Monthly Memo From Doi's Culinary Philosophy
Original text by Doi Yoshiharu
Translated by Yoshiko Fukuda
May-Satsuki
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●Rikka
*The Beginning of Summer
Even though it seems a little early, according to the Japanese calendar (koyomi), the days from 'rikka' or the beginning of summer, until 'risshuu' or the beginning of Autum, is officially summer. Rikka is dated around May 6th, and rishuu is around August 8th.
In Japanese cuisine, a 'suikuchi' is usually added to nimono and shirumono.
*Nimono are stewed dishes seasoned with salt, soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar, vinegar or other condiments. Shirumono are soups of different kinds. (Information on Nimono and Shirumono, - "Cooking, Japanese." JAPAN: An Illustrated Encyclopedia 1 A-L. 1993 ed. )
Kinome (aromatic sprigs from trees known as sansho; literally 'new buds from trees'), green yuzu (citron) and yellow yuzu are some examples of 'suikuchi' that are added to meals to give them more of a seasonal aroma, which appeal to people's taste buds making the dish more appetizing. In many of the restaurants, kinome is used until the end of April and from May green yuzu is used for suikuchi and also as a last addition to 'takiawase'.
As a hashirimono (seasonal vegetable that comes out in the market ealier than the rest) for summer, pumpkins are often incorporated in meals for takiawase.
*Takiawase is when vegetables and fish are cooked separately yet put together later as one dish. The hashirimono pumpkins are not supposed to be delicious as a rule. That is because the pumpkins that should be used during this period are not quite ripened and still not fully developed in taste. Therefore, by seeing little amount of pumpkin in a takiawase dish, we can sense the coming of summer and appreciate and enjoy the transition of time. But in recent years, enjoyment of this sort has become hard to experience. There are three reasons to this trend. First of all, pumpkins, for example, can be obtained even in the winter since the summer weather of New Zealand can easily produce ripened Ebisu pumpkins. For that similar reason, throughout the year, most vegetables can be seen at markets where a sense of season is almost lost. Also, a life equipped with air conditioning and heaters has made us forget what it was like to anticipate for a warm Spring during the freezing winters and anxiously await for the coming of cooler weather during the humid and hot weather of Summer. In another words we do not bear through the different seasonal climates that the experience does not reflect in what we eat.
●About Koyomi
Another reason is actually connected to the fact that Japanese calendar now is based on a western system, or the Solar Calendar. However, the Japanese traditional events during the year is based on a Lunar Calendar. Therefore, the New Years is in January, Spring is from February to April, Summer is from May to July, Autumn is from August to October and Winter is from November to December. The old Lunar Calendar is a month later than the Solar Calendar; therefore in the old Lunar Calendar, the plum flowers start to bloom in New Years, peach blossoms bloom during the hinamatsuri or the Girl's festival held on March 3rd, and even the leaves of kashiwa(Japanese oak) would be large enough to wrap mochi(rice cake) in them by tango no sekku on May 5th, when the Children's day is celebrated.
●Hashiri, Shun, Nagori
Seasonal ingredients that just started coming out (hashiri), that are at the best time to be eaten (shun) and that are coming to an end (nagori). The Japanese like to include ingredients that demonstrates the passage of time and changing of season in the menu.*Hashiri , shun and nagori are words that were more widely used when crops were grown naturally and not with scientific alterations or other technological advancement in agriculture. Therefore, certain produces could only be grown according to the season. For example, peaches ripened during the summer because of the favorable temperature. Thus, peaches were "shun" during July, and when most of the ripened peaches were harvested and the numbers start to lessen in the end of summer then peaches were considered as "nagori" during that last period. Hence it can be explained that if farmers were able to grow peaches when they were out of season then the price would obviously go up since the demand is much higher then the supply. That is why hashiri were very valuable. However, in the past it was almost impossible to grow out-of-season crops. That is why the hashiri would only be a little earlier then the rest but never at a completely different season. Thus hashiri became a foretoken of the coming of a new season.
