Food - Feb. 15 2007

Food

I was at Yoshinoya’s last week, some sort of Japanese fast food. The taste is great and the prices are very reasonable. I suggest it to anyone who likes rice and beef or pork because these are the main ingredients of the meals sold at Yoshinoya. I remember going twice and asking for “Gyudon” or beef with rice, but they could not serve it so I took “Butadon” pork with rice. In these instances I always assumed that there was no more beef. Last time I went to Yoshinoya I was with a Japanese friend that works for an import-export company and he explained that there was a quota on American beef that regulated the amount of beef any restaurant could sell. I took a good look at the menu and indeed, there was set period of the day where “Gyudon” was available and outside that time they cannot sell “Gyudon”. I asked my friend why they couldn’t import beef from other countries like Canada for example, and he told me that the taste of American beef was special and they only wanted American beef. That seemed odd to me because I did not think there was a big taste difference between meat from Canada and meat from the states, but at the same time, we have to remember that Japanese are very specific about their tastes and criteria, especially in food.

Japanese is definitely a food culture. You can see it on TV: every show has a food segment with the hosts noisily chomping down and letting out an “oishiii” mouth full of food. I actually got sick of watching Japanese TV once because there was always food. Also, food displays are very big here in Japan, some companies perfect the art of making plastic food look like edible food. Those displays can really fool the eye, to the extent that they even have contests on TV and contestants have to tell the fake food from the real, by just looking of course. Apparently Osaka is the city that produces the most fake food on the planet. I have a few pictures of fake food displays, but they are not that good… next time I see one I will try to remember to take a picture and post it here.

Another thing that really surprised me is the discounts they put on perishables in grocery stores. A good time to do your groceries in Japan is in the evening because they discount the prices of various fish and meat products because it is deemed to be “not as fresh”. This is another clear example of how food is important in the Japanese culture.

The last thing I would add to close this food segment would be that I borrowed a cook book from one of my friends here for when I was living on my own. I tried some recipes and they were pretty good, but the most important advice I took from the book was: Japanese like to appreciate their food with their eyes before they appreciate it in their mouth. I could not disagree with this statement, most Japanese dishes are works of art and there is a balance of primary colors in all of them. Try to notice next time you have Japanese food.