My Glimpse Into Japanese Culture

Watching the summer Olympic games taking place in Tokyo brought back some wonderful memories of our Japanese guests over the years. Our guests gave us a unique cultural perspective that not even a two or three-week holiday to Japan could offer.

Important in the Japanese culture is to always bring a gift for your host and most often and luckily for us, it was a gift to delight our taste buds as seen in the photo below.

One of the things I love to do is ask my guests to make a dish from their country and we were lucky enough to turn our own kitchen into a Japanese restaurant for the evening. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down the recipes, but there are a few things that I learned that I now do routinely. For example, I use a good quality rice cooker and I fan the rice with a shamoji immediately after it is finished cooking. No, fanning the rice does not mean that you wave a Japanese fan over it. To fan the rice, you use a shamoji (rice paddle) to turn the rice over several times. Fanning the rice facilitates quick cooling, which gelatinizes the surface of the rice and gives it a glossy finish. The process of cooking rice is very important as it is eaten three times a day in many Japanese homes.

One of the quick comfort meals a guest made did not require writing down as she simply scooped the hot rice in a bowl, and made a well in the center of the rice, broke an egg in the well, added soy sauce, and stirred with chopsticks while the hot rice cooked the egg. If you have rice toppings such as Furikake, this may be sprinkled on top for extra flavour.

Speaking of rice toppings, our very first Japanese guest brought us some rice toppings as a gift and our daughter was hooked. Luckily, we can usually find many varieties at the Asian supermarkets in Toronto.

Japan is on my "Bucket List"!

Sending you all lots of love.