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Sankaku Tabe and Kouchuu Choumi


Hiroyuki

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This topic is peculiar to Japanese cuisine; people living overseas may have no idea what I'm talking about.

First the definitions:

Sankaku tabe (triangular eating) 三角食べ: A method of eating a Japanese meal consisting of one bowl of rice, one bowl of soup, one or more side dishes in which the diner eats a mouthful of each meal component sequentially, starting with, for example, one side dish, followed by rice and soup, rather than finishing the meal components one at a time.

The opposite of sankaku tabe is bakkari tabe ばっかリ食べ (roughly, one-dish-at-a-time eating).

Kouchuu choumi (taste adjustment in the mouth) 口中調味: Putting a mouthful of one dish in the mouth (and chewing it a little), putting a mouthful of rice in the mouth, and chewing and mixing the dish and rice together.

Most Japanese people of my age (I'm 45) take it for granted that sankaku tabe, combined with kouchuu choumi, is the only way of eating a Japanese meal of rice, soup, and side dishes. An increasing number of younger Japanese people have learned to follow bakkari tabe, including my children :sad: .

So my question is: Do you practice sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi?

Edited by Hiroyuki (log)
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Being Australian, I had to remember to eat a bit of everything during the meal, but forgot often - I tend to drink the miso soup first, without eating anything else.

I am getting better at remembering to eat a little of all the dishes (and to my mind Sankaku tabe does seem the best way to eat a japanese meal).

At least I always remember to finish the meal with the rice. :biggrin:

Edited by Kuma (log)
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I didn't realize that eating your meals in turn bit by bit had an actual name! I remember when I went to Japan for the first time when I was five years old to meet the Japanese side of my family for the first time. It was the first time I had experienced a real Japanese meal, meaning all Japanese food and not miso soup and gohan served with very typical American food. I think that at home my mom just wanted miso soup and gohan on the table, regardless of what went with it! Maybe it was because she realized that in the way she typically served it at home, the flavors of the miso soup and rice didn't really complement the other "side dishes," or maybe it was because we were in the States, but it wasn't until we were actually in Japan that she felt the need to correct my bad manners and convert me from bakkari tabe to sankaku tabe! That, along with discovering the joy of well chilled somen on a hot summer Japanese day are some of my earliest Japanese food memories. Now, I eat sankaku tabe without thinking about it, probably bringing much joy to my mom! :laugh:

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Thanks Kuma and sk_ward!! I never expected to receive such immediate replies from anyone.

Some say that the current situation is a crisis in Japan's food culture. I wouldn't say so, but I have to keep telling my children that theirs is not a proper way of eating a Japanese meal.

One reason why kouchuu choumi is becoming less popular is that many side dishes are now so lightly seasoned that they can be eaten without rice.

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Isn't this something that just occurs among kids? My girls do it too, but I assume they'll grow out of it.

Hiroyuki, are you saying that your generation never did this when they were kids?

Baker of "impaired" cakes...
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Hiroyuki,

I have never heard of these terms before.....

I don't think I have ever given thought to this before and after some thinking I think I do both, it just depends on what I am eating. Your second post about foods not being as strongly flavored and thus kouchuu choumi isn't needed makes a lot of sense. I think I follow the kouchuu choumi style of eating when I am eating strongly flavored foods/pickles. I may even do sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi in the same meal, is that even possible??

For example with last night's meal I ate the kabocha corroke in the kouchuu choumi style but the rest of the meal (tomato slices and steamed broccoli with a horseradish sauce) was eaten sankaku tabe style..

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

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sanrensho: I can't recall how I ate a meal back then and how my parents taught me the proper way of eating it. Even if I did bakkari tabe then, I think it was just incidental.

I didn't give a thought to all this until I noticed my son's strange eating habit a couple of years ago - finishing a bowl of miso soup, finishing side dishes, and starting to eat rice and wanting furikake on it. My wife and I told him to eat side dishes and rice at the same time. He said he couldn't. Many children nowadays, including my son, hate the way a side dish and rice are mixed in the mouth. They want to eat a side dish separately from rice, and they want furikake and other flavorings on rice.

Kris: Kouchuu choumi is considered part of sankaku tabe. I think you do them both in the same meal without knowing it.

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sanrensho:  I can't recall how I ate a meal back then and how my parents taught me the proper way of eating it.  Even if I did bakkari tabe then, I think it was just incidental.

My guess is that bakkari tabe has existed since the beginning of time among children. As I mentioned, my kids do it too and I bet I did as well when I was little. I think it partly has to do with a black-white fixation on liking or disliking certain parts of a meal. My daughter usually explains it as "wanting to eat the best stuff last." Also, I think kids just plain have a tendency to get fixated on one thing.

I believe this type of eating also occurs with individuals (adults) that have obsessive disorders. I see it as being quite common with children and something that most grow out of.

