23 December: Quick food in Japan

[starlady]

umadoshi asked about easy go-to foods in Japan

I could cheat and say "walking down the street to the on campus cafeteria," which is usually what I do for weekday lunches. It's almost always less than ¥500, it's decent for the price, and it gets me variety. On the other hand I could say that large parts of Japanese cuisine actually evolved out of snack food (viz. sushi), and that entire restaurant categories (i.e. ramen joints) are dedicated to getting food into people and people out the door as soon as possible--though you'll hardly ever be pressured to hurry up with your meal.

But in reality this often comes down to the grocery store and to whatever random little food shop is in your neighborhood. Three years ago in Kyoto I only had one burner, which meant that most days I biked down to the grocery store at about 6:30pm and picked up a package of store-made gyoza with the 20% off "time service discount," biked back up to my place, refried them, and called that a meal. For variety's sake every so often I'd go to the takoyaki stand down the street instead. (Side note: my kingdom for a neighborhood takoyaki stand here in Tokyo, omg.) The downside to this strategy was that I eventually gave myself a vitamin deficiency, and indeed, for people who were basically all vegetarians until the 1860s, there are not a lot of vegetables (particularly greens) in the Japanese diet--especially up here in Tokyo, where people's habits are much more visibly influenced by the "modern" of, say, Germany in the 1880s than in Kyoto, where traditionalism and hippies meet and eat vegan cuisine together. (Fun fact: there is a statue of Townsend Harris in Shimoda, erected by the nation's grateful beef farmers. I like to think that the statue is Townsend Harris as played by John Wayne.) The other night at a Belgian bar in Akasaka I ordered a Caesar salad and got half of an endive with dressing, croutons, and bacon and was so happy, but I digress.

So, yeah. Basically the quickest you can get is a bento at the grocery store or conbini, or instant noodles at a conbini--99% of them have hot water and microwaves available for you to make the instant noodles in-store. I actually never eat instant noodles and don't eat bento very often, though I probably should given my positive paranoia about getting enough vegetables. (Vegetables! I miss them so much.) I keep a package of frozen gyoza in my freezer and eat them as desperation calls for. If I'm out and about and not planning on heading back to my house, though, there are many, many places where you can get food very quickly in Japan, particularly in Tokyo. I'm thinking of a curry joint I really like in Dogenzaka that is quick and surprisingly tasty. Mmm, curry. And in Tokyo a surprising number of places here have the ticket machines where you pay for your food before you sit down and then just leave when you finish eating. Tokyo, man.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Straight vegetarian or pescatarian?
I have wondered about the limited appearance of veg, at least in restaurant food (which adds an extra limitation in post-Benihana US, but I include places that don't offer the likes of chicken teriyaki). The nearest grocery to me has a great fish counter and decent fresh veg; about half the latter is sold in partnership with J Am farming north and east of the shop. One thing it doesn't have is a range of seaweeds--the dried stuff is all nori sheets of varying qualities.

[starlady]

Yeah, "vegetarian" in the sense of "not eating four-legged animals." (I think people did eat chicken before Meiji. I'd have to double-check.) Mmm, fish.

[thistleingrey]

I also wonder about chicken! Koreans made soup with chickens pre-C20, with appropriate socioeconomic class/access restrictions accounted for, but the whole grilled meat thing is C20/21 as far as I can tell. Someone credits a particular place with "inventing" kalbi-style chicken in the 1960s (cynical voice says that it was probably to serve to US soldiers).

[starlady]

Belatedly--the kalbi/yakiniku similarities seem too large for them both not to have a common ancestor. Do you know for sure? I would assume during the colonial period, but it could also have come in after the war via the U.S. military.

[thistleingrey]

Hmm, I think that Korean BBQ comes from Mongol and Jurchen customs, but K and J could still have a pre-C20 common ancestor thus; Korean nobility have fled to the islands more than once, including to join Ryukyu due to Imjin waeran / Bunroku no eki et seq., IIRC. (I have no idea what the seized potters ate, alas.) I mean, "sura" denotes Korean royal court cuisine yet is a word borrowed from a Mongolic language.

I agree either way that US GIs, and possibly Russian soldiers, have had disproportionate impact upon K and J cuisines. And the colonial period does at least account for Korean bean-filled "mochi" (less sweet and more rice-bearing than Japanese daifuku, IME) and for kimbap (± futomaki), from my small reading.

[owlectomy]

Hah, my year in Japan was basically put together out of fast food places, conbini bentos, and frozen gyoza and shumai. (Shame. But also, tiny communal kitchen.)

[starlady]

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous how much more you can do when you have two burners instead of one.

[umadoshi]

It's been two and a half years since our venture to Japan, and I still kinda miss conbini. They're so amazing! How does North America fail so massively at convenience stores?

This was fun to read!