Japanese Take on Chinese Food

by Amy Sherman
on 10/19/07 at 11:52 AM

While it's easy to think of Japan as isolationist, the truth is when it comes to food, the Japanese have borrowed a bit. For example, a typical Japanese noodle soup "ramen" has it's roots in China.

The other night I had ramen in Kyoto. It was described as "Kyushu-style" and had a rich, cloudy broth and thin delicate noodles with just a touch of chili. It was topped with tender sliced pork and tons of thinly sliced green onions. It's funny that the defintion for ramen is often "instant noodles" there is nothing instant about a long simmered broth and fresh ingredients. While instant noodles are so inexpensive that they can even be purchased in vending machines here, this homemade bowl was still a cheap meal in Japan, at just a little more than $5.

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03:38:46 PM on

I think it was the famous Japanese wiseman Ana-nomu who once said 'variety is the spice of life'.

The exchange of DNA is in 2nd place, knickknacks in 3rd, knowledge in 4th, and exchange of wisdom too low to count. But the number one legacy from humanity's restless quest for trade is the sharing of foods.

Wherever you go in the world, no matter how alien the culture may be, you can always talk about food. Even if you don't know the language, people will probably understand KFC, hamburger, ice cream, sushi, pad thai, chocolate. And the fascination for what we're not familiar with? Bring a live Maine Lobster to Timbuktu, and you and the lobster will get the key to the city from the Mayor.

So it is in Japan, with some aspects of its culture still hermetic, yet forced time and time again to experience the culture of the west: from Portuguese traders and missionaries, to American Iron and steel ships. And everytime something happens, a new food gets added to the diet.

And what a diet it used to be. Rice. Fish. Scallions, rice, fish, and occasionally, a nice bean curd. Egg, Beef, Pork, Chicken luxuries. Wheat is best used for beer and spirits.

A rather sparse diet by US standards, it required creativity to add the spice, and a different way of thinking about variety. Sashimi is a good example. If there are 10,000 species of edible fish, there's 10,000 veriations of Sashimi, plus 1 more almost edible fish, Fugu. Then there is Sushi, which is all of the above with presentation.

And Sushi is where you'll find the blending of cultures. In Tokyo, you can now order the Californian (crab & avocado), the New York (salmon and sour cream). I'm sure somebody's working on the Kansas City as we speak.

And then there was the picnic craze of a few years ago. This is when Japan as a society discovered the joys of potato salad. I've ordered Bento boxes in local US Japanese restaurants with potato salad. And for that matter, Japanese hamburger.

Nutritionists and Medical researchers have studied the health of US Nisei, and found many Nisei ore susceptible to the worst effects of the US diet. If you remember eating lots of noodle soup as a kid, and you had the option of eating Hamburgers, French Fries and a coke now, what would you choose?

I will venture a guess that aside from traditional Japanese cuisine, Chinese is the 2nd most popular choice of food in Japan. Because it is decadent in its choice, variations, spice and still reflect an Asian aeshtetic. And it comes with noodles.

Which is a world food. Italy and China still argue about who discovered it first. The versatile noodle travels well in dried form, so you don't need lots of farmland to have noodles in your diet. It's cheap. It's nutritious. And there's 10 million things you can do with it and they're all decadent.

And noodle soup is the linguini fraca of the culinary world. Cause practically everywhere you go, there is noodle soup to be had. And other people talking about food across the world while happily and loudly slurping away. Pasta comes from the root word for paste, but is eerily similar to the latin word Pax, or peace.

So together all around the we share the paste of peace. Sharing in a common legacy of food and human-ness.

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