I am doing a project on Japanese food and need to find out what methods they use to cook. Also, any other info on Japanese food would be really good.
Hello, well Japan is more than just raw fish so I shall try to cover a couple of other methods and the aspects of the food briefly.
I.
First there is steaming. Steaming is very popular for many things such as meat buns or other dumplings.
Deep fried is also popular especially for dishes like tonkatsu, tori/chikin kara age, agedofu, and the beloved tempura (deep fried vegetables and seafood).
Yaki is a term you will hear a lot that ranges from BBQing to broiling, to pan frying. This is a very broad term you will find but it is in words like yakiniku (BBQ’d meat) yakitori (BBQ’d chicken on a stick), or teriyaki (literally the glossy BBQ and known well in the states), or sukiyaki (vegetables and meat cooked quickly in oil and then simmered in broth).
Salt pickling is very common in Japan. This process is taking a vegetable and coating it with salt and then placing a weight on it. After a while the weight is removed and you have pickled vegetables that are rubber and quite delicious. Some vegetables can even be dressed with a sauce afterwards. The process of making pickles varies but salt pickling is the most common unlike the Western style of pickling through vinegar. Some common vegetables for pickling are cucumbers, carrots, eggplants, onions, daikon radishes (the big white ones), ginger, and cabbage.
Salt grilling is a popular method for cooking fish but beware, it is a sodium bomb 
The idea of eating raw vegetables is a recent advent to the Japanese diet (think salads and carrot sticks). Before hand vegetables were pickled, stir-fried or boiled in a broth almost to the point of dryness in a shallow pot with a heavy lid.
Meat can also be boiled in a broth. Often times raw meat will be served at a table with a boiling pot of broth in which the meat will be dipped in along with raw vegetables. Then each diner has a dish or two of sauces with which to dip the boiled meat in.
There are also hot pots which encompass a variety of meats, vegetables and broths. These are much like our stews. These are particularly popular in the winter as this is considered ‘home food’ and the stuff that will put meat on your bones.
Lastly there is Japan’s trademark food; sushi. Sushi is not only raw fish. There are varieties of sushi. Sushi can be raw fish, it can be raw chicken or beef, cooked or smoked meat or fish, pickled vegetables, and a few stewed vegetables as well. Sashimi is the sushi that is just the slabs of flesh. Nigiri is the sushi that is served on an ovular cake of rice, and then maki and temaki is the sushi wrapped in a green seaweed sheet in the small bite-sized rolls or the things resembling an icecream cone.
II.
In terms of Japanese food, the ideal tastes of Japanese food are delicate ones that are very elegant. But Japanese food has changed throughout the ages.
Japanese food has had constant changes throughout the ages. Often times, the country was strictly vegetarian as the monarchy was often influenced by Buddhism. One of Buddhism’s main tenets in ‘not harming any living creature.’ Thus, if the emperor declared that ‘no meat shall be consumed,’ then it was so. During those periods many dishes emerged and others were lost.
Traditionally, meat is served in small quantities. Meat is usually served in thin strips with a large grain of fat in them. It would almost look like our bacon. People were encouraged to eat meat during the Meiji era as the emperor was crazy for Western ideals and thus wanted his people to be like the Europeans and Americans. Originally Western-style slabs of meat were expensive and were so for over a hundred years. Though due to modernization and a relax on the imports of beef, chicken breasts, pork chops, and beef steaks are becoming more common and less expensive within the last decade.
The tradition Japanese diet is extremely healthy. It is low in fat and high in nutrients and minerals. Many of the vegetables consumed are also very water rich. But due to the lack of protein, fat, and calcium, Japanese ‘tended’ to be shorter but this is changing due to an acceptance of a more Western-style diet.
Due to this healthy diet, people were often shorter but also healthier with less heart disease and less obesity. People would often live well into their old age and quite comfortably at that. But that is changing as they are now consuming higher fat percentages and being afflicted with the ailments above.
As stated before, tastes were often delicate and elegant and not extremely overbearingly spicy, salty, or sweet. To many people from outside of Japan, and especially to modern-day Japan (the younger generations mostly), the traditional dishes of Japan are often considered bland. Because of that Japan has adopted a lot of Chinese and Korean foods and Western condiments (Tabasco sauce). But these delicate tastes that affect almost every aspect of their diet can still be seen today. Wasabi is used in moderation as it covers that delicate taste of fish; soy sauce and sugar are found in small amounts during stir-frying and BBQ-ing; tea is never served with sugar, and so forth and so on.
Modern day Japan is obsessed with soda, ice cream, and fast food restaurants. These commodities can be expensive at times. But in general, many people still consume the traditional foods of their country. In fact, the average is 50/50 to those who eat beacon, cereal, fried eggs, coffee, and toast to those who eat steamed rice, miso soup, and seaweed for breakfast at this time.
