Japanese food in the media

[torakris]

Food and Wine showcases Japan this month:

http://foodandwine.com/invoke.cfm?ObjectID...868134891C5B64A

[rcarter]

Thanks for the link! At the promise of "Japanese made simple," I grabbed this at the check out line while grocery shopping. I read the Tokyo Food Hall article, but was uninspired by the recipes. I am surprised that Food & Wine has the articles and recipes from their current issue online!

[torakris]

Besides finding them uninteresting I also found then not very authentic, but who knows I might give one a two a try.

If anyone tries anything let us know!!

[smallworld]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getart...l20040323zg.htm

Not to be taken too seriously, of course. But I have to disagree on a few points. Especially with the porn actress who loves natto with Merlot. Uggh! I love natto, but I don't think a less wine-friendly food exists!

[torakris]

I can't handle the yakisoba in a hot dog bun and would never think of pairing natto with wine, but I do prefer cakes in Japan and love anko and tamago-yaki....

Interesting article

[meguroman]

I totally, like, agree with the porn star's approach to natto. Drink a bottle of merlot, then have the natto! I hate the stuff, and have to be totally snockered before I'll ever let my chopsticks near it.

Japanese cakes, while tasty, lack the density that I like in a cake. I feel ripped off when I buy a piece of cake from a patisserie, and am handed a bag of heavy air. Gimme a good, dense German chocolate cake, pineapple upside-down cake, or Duncan Heinz Double Devil's Food any day. Even Dean and Deluded's Poppy Seed cake lacks the proper geometry and theology, denseness-wise, to be a proper cake, (bit of a nod to Ingatius J. Reilly, who did love his cakes).

Anko, while delicious in it's own right, is pure contemptiousness to the first time visitor to Japan, looking at what he thinks is a plastic model of a chocolate sundae, only to get soft-serve, covered with chunky reddish-brown stuff. Beans and ice cream do not mix. If they did, Ben and Jerry would be doing Red Beanie-Meanie Ice Cream. They are not.

The only carb-in-carb mixing that should ever take place was back in the late 60's, and early 70's, when I was in elementary school, and we put our school-lunch spaghetti in our hot, school-lunch parker house rolls. And, we only did this to expedite the dining experience, to get out to lunch time recess.

MM

[Gifted Gourmet]

the article from the Guardian UK

Martha Stewart being otherwise disposed, there is now a vacancy in the lucrative Global Housewife Empire market; a figurehead needed to meet the international craving for ...

For among all the Nigellas and Jamies and Worrall-Thompsons vying for the title, it seems the most likely candidate to fill Martha's muffin-scented shoes is none other than Japanese cookery queen Harumi Kurihara ....

Harumi is an unrelenting culinary force in her native land.... she has also published 23 bestselling titles since 1992, sold more than five million copies of her magazine Suteki Reshipi (Beautiful Recipes), opened 23 shops housing Harumi cafes...

her website with lots of photographs!

This Guardian article was a wonderful read and I highly recommend it to you! Harumi Kurihara is quite a woman ... an amazing one at that!

How many of you are familiar with her and her "empire"? How does she fare among Japanese gourmets? Well-respected and revered? Would love your input on her! She appears to favor the concept of "slow cooking" as well ...

[torakris]

Harumi Kurihara?? hhmmm....

Don't think she is who I would pick as the next or "Japanese" Martha Stewart. Didn't realize she had a cafe though.....

In Japan 23 cookbooks is really not a huge number especially considering that most of them are less than 100 pages and probably carry half as many recipes. I have owned two of her books in the past and both of them have been given away (and I hang on to almost everthing!).... I have also never been impressed enough with her suteki reshipi magazine to actually buy an issue.

Of course I have to admit, I don't really care for Martha Stewart either...

my choice for cookery queen of Japan would be Fujino Makiko.

[torakris]

The Fujino Makiko homepage:

http://www.makikofujino.com/

[Gifted Gourmet]

Thanks for the information on Fujino Makiko as well, torakris! I don't read Japanese characters but the pictures of her recipes look marvelous!

[Hiroyuki]

Three recipes of Kurihara:

http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/en/event/kurihara.html

[Hiroyuki]

Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi publishes the Koizumi Cabinet E-mail Magazine every week.

The following is an excerpt from this week's issue, No. 167 (December 9, 2004):

***Quote***

I hear that in Beijing apples grown in Aomori Prefecture are sold

at 2,000 yen each.

Some time ago, I heard a story that in Shanghai, Japanese

strawberries are sold not in cases or boxes, but by the berry: one

strawberry for 300 yen. Out of curiosity, I asked a Chinese person

who was visiting my office whether this was true, and to my

surprise he confirmed this to be the case and also that the price

in Beijing for Japanese apples was 150 yuan each.

Stunned by this piece of information, I looked into the matter

a bit further to find out that apples grown in Aomori Prefecture

are sold in department stores in Beijing for 150 yuan. With the

exchange rate at approximately 15 yen to the yuan, simple

arithmetic gives us a price of a little over 2,000 yen per fruit.

I was flabbergasted.

***End of quote***

You will be able to see the entire text sometime soon by following the link below:

http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/m-magazine...mber/index.html

As of today (Dec. 10), the issue is not yet listed.

