Eating Supper in a Japanese Home (Patreon)

Oshogatsu has thoroughly screwed with my concept of time. I'm also trying to record the book on (rare) windless days. Normally, there's howling and windows and shutters banging non stop, so when it does get quiet, like yesterday, everything planned gets sidelined and I run upstairs to record. Good news is: more than halfway done! I learned I can no longer say the word "plethora" though. I say it Japanese-style with the accent on the second syllable. Poor Richard, he has the hard job. The editing. This post is a handful of hours -- or a day -- late. Gomen!

Okay, I wanted to talk about something I found really interesting after I first got married oh-so-many years ago and began eating dinner with my in-laws. That is, what's supper like in a typical Japanese home?

First and foremost, it's all about okazu. I see okazu translated as “side dish" in English, but I think that's not exactly right. Okazu is just about ANY dish. Specifically, any dish that can be eaten alongside rice. Since you rarely have just one, I understand why side dish is used. But often times there is no "main dish" really. It's just various okazu and rice. 

So this is what I've experienced from relatives and close friends throughout the years.

Below would be a nice setting of okazu for dinner. Rice and things to eat with it. Often featuring a soup, at least one protein, lots of different vegetables, cooked in different ways, something sour (pickled tsukemono), and something salty--well, everything is salty. The photo below has kimchi in it, but I found for the most part spicy foods weren't a daily occurrence. 

And note: you're not supposed to eat all of this. 

When you go out to eat you're given all your okazu in little saucers and bowls and plates set out in front of you neatly, and everyone has there own.

Like this. You do try to eat all of this because it was plated just for you.

And while, yes, this can be done at home, I found most of the time it was more casual and easier with several different okazu set out in separate (bigger) plates or bowls on the table. From these you spoon or ladle however much you want onto one of the many small saucers also set out. Things like nikujaga (meat and potatoes), any kind of boiled vegetables, most meats (like kara-age chicken or mini hamburgers ) will be for everyone to eat from. 

This is brilliant because you can choose how much you want to eat and what you want to eat and unless you're a kid who needs to eat more veggies, your free to make your own choices. 

Some things are served to every member of the family, say, grilled fish where everyone gets their own on a long narrow plate, miso soup, or hiyayakko (cold tofu) that's easier to make in separate bowls and serve like that. Lest the tofu fall apart.

In that first photo, all those okazu aren't usually made every day. There is always a rotating mix of new okazu, leftover okazu, store bought okazu, and things a neighbor has given you. Invariably, we'd have "so'n'so brought over some kinpira (daikon and carrots) today" and that would be put out. In return, of course, my mother-in-law made extra gyoza or something to give to the neighbors. 

As far as "gift giving" goes, it's not too stressful. Just friends making something, making extra of it, and keeping in mind to give a little to someone close by. It really felt like a very interconnected extended family. Everyone watching out for everyone else, food-wise. I thought this was really neat. 

Another thing I've always loved about Japan and still do, is that you can buy okazu at supermarkets and special okazu shops, as well as in the basement of department stores (depa chika). There are so many different things you can buy! You'll always have rice in the rice cooker, so it's pretty easy to pick up some okazu on the way home and have a nice meal or add to the okazu already in your fridge. 

Or kushi mono, skewered things. Definitely easier to buy that make. 

I guess the thing I really came away with is (I'm showing my age here), but when I grew up meals were centered around a single meat and a vegetable (out of a can--corn, peas, string beans, or god no, lima beans), and maybe a salad (mostly iceberg lettuce and bazillions kinds of dressings to choose from). Potatoes showed up a lot, too. Baked, mashed, french fried. I literally had not eaten fresh spinach until I came to Japan as a university student. 

And while I know that it wasn't that long ago that even putting food on the table was difficult in Japan, my in-laws generation really had a neat thing going on. You eat a little bit of a lot of different things and nearly everything was eaten in season. It was the variety and balance that was important. 

My mother-in-law used to tell me to stay healthy, you should eat 30 different kinds of food a day. For example, nikujaga would count as three (potatoes, carrots, onions) for example. Okonomiyaki (flour?, cabbage, meat, katsuobushi, aonori flakes) would count as five. When you start counting it's actually hard to reach thirty. Especially if I think about what I ate back in the States growing up. 

But Japanese food lends itself to getting more types of foods in there. You can put all sorts of things in miso soup and nimono (boiled vegetables) are incredibly flexible, too. If you have soy sauce, sake, and mirin, you can whip up all sorts of nimono with whatever you have on hand, in season. 

Then you have nabemono, those big earthenware pots that so〜 many ingredients can be thrown into.

Found a list of different kinds of nabe, too. 

If you play your cards right you can get at least 20 different types of food in one of these. 

And for leftovers, if you don't want to have the same nabe again the next day, you can add news ingredients, add rice to make okayu, or noodles. You can heat it up and just put it over rice like a nabe-don, or something I like doing with sukiyaki, is making korokke/croquettes.

Just boil some potatoes (and extra ingredient!) and dig out your panko and eggs (two MORE "foods") and whip these puppies up. 

Okay, now it's four pm and I'm hungry. 

Stay well, XOXO, count your thirty types of food today. Did you do it? 

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