Monthly Memo From Doi's Culinary Philosophy
Original text by Doi Yoshiharu
Translated by Yoshiko Fukuda
September-Nagatsuki
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●Seasonal Sentiments
Even the joys of summer fade after the Bon Festival, and we start to anticipate the cool Autumn days. In our childhood, as soon as summer vacation was over, we felt like it was already Autumn, yet the weather had not quite started to change. Autumn did not come until we had survived a little more of humid weather. Just like the other years, I have felt the same longing for fall atmosphere by risshu(date set for the beginning of fall in the calendar; August 8th) but at the same time I realized how hard it is becoming to notice the subtle seasonal changes in our surroundings. Of course, one of the reasons for our not recognizing the little differences is because of our busy lifestyle which has detached us from nature.
Just like how we enjoy the transition of seasons, we appreciate similar elements in Japanese cuisine. The Japanese put emphases on "hashiri", "shun" and "nagori". In cooking, hashiri or hatumono points to vegetables that ripened and was harvested before their expected time, shun defines ingredients that are in season, and nagori indicates a group of ingredients that are becoming out of season. For example, eggplants are shun in Summer but the ones that appear in the market at the end of Spring would be considered hashirimono, and eggplants would be nagori around the end of the summer. Japanese people like to see these kinds of symbols that represent different seasons. Thus by these signs of different seasons our anticipation for a different weather is often satisfied.
Hence, September is a month when hashirimono of a cool season is introduced and nagorimono from the hot summer starts getting missed. In September most of the shun ingredients have already been introduced, and vegetables like green soybeans, young taros, and pumpkins have a hard time claiming their presence. They are not quite Autumn ingredients but they have missed the timing for Summer. Deeming specific shun ingredients depends on people's attitude toward cooking and their life styles. However, those three vegetables are the best , or shun, in mid September.
Shun actually refers to the time period a bamboo grows one section of its hollow wood stem, which to be exact is about two weeks long.
Japanese people have lived in an environment that expressed changes in nature according to the season. Thus the people became susceptible to subtle differences. Therefore, as we see in Japanese literature, poets and writers have recognized the little changes in nature and have found various ways to express those transformation. These transformations in nature do have great effect on us on an emotional level. However, obvious changes will have a shallower effect on us. The ones that greatly move our feelings are the subtle changes, which we cannot discover unless we have a calm state of mind that can observe nature patiently.
●Autumn, the harvesting season, still holds dampness in the air, a remnant from the humid summer. Hence it is harder to enjoy a sense of autumn in a moderate temperature surrounding and to recognize autumn in September. That is why little signs of autumn is necessitated in cooking. For example, as garnish for soup, some julienne strips of Japanese ginger is added. This is called "susuki-myouga"(susuki is Japanese pampas grass and myouga is Japanese ginger). Manjyu or Japanese- style bun , made out of new lotus root is shaped into the form of a deer which is associated with autumnal forest. Other symbols such as yams that are cut into chestnut shapes and pumpkins cut into shapes of leaves, are employed to provoke seasonal spirit.
Until mid September, ingredients like autumn eggplant, Japanese ginger, taro stems, lotus root, ginko nut, pipe conger, saury, and saury pike are extremely delicious. Although eggplants and green soybeans had been out in the market for a while, they are still luscious as a nagori containing a very ripened taste.●When there was a nuclear ciriticality accident in Toukaimura, Japan, American media stated that perfected management skill in Japanese industries have completely collapsed. According to my acquaintance living in Los Angeles, this accident was taken seriously since it was the moment when Japanese trust was lost for the first time in an international level. Japan had been building up this world wide trust since the end of the second World War.
This nuclear accident closely resembles the food poisoning incident in Japan, by a prominent dairy products company, "Yukijirushi" which affected more than 15 thousand civilians. The two incidents are similar in the cause of their problem which was the operational system.
There are not many people who cook and serve food, thinking that their food will directly affect other people's lives. They usually concentrate on making what is most delicious. But in order to make something delicious, the cooking conditions and environment has to be sanitary. Therefore, if someone's cooking is perfect, then that simultaneously signifies his working environment is organized and immaculate. The basis for making a perfect dish and maintaining an accident free job environment are alike since both required sanitary environments. However, the attitude toward the job greatly differs. If the job at hand is just avoiding accidents then there really is not any accomplishment in that. But creating a delicious dish is something far better.
I greatly respect the sake and miso makers of Japan who control bacteria growth at will. They use the phrase "three days, three years". It takes three years to get rid of the unnecessary bacteria grown within a neglected organic matter after three days. Both in miso and sake certain bacteria is essential yet others will ruin the taste. Therefore, if the miso or sake is neglected even for a little while the needless bacteria will breed and spread.●In Japanese traditional life, there existed a concept of pure and foul, which is a deeper and a more spiritual sense than clean and dirty. They are a more refined distinction. Foulness is not cleaned off but purified and cleansed off. Refurbishing does not only occur at New years but it happens in various aspects in Japanese life since it is a way to maintain order in life. Moreover it is a way to not make the same mistakes over again. Japanese craftsman have adopted world level skills and left numerous works by living with that kind of ethics.
●Every product authorized by HACCP has a label which states that "the product has been manufactured and packaged in a sanitary environment by a process certified by the Ministry of Health and Welfare". Hence this HACCP sticker will guarantee that the product contains no harmful substance.
HACCP which stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, was originally established by NASA for the astronauts. Because NASA did not want the astronauts to get food poisoning while they are in outer space, the researchers applied this HACCP, which was a system to oversee space shuttle parts, to regulate the sanitary environment of astronaut food.
However, controlling the ingredients' freshness and overseeing the sanitary conditions of food processing is far more complicated then space shuttle parts. Ingredients are more variant and they are living things.
If HACCP is considered to be the best system to supervise the sanitary conditions, then Japanese sense of cleanliness surpass the western concept. Because self management is more reliable than the overall management system.
HACCP is only effective when mass amounts of food is processed and is transported somewhere else. This process obviously involves people who are not conscious that the food they are making influences people's lives. Of course, managing people who is not aware of the power he has over people's lives is possible but the root of the problem is exactly that.
Even if the overall management system is revised, the difficulty posed in supervising is apparent. The problem will not be easily corrected by just being careful and improving the system.●Alain Ducas who is the owner of an eight star restaurant in Michlin, praises a certain jam maker Christine Ferber and proclaims her to be the world's best. When I visited her at Cormar village in Alsace, she told me the secret to making the best jam. She told me not to simmer more than four kilos of fruit at once. Four kilos is an amount ordinary mothers would make for her family. It is indeed true. Some chefs boast that making a lot of something at once makes the dish more delicious, comparing restaurant cooking to home cooking, but that is ridiculously untrue. When a vast amount is cooked at one, it is harder to heat the mixture evenly and cooling the cooking takes much longer. Therefore, to leave enough texture and clear-cut flavor would be very difficult, that even professionals would have a hard time accomplishing such a task.
If something is made in mass amounts the cost would be lower but there is a limit when it comes to making something truly delicious.
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