What I've Been Eating

I have been cooking, cooking, cooking, but when I am alone, there are only ever raw ingredients in the refrigerator. This is because my daughter and husband both bring bento lunches to school and work. Any dinner leftovers go to their bentos. Sometimes there are not enough leftovers and I make something else. Very rarely are there enough leftovers for my lunch the next day. 

I don't mind, because this gives me the opportunity to eat whatever I want for lunch, including the junk food that I am not keen on feeding to my kids and food that my husband would probably not want to eat anyways. An example of such food is karaage, or fried chicken, which is everywhere. It is sold at grocery stores, combinis, and food stalls. You can get them in a range of flavors, fried or baked, and in almost any amount you like. Combinis sell just two or three bite-sized chunks for a dollar or two. 

I have tried the "Mexican fried chicken" which is chicken breaded and fried with tortilla chip pieces. It was delicious. Last week, in an attempt to use leftover ingredients and make my meal a little healthier, I made fried chicken maki. My conclusion is that fried chicken makes everything tastes good. And my only regret is using the spicy fried chicken, which overwhelmed the shiso flavor. 

                           

Rolls don't stop with rice here. A popular food, especially for bentos, is sliced meat with vegetables rolled inside, covered with a mirin-soy sauce glaze. It is very versatile, because you can use almost any vegetable you have. You can also use any kind of meat, so long as it is sliced thinly enough to roll. My kids eat some, but not all vegetables. E loves broccoli and green beans but not asparagus. However, if I cook asparagus rolled up in pork, she loves it. I cooked this for her lunch tomorrow and put asparagus and shiitake inside.

    We have also been eating a lot of beans recently. When we visited Karuizawa a couple weeks ago, we

brought back these large, dark speckled beans. I'm not sure what they are called - it could be Large Speckled Calico, though the ones I see online look smaller than the beans I have. I ate this in a Genovese pasta dish at a restaurant in Karuizawa and decided to try it. It was tricky cooking these. After 45 minutes of boiling, I tasted them and found the insides a good consistency. However, the skin was too thick, so I cooked them 10-15 minutes longer. After that, the skin was more tender and palatable but then the insides were a bit too starchy, almost potato-like. They were not perfect, but I used them in a pesto pasta, and they were not bad. Please tell me if you know what these beans are called. 

Another discovery I made is that most supermarkets sell trays of assorted bibimbap vegetables. My local store sells it for less than $2. It is perfect for a single serving of bibimbap. I put it over rice and add an egg into the mix - and it's bibimbap in two minutes! This is an easy, healthy, and inexpensive meal. My lunch this afternoon:

Although most of the foods I have mentioned are pretty healthy, I have personally found that Japanese food is not as healthy as Americans might think. It is definitely healthier than ordinary American food, and Japanese people have a well-developed sense of balance in their diets, but there is more to it. Traditional Japanese food is healthy, but it is also not what most Japanese people, especially younger Japanese people, always eat. What comes to mind when I think of traditional Japanese food is salted or fresh fish, various forms of tofu, lots of rice, miso, soybean products like natto, and egg. The foods that are most ubiquitous and accessible in major cities include karaage, ramen, tempura, katsu, and rice bowls of various forms. A lot of it is fried and salty. Because meat is more expensive here, many meals are heavy on carbs. 

From my perspective as both an American and Chinese person, I think everyday Japanese food falls somewhere between American and Chinese food on the nutritional scale. Chinese food includes a lot of vegetables. I think traditionally, there had to be at least four dishes on the table, two of them vegetable dishes. At least, this is what my mother told me growing up. Chinese people tend to distinguish clearly between Chinese food and western food. Japan, on the other hand, has adopted a lot of western foods and made it distinctly Japanese. An example of this is karaage or hambagu (hamburger steak with gravy). It is Japanese food, but modern Japanese food. This is not the say that Chinese people are overall healthier. I just think that what is considered everyday food to the Chinese person is healthier than its Japanese counterpart. Japanese people are, in fact, very healthy. I think the crucial factors are that they 1) are very active in their daily lives, whether it is walking or biking and 2) whatever they eat, they eat in moderation. 

This is most evident in desserts, which are usually beautifully designed and subtlety sweet. I leave you with a photo of dessert. This was a white chocolate soufflé with mousse. My husband bought this last Friday at his train station as an end-of-the-week reward for the kids. Unbelievable that you can buy gourmet foods at train stations here. Makes you want to eat dessert after ever meal.