely consistent with other topics (see the Japanese school lunch thread for example).

SA

[torakris]

I have never heard or thought about this before, but as a foreigner living in Japan it is something you pick up on pretty quickly.

Very little food is wasted, they use every part of everything. For example they might take a fish and use the meat for sahimi, pull out the back bone and deep fry it, then throw the head and tail into a soup.

For a vegetable such as daikon they would peel it then use the peeling to make stirfry dish called kinpira, use the actual daikon itself in either salads, simmered foods, or grated to accompany other foods. The leaves are then used in pickles or blanched and tossed into the rice.

They eat almost nothing on the bone(except for fish) which makes it impossible for us foreigners to find whole chicken, or even chicken pieces with bone still in them. Also because they use chopsticks the food is cut before serving so it is easier to eat. Even in the home something like tonkatsu would always be cut before bringing it to the table.

Even the "garnishes" tend to be integral parts to the dish and are always meant to be eaten.

As to not leaving things on the dishes this is very true You might find an umeboshi seed in the bottom of a rice bowl and a couple shells in the bottom of the soup bowl but otherwise teh food is prepared in such a way that nothing should be leftover. Although the Japanese don't use red peppers to the quantity some Chinese cuisines do when they are used they are finely slivered so as to be easily eaten rather than picked out and left on the side of the dish.

Food is also traditionally served in small individual bowls so even if something whole was used in the cooking process it would be removed before serving or else cut in a way to be easily edible.

For example on recipe I use for chinese cabbage pickles calls for large pieces of konbu, yuzu skin and whole chiles, but for serving they instruct you to pull these out finely sliver them and add them as an edible garnish to the individual pickle dishes.

[Stone]

Can't this be said about any type of cuisine that grew out of "peasant" food? I mean, offal may be trendy today, but my guess is that the taste for tripe grew out of necessity, not, you know, taste.

[SobaAddict70]

Perhaps DStone, but my point is that the theme of "minimizing waste" is carried to such an extreme in Japanese cuisine and culture that it even carries over to impressing young children in school not to leave anything on their plate and in a myriad number of other ways I'm sure. The theme is present in how food is presented and cooked and plated; this can't be a coincidence so I was wondering whether anyone who lived in Japan or has experience with Japanese cuisine to the extent that torakris has for example, might have noticed it.

You can't really say the same about Western culture. I mean, look at how much is wasted, relatively speaking. French peasants and American colonists may have wasted very little, but I doubt their modern day counterparts give much thought over what they discard.

SA

[Jinmyo]

Japanese cuisine has aestheticized scarcity.

[Akiko]

Related to this, most Japanese people eat very prettily. Have you ever seen a Japanese person eat a tangerine/satsuma/clementine? They will peel the fruit like a flower so the peel comes off and becomes a basket to hold any white pieces they may then peel off the fruit... they also will spit any seeds out into their hand by making a fist and the seed immediately disappears from their mouth into the hole that is made by the circle of their thumb and forefinger... and then the seed goes into the basket.

If you go out to eat with the Japanese, they will not only eat so that very little remains in their plate.. they will fold the chopstick paper to act as a "mat" to place their chopsticks on... they neatly stack plates for the waitstaff to take away.... at school lunch, kids are experts at unfolding those milk cartons so that they become flat (takes up less space in the garbage bin) or tearing the top off so that it becomes the holder for any fishbones or other parts of food that you can't eat.

In my own opinion... no one can make a dish look more delicious than the Japanese eating (especially the women)... its the way they chew... and the fact that the pleasure when something tastes good is almost always expressed verbally and with enthusiasm.

[torakris]

I love watching the Japanese eat mikan (mandarin/clemetine/whatever), when they are done there is this nicely folded packet with the seeds inside.

My husband makes this bird with a fan tail for his chopsticks rest, although I think he does this more to keep the kids entertained while we are waiting for the food. Although he did used to make them for me when we were first dating

[torakris]

I was just watching a show a couple days ago and they were showing how to eat fish so you are left with nothing more than a head, tail and a backbone, looks something like this:

http://homepage1.nifty.com/hueno/yoidore/200309/SANY0008.JPG

Most Japanese I know do this perfectly but I guess some people need to be reminded...

