Saturday, July 28, 2007

Here's the very first article of The Otaku Cooking Club! Japanese cuisine and food Japanese cuisine is based on combining staple foods (shushoku), typically rice or noodles, with a soup, and okazu - dishes made from fish, meat, vegetable, tofu and the like to add flavour to the staple food. These are flavoured with dashi, miso, and soy sauce, and tend to be low in fat and high in salt. A standard Japanese meal generally consists of several different okazu accompanying a bowl of cooked white Japanese rice, a bowl of soup and some tsukemono (pickles). The most standard of meals consist of three okazu and is called ichijû-sansai. Different cooking techniques are applied to each of the three okazu; they may be raw (sashimi), grilled, simmered (boiled), steamed, deep fried, vinegared, or dressed. This Japanese view of a meal is reflected in the organization of Japanese cookbooks, organized into chapters according to cooking techniques as opposed to particular ingredients (e.g. meat, seafood). There may also be chapters devoted to soups, sushi, rice, noodles, and sweets. Since Japan is an island nation, its people consume much seafood. Meat-eating has been rare until fairly recently due to restrictions placed upon it by Buddhism. However, purely vegetarian food is rare since even vegetable dishes are flavoured with the ubiquitous dashi stock, usually made with katsuobushi (dried skipjack tuna flakes). An exception is shôjin ryôri,, vegetarian dishes developed by Buddhist monks. However, the advertised shôjin ryôri usually available at public eating places includes some non vegetarian elements. Noodles (originating from China) have become an essential part of Japanese cuisine, usually (but not always) as an alternative to a rice-based meal. Soba (thin, grayish-brown noodles containing buckwheat flour) and udon (thick wheat noodles) are the main traditional noodles and are served hot or cold with soy-dashi flavourings. Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat stock broth known as ramen have become extremely popular over the last century. Common ingredients in Japanese food: -rice -beans -eggs -flour -fruits -citrus fruits -fu (wheat gluten) -meats -mushrooms -noodles -seafood -finned fish -shellfish -crab -roe -processed seafood -seaweed -soy products -tofu -vegetables ---------------------- I hope you don't think this was too short. ^^' See, Japanese have about a million things regarding food that could make articles of their own (etiquette etc.) so I tried to make this one a bit clearer.

Comments (1)