quick look on invaluable Japanese culture (10) food culture
(10) Food culture
Japanese foods are getting more and more popular in the world. Some western people who refused raw fish have turned to be admirers of sushi as a healthy meal.
Japanese tend to prefer raw food such as raw fish which are main materials for sushi , or unbaked vegetables. Temperature and humidity are so high in Japan that raw food easily gets spoiled. It requires the highest level of cleanliness and carefulness throughout the whole process from catching or harvesting materials to the final dining table. The preference of raw food also reflects Japanese tendency to taste materials as unprocessed as possible.
On the contrary to raw food which requires freshness, there are wide varieties of popular matured foods. To produce these matured food, there are a wide range of traditional seasonings available such as bean taste, soybean sauce, vinegar, mirin and so on. These seasonings and pickled food are the products of malts and yeasts which are cultivated in Japanese climate. By maturing foods with days and years, they make materials to be more delicious, more nutritive and also more resistant against spoiling.
It takes few months to mature Japanese sake, and takes one to three years to mature soybean sauce, bean paste, vinegar. There are so many varieties of pickled foods such as spirits, dried bonito, pickled apricot and so on.
Sushi also originated from salted fish. They pressed it together with rice and finished them as portable reserved food for warriors.
Japanese whole cultures and a specific food culture have influenced each other and enhanced nicely. Japanese food culture and social food system have been cultivated and developed in Japanese society particularly.
We can find a feature of Japanese food culture in cultivating materials by utilizing malts and yeasts in long days and or years. It must require extra patience and delicacy to give constantly the best condition for malts and yeasts to work.
Taking good care of invisible yeasts requires the same mind as farmers to worship with appreciation Something Great in mountains and in rice fields or elsewhere.
Yeasts which have decisive influence on the quality of products have been living in the particular cellar for bean taste or sake for a few hundred years. That is a typical living example of hand down culture.
There are wide diversity in traditional foods and regional vegetables which proves that people try to cultivate products in accordance with respective regional climates and surroundings.
Japan is only one nation which did not have cattle for food. That is due to mild living surroundings which have been presenting constantly enough foods available, and also due to ancestors efforts to maintain such surroundings healthy by keeping woods green and water clean.
“ Kaiseki dish” originated from tea ceremony is a mainstream of Japanese dinner which serves many kinds of small dishes. It is one of features of Japanese dish that many kinds of foods are served in small quantity and in different ways of cooking.
Until recently dishes were served respectively on each personal table. We can see this custom still living in a personal rice bowl and chopsticks. It reflects Japanese culture which always pays keen attention on each personal relationship among a group.
In U.S.A. Mcgavern report was presented by Senator Mcgavern in 1977 which recommends American people to change into healthier food similar to Japanese traditional foods ,namely less meat ,more fresh vegetables. Japanese food has become the sample of healthy food in the world.
Kaiseki cuisine (kappoufukutomi.jp)
