I’m tasked to introduce popular Japanese food items to my school’s seventh graders after their final year exams next Monday. So this is what I came up with while working on the PPT slides. Maybe you will learn a thing or two.
Ohayo gozaimasu. This is KL Sensei. Did you remember that you learnt about Singapore's popular dishes last term? Today, I am delighted to introduce to you Japanese food culture. Japanese food is so delicious that UNESCO registered “Washoku” (traditional Japanese cuisine) as an Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013.
To spice things up, today's 流れ (flow) will consist of games so that you can immediately apply what Sensei tries to teach you. First, we have a janken game. Next, we have a memory game. To bring this lesson to a rousing finale, we are going to have a slurping competition.
First things first, how to play janken. Chant this after me: Saisho wa guu. Then, chant this: Janken pon. At the sound of pon, show your hand. Choose between scissors, paper and stone. In the event of a draw, you chant this: aiko desho. You do this until a victor is decided.
Okonomiyaki is a savoury pancake made with flour, eggs & shredded cabbage. It is served with mayonnaise & okonomiyaki sauce. It is popular in Hiroshima & Osaka.
Fugu is a delicacy made from poisonous pufferfish. You require licensed chefs to prepare it. If you prepare it at home, you will most likely die from the toxicity. It is popular in Yamaguchi.
Ramen is a noodle soup dish with various broths, like miso & shoyu, and is topped with ingredients like nori & green onions. Each region has its unique style, so expect to be dazzled by fresh local ingredients no matter where you go in Japan. To boost your street credibility, you can try cricket ramen at the bug-focused restaurant, Antcicada, in Tokyo.
Udon is thick, chewy noodles made from wheat flour, served in a hot broth. Garnished with green onions, tempura, or tofu, it is popular in Kagawa. It is so ubiquitous in Kagawa that you can find more than 600 udon restaurants even though it is the smallest prefecture in Japan.
Unagi is grilled eel glazed with a sweet soy-based sauce served over rice. Known for its rich flavor & tender texture, it is so well-known as a source of stamina that there is a day in summer dedicated to eating unagi. It is popular in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka.
If you like octopus, you will fall in love with takoyaki, which is made of batter filled with diced octopus and green onions. To accentuate the taste, it is often topped with takoyaki sauce and bonito flakes. Since it's a popular street food in Osaka, you must try that when you visit there!
You can sense that I'm a great fan of seafood because I love to eat kagi (oysters) too. That was the highlight of my trip in Miyajima, Hiroshima. The oysters there were so huge and juicy. You can eat it raw or cooked. I prefer the raw, original flavour!
I loved eating KFC fried chicken so much that I worked at it when I was a student. This explains why I gravitate towards tempura, which consists of vegetables and seafood that are deep fried. I love munching on its light, crispy texture. Fun fact: tempura is said to have originated from Portugues cooking and adapted in Japan. In fact, “tempura” supposedly comes from the Portuguese word “temperar”, which means to cook.
Did you know that you can buy onigiri at 7-Eleven? These tasty rice balls often filled with ingredients like salmon, or tuna are wrapped in nori and relished as a portable snack. Which is your favourite flavour?
Here are supplementary notes I picked up from my Japan travel materials:
- Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki is prepared by putting vegetables, meat and other ingredients on a flour-based crepe, and then roasting the entire mix on a hot iron plate. It is known for using large portions of chopped cabbage and noodles.
- Kobe-style okonomiyaki is so different that the locals name it differently: Sujiyaki. Their love for meat is seen in how they use beef tendon, konjac, soy sauce, and mirin for this yummy version of okonomiyaki.
- Hiroshima oysters cultivated in the nutritious Seto Island Sky are large and flavourful and boast a full-bodied taste.
- Known as the “milk of the sea” for their nutrition, rock oysters harvested in Tottori taste the best when eaten raw with freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- Oysters of the Harima Sea in the Seto Island Sea are raised by rich nutrients from the mountains and are plumped up in a year.
- Oysters are widely cultured off the coast of Mie, from Ise Bay to Kumano Sea. The waters are rich with minerals, so the oysters grow a year faster than in other parts of Japan, making them especially plump and sweet. Each oyster is raised in its own cage to ensure its health. Oysters meant for raw consumption are washed in seawater and then disinfected with UV rays. Matoya, Uramura and Watari oysters are Mie’s most famous.
- Mie rock oysters that are caught in the spring and summer are bigger and more robust in flavour than those caught during fall and winter. Squeeze some fresh lemon juice over a cooled rock oyster and slurp it off its shell to enjoy its briny aroma and creaminess.
- Have you ever heard of the Japanese proverb うなぎのぼり (unagi nobori)? Inspired by eels swimming upstream, it means “climbing like an eel” and describes the sudden rise of something.
- The nori (laver) used for Onigiri is mostly farmed laver. One sheet contains the amount of vitamin B1 equivalent to a whole sardine and iron equivalent to 10g of beef liver. It also contains carotene, which preserves healthy skin and membranes, as well as calcium and magnesium, which alleviate the agitation of the nerves related to the formation of bones and teeth.
- Sea lettuce nori is made from sea lettuce grown in the seas off Ise-Shima, an area that receives plenty of sunlight. The smell of the ocean hits you the moment you open the package. It can add flavour to any dish, Japanese or Western.
- Onigiri is typically formed into a triangular shape and the rice is filled with such ingredients as umeboshi (pickled Japanese plum), grilled salmon, kombu (kelp), or katsuo-bushi (dried bonito) and wrapped in nori (seaweed).
- Maniwa, Okayama is famous for Spanish mackerel sushi.
- Mie’s signature fish is mehari-zushi, which comprises rice wrapped in a leafy vegetable that has been marinated in salt or bran. Mehari means eye-opening, which refers to its tastiness and the ridiculous amount one has to open one’s mouth to take a bite out of it.
- For sanma-zushi, saury is sliced open and lightly salted and then wrapped around vinegar-infused rice. Different regional interpretations exist. For example, sometimes the saury is cut from the back instead of from the stomach, or a dab of hot mustard sauce might be added to add a little zing.
- Sapporo ramen is known for its thick, firm pale yellow ramen.
- Was first known in Japan as “chuka soba” (Chinese-style noodles)
- Rairaiken, a restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, was believed to be the first to serve ramen in 1910.
- Ramen gained popularity after WWII because rice was scarce. So many shops served ramen due to cheap flour supplies.
- Gained credibility after a ramen shop was listed in the Tokyo Michelin Guide 2015.
- In 1994, Kumamoto Prefecture’s Ajisen Ramen initiated the globalisation of ramen culture by opening their first international store in Taiwan, followed by stores in Beijing and Hong Kong.
- Many types of ramen have been created, including Sapporo miso ramen & Hakata tonkotsu ramen.