The Japanese have always liked hashirimono. There even exists a saying that states
if one eats a hatsumono, a seasonal crop that was the first to be harvested, then his life span will extend another 75 days. During the Edo period, because people desired what was "iki" (Aesthetic and moral ideals of urban commoners in the Edo period. [Information on IKI - "Iki and Sui." JAPAN: An Illustrated Encyclopedia 1 A-L. 1993 ed.]), the price of hashirimono went up considerably. Because the prices were raised excessively, the Shogunate(government) of the fifth Tokugawa shogun Tunayoshi, had to enforce a regulation to set a specific date for selling new seasonal vegetables to avoid the monopolizing high prices. Fresh shitake mushrooms could only be sold from January to April, boufuu(kind of Japanese parsley) could be put out in the market from February, tsukushi(young shoots of a field horsetail), warabi (bracken fern), hashouga (ginger) could be purchased from March, takenoko (bamboo shoot) could be only seen at markets from April, nasubi (egg plant) could only be sold from May, and shirouri (kind of uri or gourd) could be only sold from May also according to the old calendar. Fish and poultry could be sold at al times yet extreme price should not be given to any, were some other strict rules from the Tokugawa shogunate.
However nowadays, recognizing to which season a certain crop belongs is becoming harder and harder since the concept of a highly valued hashirimono is obliterated by a great advancement in technology.
●HAMO -a pipe conger
When hamo is placed in a toro box, a wooden box from the fish market, it will curl its self into a 'tsu' shape of the Japanese alphabet, hiragana. Tsu is shaped like a right half of an oval, like the flipped version of the letter 'C'. That is why the fish is often called "tusnojinohamo (Tsu shaped hamo)". In addition, hamo has soft bones that are very tasty, even for ones that weigh from about 700 g to 800 g.
Hamo has become an essential fish most summer festivals in Kansai, like at Tenjin matsuri in Osaka, and Gion matsuri in Kyoto. Therefore hamo is also called a "matsuri hamo (hamo of all festivals).
●Fatty Meat of Fish are the most delicious???
Hamo, a summer fish, are most enjoyed for its plain taste. However when expressing the delicacy of fish, the Japanese often say; "the fish is very delicious because it has a lot of fat!". These day I usually avoid the phrase because it might cause some misunderstanding. This is because not all fatty fishes are appetizing. Think of the cultured fish that did not get to exercise often even though it was well fed. According to the phrase those corpulent fish also will qualify to be "very delicious". But obviously, too much fat and bad quality fat are never agreeable.
When I was young, I used to hear people say that "The most delicious part of tunas is the red meat". Just the other day, I went with Chef Omori to the fishing harbour in Misaki, where once it had the most amount in the catch of tuna fish in Japan. The people at Misaki told me that "Up until the 1970's toro (fatty tuna) was never eaten as sashimi", and "When people did use toro they used it only for getting stock out of it for soup". They never thought of "eating anything so oily".
Then, when did eating toro become so popular? Eating toro became practiced when the Japanese started eating more beef right after the rapid economical growth, Tokyo Olympics, and the Expo in Osaka. The flavor in beef is believed in its fat, therefore to get that sort of depth in taste, cattle breeders fed the cattles beer, massaged their muscle so that there will be no unevenness in the spread of fat. The result was the Japanes marble meat, the expensive shimofuri-gyu. Japanese techniques to produce such rich meat was indeed remarkable yet, in comparison to the Japanese fatty meat, French beef's red meat is also extremely delicious in a different way. Charolais beef truly demonstrates the savor of red meat in every bite. The sensation is quite distinct in the two kinds of beef. For me, I can eat almost 300g of Charolais meat but only 100g of the Japanese meat will be enough.
In Japanese cuisine, especially in Kansai, people did not prefer to eat oily foods.
In preparing suzuki or bass, its fat is usually washed off by running water so that it will have a plain taste. Smaller sardines are chosen compared to bigger ones since they contain less fat. In Wakayama, where until recently only dried saury was eaten, they pick out ones that have lost its fat, when they eat do eat sushi. They did not realize that hamachi (young yellowtail), nor buri (adult yellowtail) could be eaten as sashimi. Therefore they used to fry it in oil to make a little snack.
Oily dishes like ones that are stewed after stir fried or deep fried would make new ways to cooking but simple meals like boiled and stewed nappas(green vegetables) with bean curd, were considered more refined.
Compared to Western and Chinese cuisine, Japanese cooking is not quite adapted to greasy dishes. It probably is better this way since the strong oily taste might ruin and conceal the fine and subtle tastes of different ingredients from Japanese meals.
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