Hope this all helps. Good luck on your project. Ganbatte (Please persevere!)
January 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Hello, well Japan is more than just raw fish so I shall try to cover a couple of other methods and the aspects of the food briefly.
I.
First there is steaming. Steaming is very popular for many things such as meat buns or other dumplings.
Deep fried is also popular especially for dishes like tonkatsu, tori/chikin kara age, agedofu, and the beloved tempura (deep fried vegetables and seafood).
Yaki is a term you will hear a lot that ranges from BBQing to broiling, to pan frying. This is a very broad term you will find but it is in words like yakiniku (BBQ’d meat) yakitori (BBQ’d chicken on a stick), or teriyaki (literally the glossy BBQ and known well in the states), or sukiyaki (vegetables and meat cooked quickly in oil and then simmered in broth).
Salt pickling is very common in Japan. This process is taking a vegetable and coating it with salt and then placing a weight on it. After a while the weight is removed and you have pickled vegetables that are rubber and quite delicious. Some vegetables can even be dressed with a sauce afterwards. The process of making pickles varies but salt pickling is the most common unlike the Western style of pickling through vinegar. Some common vegetables for pickling are cucumbers, carrots, eggplants, onions, daikon radishes (the big white ones), ginger, and cabbage.
Salt grilling is a popular method for cooking fish but beware, it is a sodium bomb
The idea of eating raw vegetables is a recent advent to the Japanese diet (think salads and carrot sticks). Before hand vegetables were pickled, stir-fried or boiled in a broth almost to the point of dryness in a shallow pot with a heavy lid.
Meat can also be boiled in a broth. Often times raw meat will be served at a table with a boiling pot of broth in which the meat will be dipped in along with raw vegetables. Then each diner has a dish or two of sauces with which to dip the boiled meat in.
There are also hot pots which encompass a variety of meats, vegetables and broths. These are much like our stews. These are particularly popular in the winter as this is considered ‘home food’ and the stuff that will put meat on your bones.
Lastly there is Japan’s trademark food; sushi. Sushi is not only raw fish. There are varieties of sushi. Sushi can be raw fish, it can be raw chicken or beef, cooked or smoked meat or fish, pickled vegetables, and a few stewed vegetables as well. Sashimi is the sushi that is just the slabs of flesh. Nigiri is the sushi that is served on an ovular cake of rice, and then maki and temaki is the sushi wrapped in a green seaweed sheet in the small bite-sized rolls or the things resembling an icecream cone.
II.
In terms of Japanese food, the ideal tastes of Japanese food are delicate ones that are very elegant. But Japanese food has changed throughout the ages.
Japanese food has had constant changes throughout the ages. Often times, the country was strictly vegetarian as the monarchy was often influenced by Buddhism. One of Buddhism’s main tenets in ‘not harming any living creature.’ Thus, if the emperor declared that ‘no meat shall be consumed,’ then it was so. During those periods many dishes emerged and others were lost.
Traditionally, meat is served in small quantities. Meat is usually served in thin strips with a large grain of fat in them. It would almost look like our bacon. People were encouraged to eat meat during the Meiji era as the emperor was crazy for Western ideals and thus wanted his people to be like the Europeans and Americans. Originally Western-style slabs of meat were expensive and were so for over a hundred years. Though due to modernization and a relax on the imports of beef, chicken breasts, pork chops, and beef steaks are becoming more common and less expensive within the last decade.
The tradition Japanese diet is extremely healthy. It is low in fat and high in nutrients and minerals. Many of the vegetables consumed are also very water rich. But due to the lack of protein, fat, and calcium, Japanese ‘tended’ to be shorter but this is changing due to an acceptance of a more Western-style diet.
Due to this healthy diet, people were often shorter but also healthier with less heart disease and less obesity. People would often live well into their old age and quite comfortably at that. But that is changing as they are now consuming higher fat percentages and being afflicted with the ailments above.
As stated before, tastes were often delicate and elegant and not extremely overbearingly spicy, salty, or sweet. To many people from outside of Japan, and especially to modern-day Japan (the younger generations mostly), the traditional dishes of Japan are often considered bland. Because of that Japan has adopted a lot of Chinese and Korean foods and Western condiments (Tabasco sauce). But these delicate tastes that affect almost every aspect of their diet can still be seen today. Wasabi is used in moderation as it covers that delicate taste of fish; soy sauce and sugar are found in small amounts during stir-frying and BBQ-ing; tea is never served with sugar, and so forth and so on.
Modern day Japan is obsessed with soda, ice cream, and fast food restaurants. These commodities can be expensive at times. But in general, many people still consume the traditional foods of their country. In fact, the average is 50/50 to those who eat beacon, cereal, fried eggs, coffee, and toast to those who eat steamed rice, miso soup, and seaweed for breakfast at this time.
Hope this all helps. Good luck on your project. Ganbatte (Please persevere!)
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