Let's compare notes in about 10-15 years.:laugh:

Edited by sanrensho (log)
Baker of "impaired" cakes...
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I don't think the trend is endemic to Japan or Japanese cooking(although the terms are). During a western meal (think meat + 4 or 5 vegetables) one is supposed to put a little of everything on ones fork so as to get a mix of flavours. Many people, including children just eat each portion on its own. Children in particular eat their favourite first (or least depending on their strategy). I do the same sometimes if there is a particular food I would like to savour at the end of the meal (sweetcorn for instance).

I'm fairly sure that when I lived in Japan I ate sankaku tabe. It just seemed the right thing to do.

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Let's compare notes in about 10-15 years.:laugh:

OK, let's do it if eGullet still exists then. :biggrin: I'm not as optimistic about this as you are, but I hope that it's "something that most grow out of".

Cadbury: I've always associated sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi with traditional Japanese meals of rice, soup, and one or more (typically three) side dishes, so I found your comments quite interesting. Probably sankaku tabe is applicable to Western meals as well.

Sankaku tabe is usually encouraged by elementary schools at lunch time (and even enforced by some), but I really don't think it appropriate to teach school children to do sanshoku tabe when many school lunches actually consist of bread (not rice), milk (not soup), and a side dish (and some schools still use ill-famed sporks :angry: ).

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Hiroyuki - What a great topic! As usual you get to the heart of Japanese cuisine -

I learned my Japanese by total immersion, but it was more than just language, it was culture too. This meant observing, approximating and assimilating what I saw going on around me, of course when it made sense to my own sensibilities and palette -

I've never heard these words before either - I bet your average Japanese doesn't even know them! But I do remember one of my first days living there, a good friend of mine to this day told me, "Well, most all Japanese food is designed as different ways to eat rice." This made a lot of sense to me - from onigiri to nigirizushi to a slice of tonkatsu, i was surrounded by people taking a bite and then shoveling some rice in, whether it for taste adjustment or not -

I don't think many foreign foods do this triangular eating, however, there is a famous episode of "All in the Family" where Archie Bunker makes fun of Meathead. "Why do you eat all your peas, then all your mashed potatoes, then all your carrots? Why don't you mix it all together like this?"

Anyway, I've had a unique experience with Japanese culture so I know I'm not your average foreigner, but after a few months, the way Japanese food was being presented and portioned, this is how I was eating...

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Thank you for your very insightful reply, raji.

I've never heard these words before either - I bet your average Japanese doesn't even know them!

Kouchuu choumi is a bit of a jargon, but I think that sankaku tabe is an everyday word for small children going to elementary school and for their parents. Visit any Japanese elementary school at lunch time or talk to a Japanese elementary school student or an adult having such a child the next time you come to Japan, and you will know what I mean.

But I do remember one of my first days living there, a good friend of mine to this day told me, "Well, most all Japanese food is designed as different ways to eat rice."

I would have told you the same thing. To be more precise, I would have added an explanation of the difference between okazu and sake no sakana:

Okazu (side dishes) are designed to be eaten with rice and seasoned accordingly, while "sake no sakana" are designed to be eaten with sake and seasoned accordingly. Some okazu are also good as sake no sakana and vice versa, while others are not. For example, niku jaga (meat potato stew) is good both as an okazu and a sake no sakana, but yakitori is usually considered a sake no sakana only (but I must admit that I can happily eat it as an okazu.)

Generally, okazu require heavier seasoning than sake no sakana.

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Kouchuu choumi is a bit of a jargon, but I think that sankaku tabe is an everyday word for small children going to elementary school and for their parents.  Visit any Japanese elementary school at lunch time or talk to a Japanese elementary school student or an adult having such a child the next time you come to Japan, and you will know what I mean.

I just asked my daughters (3rd and 5th grade at a Japanese elementary school) if they knew sankaku tabe and neither of them had heard the word before. My husband (Tokyo born and raised) commented that he didn't know the word either. When I explained it he said he knew the idea but had never heard that word before. Is there possibly another thing it could be called? My husband came up blank.

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

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Kouchuu choumi is a bit of a jargon, but I think that sankaku tabe is an everyday word for small children going to elementary school and for their parents.  Visit any Japanese elementary school at lunch time or talk to a Japanese elementary school student or an adult having such a child the next time you come to Japan, and you will know what I mean.

I just asked my daughters (3rd and 5th grade at a Japanese elementary school) if they knew sankaku tabe and neither of them had heard the word before. My husband (Tokyo born and raised) commented that he didn't know the word either. When I explained it he said he knew the idea but had never heard that word before. Is there possibly another thing it could be called? My husband came up blank.

Inazuma (thunderbold) tabe is almost synoymous, but it implies eating a bit of side dish and a bit rice alternately (in a zig-zag manner). I can't think of any other term at the moment.

According to this thread (Japanese only), which asks if you know the term "sankaku tabe", most people know it, even those Japanese in their early 40s.

I myself did not hear the word when I was little.