You can send comments on this e-mail magazine directly to Koizumi Cabinet by following the link below:

http://www.mmz.kantei.go.jp/inq/inq_top_e....NQCD=CO041209ka

Edited December 9, 2004 by Hiroyuki (log)

[torakris]

Under the system, domestically grown cows and those imported live are given a 10-digit registration number with which consumers can trace the background of the animal via the Internet.

Until now, the tracking system covered only information at the production and meat-processing levels.

But the coverage expands Wednesday to retailers and restaurants that offer beef dishes – probably the widest coverage in the world, according to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry.

more of the article here

have you seen it anywhere yet?

I saw it for the first time yesterday....

looked something like this

[torakris]

here is the homepage for the National Livestock Breeding Center with information on the tracking system

[touaregsand]

As the Japanese increasingly turn away from rice, the longtime staple of their diet, baker Koichi Fukumori believes he has found a solution to boost the heavily subsidised crop: turn it into bread.

http://www.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1...od_050225162228

Why is rice consumption declining in Japan? More "Westernized" diet?

[SuzySushi]

As the Japanese increasingly turn away from rice, the longtime staple of their diet, baker Koichi Fukumori believes he has found a solution to boost the heavily subsidised crop: turn it into bread.

http://www.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1...od_050225162228

Why is rice consumption declining in Japan? More "Westernized" diet?

←

For some reason, I couldn't pull up that particular article. But rice consumption has been declining in Japan over the last three+ decades (it peaked in 1962), as it has in most higher-income Asian countries. Most Japanese can afford to eat more meat than they traditionally used to. It's also more common to eat wheat-based products like bread and pasta.

[torakris]

Try this link instead

As most people I know still serve rice at dinner, I think it is the switch to bread for breakfasts that is hurting the rice sales the most...

[easternsun]

i came across this article today.

i thought i would pass it along.

[Hiroyuki]

Japan's wasteful food situation is informed by more than just economics. In the Asahi article, an Agriculture Ministry spokesman said that Japanese people not only eat more "extravagantly" now than at any time in their history, but that they eat more extravagantly than any people in world history, including kings and tyrants.

Is this true?

[Susan G]

Eh. Food mileage, extravagance, wastelfulness.........that's just window-dressing.

It's a story about domestic violence.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Interesting article which reminded me of the article which started this thread recently: often-finicky eating habits of Japanese consumers, creating problems on a global scale There is even a reference to it in this article ....

[smallworld]

(Any chance of getting this pinned, Torakris? There are plenty of articles about Japanese food that should be shared, but they just get lost when a new thread is created for each one.)

This is the place to share any articles about Japanese food you find. Please give a short description of the article or a quote, and mention if it's from a subscription-required site.

I'll start with a few:

Demystifying the Market: Kanji-ridden packages often hide delicious treats not to be missed, from Metropolis

Six must-try Japanese products.

For the love of soba, from the Toronto Star (subscripton required)

Introducing soba to Canada

"The textures and also aromas [of cold soba noodles] are superior to the hot noodles. To enjoy the soba itself, the better way to taste it is cold," Tetsuya "Ted" Iizuka says of the perfectly formed buckwheat flour noodles he lovingly prepares, then hand-cuts each week. They are served on Soba Sundays at Hiro Sushi restaurant on King St. E.

The term "lovingly" is hardly hyperbole. When the 58-year-old Iizuka talks soba, he gets almost misty, his lean face split with a wide smile.

Soba for starters, from the Toronto Star (subscription required)

Three (rather fusiony) recipes for soba.

Edited April 14, 2005 by smallworld (log)

[smallworld]

Wow Kristin, did you find a hidden thread, or create one by pulling posts from other threads? Either way, thanks!

Here's a short article from the New York Times (membership required) about the RanKing RanQueen stores in Tokyo. Not specifically food-related, but the shops do sell trendy snacks.

[torakris]

Wow Kristin, did you find a hidden thread, or create one by pulling posts from other threads? Either way, thanks!

.

←

Actually this was a thread I had been meaning to start for sometime now, I just kept forgetting about it.....

I just mearged a bunch of separate older threads into it.

Thank YOU!

[smallworld]

Found this articleabout New York robatayaki, yakitori, and yakiniku restaurants in today's New York Times (free membership required). An excerpt:

Some American cooks believe that grilling is the national pastime. But it's also a passion in Korea and Japan, where cooks enjoy a particularly cozy relationship with the fire.

In Korean restaurants the grill is in the middle of the table, where everyone can reach it.

"Cooking together and serving other people are part of the barbecue experience," said Max Han, who runs an online guide to Korean-American culture at newyorkseoul.com. "It's one of the ways we Koreans feel jeong, a bonding, a connection that's very important in our culture."

New Yorkers already choose Korean barbecue when they want to go from the frying pan to the fire. When Nobu Matsuhisa opens Nobu 57 this summer, it will have a 12-seat table around a Korean-style charcoal grill.

More and more, though, New Yorkers are seeing takes on a Japanese version of grilling, robatayaki (or robata for short) in refined but rustic Japanese restaurants where food is cooked in front of the customer and served with excruciating simplicity. Tokyo robatas - as restaurants that specialize in this food are also called - are nostalgic upscale places like Daigomi and Inakaya. They grill ingredients including prime Matsusaka beef and Australian prawns over a premium charcoal called bincho-tan, which costs $4 for a single stick. In New York the recently opened Japanese restaurants Ono, Megu and Komegashi all have robata selections.

Also a slideshow, yakitori recipe, and restaurant list.