Since I am bumping this thread back up, I also wanted to make the comment that the Japanese use many techniques (mostly deep frying or simmering) for fish so as to make the bones soft enough to eat so that there is no waste at all.

[Pompollo]

You can't really say the same about Western culture.  I mean, look at how much is wasted, relatively speaking.  French peasants and American colonists may have wasted very little, but I doubt their modern day counterparts give much thought over what they discard.

I believe this thread is dealing with perceptions in olden times when the idea of "waste not want not" applied. Traditionally nothing went to waste whether it be in China, Europe, Japan or Mexico. The whole animal and the entire vegetable were eaten out of necessity: in former times there was a lack of availalable and affordable food. Japan too in the old days was a poor country and food was highly honored and respected.

Nowadays, however, as an American living in Japan, I that see the Japanese are terribly wasteful at times. As a food person who can't stand to see things go to waste, I have left parties, events, and even simple gatherings when tons of food gets left and thrown away. Wasting food is something that I cannot tolerate.

Maybe this is off the subject, but in Japan, buffets turn into what I call "mini buffets". What happens is that everyone gets in line and starts hoarding plates of food (desserts especially). They take not only what they themselves want to eat but end up bringing heaping plates back to their own little group of friends who then guard their own "mini buffet" as if they were dogs in the manger story. This means that other people who come late get nothing while much of the food brought to these mini-buffets is lying on tables going to waste. This custom bugs me to no end.

And just yesterday, I was in a restaurant where I couldn't help but notice two picky girls who had eaten less than half their bowls of rice, plus left most of the main dishes and side dishes too. (I happen to watch how people treat food.) If they weren't going to eat, why did they come in the first place. If they weren't very hungry they could have asked for smaller portions of rice. BUT, what infurrriated me more was that these two girls instead of eating, were more involved with putting on their make up at the table. You can see that to them, food (and wasting it) is of no concern and ranks below looking pretty. I shouldn't be so critical here, but I am old fashioned. The idea, if it ever existed, of leaving nothing to waste is either non-existent or not given much thought anymore in Japan, a country where food, while not cheap, is in such abundance it is regarded as a superfluous commodity and no longer considered an object worthy of respect.

[torakris]

pompollo,

you might be interested in this thread:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=31843&st=0

[Pompollo]

Torakris,

Thanks for that interesting article. Just to add, I have heard there are efforts in Japan to feed the hungry (namely the homeless) the leftovers from banquets and also the conbini-store lunch boxes, etc. that must be tossed due to freshness expiration. Although I will hold comments about the morality of feeding homeless (or anybody) leftovers, in theory it does sound like a conscious effort to eliminate 2 problems: 1) too much waste and 2) feeding the hungry.

(Off topic but: I have heard stories that most convenience stores go out of business because they take such a heavy loss on the food which is mandated to be thrown away/destroyed after the freshness expiration has passed. One TV story showed a struggling conbini-store owner who brought the expired food home EVERY DAY as the only means for him to afford feeding his family 3 meals. Can you imagine eating that stuff 3 meals a day, everyday?)

[Jinmyo]

. (Off topic but: I have heard stories that most convenience stores go out of business because they take such a heavy loss on the food which is mandated to be thrown away/destroyed after the freshness expiration has passed. One TV story showed a struggling conbini-store owner who brought the expired food home EVERY DAY as the only means for him to afford feeding his family 3 meals.  Can you imagine eating that stuff 3 meals a day, everyday?)

←

Gah.

But then I have a friend who was in a communal situation in the 1970s who had to eat pumpkin for several months. Fried pumpkin with pumpkin soup and mashed pumpkin.

[Hiroyuki]

A neighbor gave us eight shougoin 聖護院 daikon or so the other day, with their leaves intact.

My wife simmered some with canned mackerel (left), and I boiled the rest for a few minutes, drained, and salted them.

The salted daikon leaves go very well with natto.