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Another very interesting topic. I wasn't aware that there were such widely used/known terms for this way of eating. I agree that it seems like a contributing factor is that the Japanese diet consisted of a small portion of very salty foods to be eaten with rice. My father loves to eat just japanese pickles and rice and can make a meal out of pickles, rice and miso soup. While this is changing, I also agree that kids like to eat things one at a time, but it is probably just a phase. My brother, like a lot of kids, used to compulsively separate his foods for fear that they would touch on the plate (thus, separated-style plates for children). Now that he is an adult he always eats each item together and combines meat, vegetables and starches in each bite, as do most adults (in my estimation) no matter what type of food they are eating. I might be wrong, but I think the triangular way of eating and combining all foods in the mouth at once is a universal way of enjoying a meal. Take certain african cuisines for instance, where the bread is used as the utensil with which to eat a flavorful stew/curry-like main dish, or indian cuisine in which curries are meant to be eaten with rice and daal and yogurt is meant to be eaten at the same time as a spicy curry to cut the heat of the spices. Of course it is probably not so simple as a lot can be lost in translation, especially from Japanese to English and I do find it particularly interesting that there are actual terms for this style of eating in Japanese. This says a lot about the cultural significance of the way in which people eat and I can't say that I am surprised at the lack of such terminology in English.

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I might be wrong, but I think the triangular way of eating and combining all foods in the mouth at once is a universal way of enjoying a meal. Take certain african cuisines for instance, where the bread is used as the utensil with which to eat a flavorful stew/curry-like main dish, or indian cuisine in which curries are meant to be eaten with rice and daal and yogurt is meant to be eaten at the same time as a spicy curry to cut the heat of the spices.

mishidy, thank you for your knowledgeable comments about other cuisines. It is now almost certain that sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi are not peculiar to Japanese cuisine. But I'd like to point out that Japanese cuisine is systematic and hierarchical in that rice (plain white rice, to be more exact) has a dominant presence in almost every meal, there are two types of okazu (side dish), namely, shusai and fukusai, and a meal typically consists of rice, soup, and three okazu (one shusai and two fukusai). A shusai is usually a protein-rich side dish the main ingredient of which is meat, fish, and so on, while a fukusai is usually a vitamin-rich side dish the main ingredient of which is vegetable, mushroom, and so on. As you may know, this meal configuration is called "ichi-juu san-sai" (one soup and three side dishes). Japan's new food pyramid, which is actually a spinning top, clearly reflects the hierarchy of Japanese cuisine.

http://www.maff.go.jp/food_guide/eng_reiari.pdf

Note that in this chart, "vegetable dishes" is a translation of fukusai, and "fish and meat dishes" is a translation of shusai.

My point is that this aspect of Japanese cuisine calls for sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi more than any other cuisine in the world.

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Do you practice sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi?

Firstly - I have been a fan of these forums for the past month, finally got around to writing my "brief" essay and am so happy to finally say "THANK YOU" for all these wonderful threads on food.

I would have to say without any intent to do so, Mom raised us to practice "kouchuu tabe." To this day, no matter what I eat, it must be mixed or followed with a mouthful of rice. Although I have never heard of "sankaku tabe" I've started to think about this manner of eating quite a bit lately, partly because of my diet :huh: I had to find out ways to eat more consciously and slowly and remembering how my Dad ate at dinner time (always the last one to finish) seemed to provide a partial solution.

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When I first started eating Japanese food I had the habit of drinking soup completely before starting on the rest of the meal in kouchuu tabe.

Now I eat everything so that by the end of the meal I have one mouthful left of everything (including soup).

How much rice I stuff in my mouth just depends on how much food there is, and how far I have to make it last until I'm full. I hardly ever put anything in my mouth without immediately following with rice - that just feels too rude to other people I'm eating with.

If I'm eating something strongly flavoured like curry or hayashi rice I need a lot of rice. I can't stand having a plateful of curry and not enough rice.

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Thank you, Cheeko and tantan.

It's little surprising that everyone here seems in favor of sankaku tabe and kouchuu choumi.

I did some googling again and found this thread (Japanese only), which asks "Do you do bakkari tabe?". Several women, one in her 30s and others 23 and 38 years of age respectively, said yes. It seems that old habits die hard, and that's why I have to keep telling my kids about the proper way of eating a Japanese meal!

P.S.

Cheeko: I visited your blog. How interesting! Are you a kitty geek or something? :biggrin:

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Cheeko:  I visited your blog.  How interesting!  Are you a kitty geek or something? :biggrin:

Absolutely -- not an overall Kitty geek, just for those omiyage style Kitties. They're actually the reason why I started to investigate wagashi... but that's another thread :smile:

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Cheeko:  I visited your blog.  How interesting!  Are you a kitty geek or something? :biggrin:

Absolutely -- not an overall Kitty geek, just for those omiyage style Kitties. They're actually the reason why I started to investigate wagashi... but that's another thread :smile:

cheeko,

welcome to eGullet and the Japan forum!

I can't wait to hear more about your wagashi!!

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

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