Food in Japan

Hi everyone!

It's finally time - today the subject is going to be all about food in Japan! I'm going to go over some of the most common dishes you can find here, and some of the varieties they can come in!

Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き)

Okonomiyaki, topped with mayonnaise and seaweed

Okonomiyaki is a sort of Japanese-style pancake. It is commonly found in Osaka and the Kansai area of Japan, which is a little bit south of Kyoto. Okonomiyaki is usually made with ground flour, eggs, and cabbage as the main ingredients, and often contains some sort of meat to help accentuate the flavor, such as pork belly or shrimp. Due to the influence of the nearby Kansai region, there are a lot of okonomiyaki shops in Kyoto, but my favorites are the ones where you can make your own. These shops provide a large skillet built into the table in front of you while you eat, where you can cook the okonomiyaki much like you would cook a pancake or an omelet. When it's done, you top it off with a large helping of savory sauce and mayonnaise, making it look like a sort of strange pizza. Many Japanese shops lean into this look, and advertise their okonomiyaki as "Japanese Pizza". One of the bigger problems I have in Japan is finding food that has enough calories to keep me from getting hungry again later in the day, but if I eat a nice big okonomiyaki, I certainly don't have to worry about not eating enough.

Bento Boxes (弁当)

A somewhat prettier-than-usual bento box. They're usually a lot smaller.

One of the most common lunches for people to have in Japan is what is known as a bento box. Many bento boxes are homemade, but it's also common for people to go out to a 7/11 or similar convenience store and pick up a pre-made one since they're fairly cheap (almost never more than 500 yen, or a little less than $5) and decently nutritious. Most bentos contain a form of protein, such as meat or eggs, some vegetables, rice, and sometimes flavorings such as soy sauce or wasabi. Homemade ones often have a little extra, such as more meat, some sushi, an onigiri (rice ball), or something of that sort. Some people take a lot of pride in making their bento boxes very neat and appetizing, with lots of fun colors, shaping the rice into a heart, and writing messages with sauce onto the main dish. However, don't expect that sort of treatment if you buy a convenience store bento.

Yakitori (焼き鳥)

Some different types of yakitori. Of all the foods I've seen in Japan, yakitori
has the most varieties.

Yakitori is very similar to what we in America call "kebabs". It's a very common food in Japan, and can be found at almost any restaurant that serves Japanese food, making it a safe food to fall back on if you haven't tried anything else on the menu yet. It comes in way too many variations to list here, but the types that I have eaten include chicken, steak, vegetable, shrimp, prawn, beef entrails, chicken heart, pineapple, and many more. There is even a restaurant near my dorm that sells 10 mystery yakitori, where the cooks will give you a completely random assortment of yakitori and leave you to it. Most yakitori is marinated in some sort of teriyaki sauce, but it's usually not a meal by itself, since it tends to be just meat with some cooked vegetables. It's a good idea to get some tofu, edamame, or salad to make sure that you have a balanced meal.

Sushi (寿司)

A sushi board that gives an insight into the vast amount of types of sushi available in Japan.

Sushi is one of the most iconic Japanese foods, and with good reason. The base of sushi is generally  a small amount of rice rolled into a ball, but once that is made, there are a wide variety of ingredients that can be used to make it. A common ingredient is seaweed, which is used to wrap the rolled up rice and to give it some flavor. Many types of sushi also include seafood, most of which is served raw. Raw fish, shrimp, or other seafood is very common in Japan, and can sometimes be served by itself in a dish known as sashimi. Most sushi also includes pickled vegetables, and is served primarily with soy sauce and wasabi to give it a bit of an extra kick. For a long time, I refused to eat sushi after I had a bad experience with it when I was two years old and thought it was cake, but I've since come around to liking it a lot more. Since sushi is a little more difficult to make, not as many restaurants serve sushi as ones that serve yakitori, so if you want to find sushi while you're in Japan, it's best to search for a place known for selling it.

Ramen (ラーメン)

An example of Japanese ramen. This particular kind is known as Kararamen, or
spicy ramen (I like spicy foods)

If someone mentions Japanese food, the first thing that comes to my mind has to be ramen. For a long time, I had thought that ramen was a food that only starving college students ate, and always came in a Styrofoam cup filled with dry noodles and freeze-dried veggies. Top Ramen especially stood out to me as a food where I wondered why anyone would ever eat, until I started paying for my own food and realized it was 39 cents per bag. However, while that sort of ramen got me through the first couple years of college, it pales in comparison to the real thing. Ramen is taken to an art form in Japan, with restaurants of all shapes and sizes putting their own spin on noodles, vegetables, and meat slices in a hot broth. Anything and everything can change from restaurant to restaurant, from noodle width to amount of meat to types of vegetables used in the dish to spiciness, the combinations and varieties are unique no matter where you go. Additionally, in Japan there aren't any set manners against how loudly you eat ramen, which made me very surprised when the middle-aged man in a suit sitting next to me in my first ramen store started slurping up his noodles like a three-year-old trying spaghetti for the first time.

Japan's food is probably the most well-known and widespread aspect of their culture. Even if you don't know much about Japan's history or its landscapes, there's a good chance that you're familiar in some way with Japanese food. This week's blog was a lot of fun for me to write, and I'm excited to keep writing these up for you all!

Until next time,

またね！(See you soon!)