My Japanese Table. Debra Samuels
yakiniku barbecue beef and spicy pol-lock roe mentaiko from Korea; deep fried tonkatsu cutlets and tempura from Portugal; and pasta from Italy are all now thoroughly standard Japanese meals in homes across the archipelago.
Conversely, the rest of the world has discovered and embraced Japanese food. Sushi and ramen are staples in supermarkets in North America and Western Europe; tofu no longer terrifies Western consumers; and words like edamame, teriyaki, and wasabi no longer need translation or italics.
I saw the embrace of Japanese cuisine in my own family. As soon as they could express their preferences, my sons asked for octopus (tako) and seaweed (nori) instead of steak and mashed potatoes. They may have had a head start, but they certainly are not alone. Today, American kids do not need to wait an entire lifetime to educate their palates. Instead of a pizza on a Friday night, ten-year-old kids ask for California rolls, a thoroughly American invention that has made its way back over the Pacific. Many opt to snack on edamame in instead of potato chips. I have been teaching my nephew, Brandon, how to make sushi rolls since he was eight, and every time I visit we make something new. He is now nearly twenty and has never been to Japan, but he recently begged me to teach him how to make “inside-out” rolls. Although not considered pure sushi by some, these American concoctions are as popular in Japan as “American” bagels are in Israel.
There are many sources for the recipes in this book. In addition to cooking and eating in my friends’ homes, I have been inspired by imaginative meals at Japanese pubs called izakaya. Here chefs offer small plates, like Spanish tapas, that match creatively styled fish, meat, and vegetables with beer, grape wines, rice-based sake, and (mostly) potato-based shochu. Other recipes come from festivals (matsuri) at Japan’s shrines and temples. Whether celebrating the harvest, the coming of the rains, school entrance examinations, or the appearance of spring blossoms, these festivals are celebrated with street food from itinerant vendors’ stalls featuring the savory and sweet snacks that form the core of millions of Japanese childhood memories.
And, given my sons’ experiences, how could I not include a chapter on box lunch bento? But bento is not just for kids. They have already caught on in the United States, and there are many instructional websites in English. You can purchase bento boxes on-line or seek out alternatives, as I will show you. These attractive, appropriately portioned, and nutritionally balanced boxed meals will be a boon to you and your family’s health.
In writing this book I have called upon a lifetime of experiences and upon a great many Japanese friends who have influenced my work (and play) in the kitchen. I hope it will appeal to experienced readers who already have an interest and knowledge about Japanese cuisine, as well as to beginners poised to discover all it has to offer. Many of the recipes are from classes I teach on Japanese home style cooking designed for students to achieve success on their own. My philosophy is that we should leave the fancy stuff to the pros (sushi chefs train for years for a reason). But you can still enjoy sushi and sashimi, served home style. Join me in the kitchen to discover some of my favorite Japanese recipes and it won’t take you a lifetime to learn them.
Teaching
Despite my degree in elementary education, I have been teaching everywhere but in a conventional classroom. My first job, as 4-H agricultural agent, took me right to the farm and exposed me to the fundamentals of canning, baking, and pickling.
But teaching about food started as an informal exchange with a group of four Japanese women whose husbands, like mine, were studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the mid-1970s. Masayo, from rural Shikoku, was the mom of a middle schooler; Emi was a Tokyo social worker; Harumi, from Yokohama, was interested in the Japanese arts of tea and kimono, and Yoshiko was a Tokyo office worker. We each started with the basics of our cuisines: I taught them how to bake bread and can jams, and they taught me how to make Japanese rice and rolled sushi. And so it was that when Dick and I returned to Tokyo to live for three years, I could navigate a market, recognize food labels, and guess what to do with the product.
My transition to formal teaching was gradual. It started with an English lesson in a supermarket for a Japanese mom with two kids back in Boston in the early 1980s. Supermarket English lessons evolved into tutorials on American food ingredients and eventually into American cooking lessons for groups of Japanese women. Along the way I was asked to teach classes on Japanese food and culture to American college students interested in Japan.
One thing always leads to another in life, and so it was with teaching and me. Between five subsequent yearlong stays in Japan that enabled my continuing education in Japanese cuisine (including formal classes in Japanese cooking), I started a catering business that I called “Eats Meets West” (pun intended) because there was now so much of Asia in my repertoire. Meanwhile, there was increasing demand for cooking classes on both Western and Japanese cuisine. In the early 1990s I began working in the Japan Program at the Boston Children’s Museum and offered teacher workshops about Japanese food and culture, often focusing on kids’ bento lunch boxes;
I have subsequently done similar programs in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., and Tokyo. While at the museum, I developed the “Kids Are Cooking” program, which focused on introducing children to a world of cuisines, cooking fundamentals, and nutrition. Writing about food and culture for The Boston Globe was a natural next step in my rather unconventional journey.
Debra Samuels
Thoughts About Japanese Cuisine
I do not have a Japanese mother or mother-in-law and I did not grow up with Japanese food, flavors, or cooking techniques. The only soy sauce I encountered had caramel food coloring and lots of salt. In fact, my dear mother, Rona Greenberg, did not react very well when I told her in 1977 that we would be going to Japan with her first grandchild. “But what will he eat?” she wailed. “Tofu,” I tossed out. This only made her cry harder. Who in suburban New York knew from tofu at that time—or much about Japanese food beyond the theater of knife twirling chefs in Japanese steak houses? Sure, the counter-culture set was dabbling in macrobiotic food with some Japanese roots, but we were still several years away from Japan’s emergence as a global economic power and from the Japanese culinary boom that followed. Thankfully, in the subsequent four decades I have had dozens and dozens of surrogate mothers, sisters, aunties, and certified teachers who took me under their collective wings. (Rona still won’t eat tofu, but she loves yakitori.)
My experience has distilled into a singular, powerful impression of how Japanese cooks—professionals and home cooks alike—respect the process, the product, and the details of a meal. They commit themselves to the highest quality of each and establish an aesthetic that appeals to every sense. Setting a perfect leaf just off center on a plate of sliced persimmon is for your eyes; pressing a hardboiled egg through the tight wire mesh of a ricer (uragoshi) produces a velvety texture for your tongue; twisting a yuzu peel for a burst of citrusy bouquet is for your nose. What may seem like small enhancements actually are the essence of the Japanese table. Each is second nature to the Japanese cook, and now, after decades, to me as well. Hopefully they will appeal to you too.
Like cooks everywhere, Japanese cooks have always been curious and innovative. Although tofu was introduced to Japan through China as early as 600 AD, it was the Buddhist monks and