At the Table: Food and Family around the World - Ken Albala (2016)

Japan

Shawn M. Higgins

Iruma City in the Saitama Prefecture is where many Tokyo workers lay their heads at night—not much more than a beddo-taun (bed town) as they say in Japanese. But what Iruma might lack in entertainment it makes up for in flavors and scents. Bed towns mean families, and families mean food. After taking the 45-minute express train home from work in Tokyo and driving 10 more minutes from the train station, Shawn parks his car down the street in his rented dirt patch of land adjacent to a cabbage field. If he returns at around 6:00 p.m., he can catch the varied scents of meals being prepared drifting out of the suburban homes. Most restaurants in Tokyo are courteous enough about smell pollution not to let the aromas of their respective cuisines escape from their buildings in excess. The open dining room windows of Iruma suggest the exact opposite—families are sharing and even showing off what is cooking. Many times, Shawn’s family has walked their chihuahua around the block, smelled curry boiling in someone’s kitchen, and decided their own family’s dinner based on what others were making that evening.

Albala

Three generations of family members sit down for kiritanpo nabe, a hot-pot of chicken, vegetables, and stock. The meal is famously from Akita Prefecture of Japan, the area from which the eldest generation here hails. (Courtesy of Michael Higgins)

This is the story of Shawn’s family, their environment, and their food. There are five family members whose ages span three generations living in a two-story four-bedroom house alongside their dog, Chi. Papa and Mama (as they are called) are both in their 60s and have been married for 36 years. Shawn and his wife are ara-saa (around 30) and have been married for 6 years. They met in Riverside, California, as classmates, in a teaching certificate program. In September 2014 they welcomed into the world their first child, Louis, who was born right here in Iruma City, Saitama, Japan.

To fully appreciate the story that Shawn’s family offers—one that showcases traditions and changes, age and youth, the local and the transnational—a bit of information about Japanese demographics is needed. Japan is facing an unprecedented demographic outlook in terms of age and nationality of residents. In 1950, the national population consisted of 35.5 percent children under age 14, 59.6 percent people aged 15-64, and only 4.9 percent senior citizens over age 65. By 1980, these numbers had steadily shifted to 23.5 percent, 67.4 percent, and 9.1 percent, respectively, an early warning of the declining birthrate and the graying of the population. In 2013, the senior population of Japan reached a staggering 25.1 percent of the total population, and children under age 14 only made up 12.9 percent. Therefore, while this family’s story is fairly common in representing the senior age group, it also offers a glimpse of the few families with little ones at the dinner table.

As for the nationality of residents, the foreign population reached its historical height in 2010, with 2,134,151 people carrying legal documentation as recorded by the census. This number swiftly dropped in 2011 and 2012, presumably due to the combination disaster of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in March 2011. However, the foreign population increased again in 2013, reaching 2,066,445, a number nearly double that of 1990. Even so, this number only represents 1.6 percent of the total population of Japan. Therefore, Shawn’s own eating habits as a foreign resident in Japan offer a sample of this small yet present percentage. Along with moving into the house of his wife’s parents came some changes or accommodations in terms of table manners, serving style, and general conversations during dinner. For all of these reasons, their multigenerational, transnational family provides an interesting insight into various aspects of Japanese family and food culture.

The type of food served in their house is surprisingly representative of their transnational makeup, although this is not an effect of Shawn’s presence in the house. Actually, the meals served in the home of his wife’s family have been a mix of traditional Japanese dishes and Western fare ever since she was a child. Breakfast takes place between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. depending on the day of the week, lasts about 30 minutes, and is always Western-style. This meal normally consists of bread purchased from the supermarket, local bakery, convenience store, or department store; individual plain yogurt cups for everyone; a glass of milk for Papa, who adds a Brazilian bee propolis extract to his drink; and coffee or tea for everyone except Shawn’s wife, who is breast-feeding and therefore avoids caffeine when possible. Lunch is eaten between noon and 2:00 p.m. and is much more debatable than breakfast in terms of fare and dining location. Sometimes the family gets burgers from a fast-food chain and eats at home. Other times they purchase prepared Japanese-style bento lunches from the supermarket. On occasion, they indulge Papa’s heavy eating habits and go for ramen or Chinese food at a local restaurant. Not infrequently does Mama simply put together something from the hodgepodge of ingredients sitting in the fridge or freezer.

Dinner, however, is definitely the largest and most important meal of the day in this home. Unless someone is attending a work-related function or Shawn and his wife are out on a date, everyone is expected to be home for dinner every night. Dinner preparation begins between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., and dinner normally begins around 8:00 p.m. Depending on their respective energy levels, dinner lasts between one and two hours. Dinner almost always consists of a main dish, at least one or two side dishes, a soup, and a bowl of rice. If the meal is Japanese, then the soup is without question miso soup. If the meal is Western, then the miso soup might be traded out for corn pottage, pumpkin soup, or cold vichyssoise. The occasional Chinese-influenced dinner might be accompanied by Mama’s take on egg-drop soup. Regardless of the type of fare for dinner, freshly prepared rice is almost always present. Both Papa and Mama are from Akita Prefecture of Japan, a region famous for and proud of its rice quality. And while Mama might skip her rice portion due to her lighter eating habits these days, Papa always demands a full bowl of rice—full means more than 100 grams, even though this is the recommended maximum consumption per meal. Dinner is frequently followed by some kind of dessert, which is always complemented by bitter Japanese green tea and sometimes another cup of European tea.

Tonight, dinner is special. Obaa-chan (Grandma), living in the same house in Akita where Mama grew up, sent via temperature-controlled postal service a package of ingredients for making a cherished Akita dish, kiritanpo. Kiritanpo, the term for cooked rice that is kneaded into a cylinder and toasted around 13.5-inch wooden skewers, is shorthand for a hot pot dish consisting of burdock root, leeks, maitake mushrooms, chicken, and the rice cylinders themselves. These rice cylinders were originally created by woodcutters and hunters in the Akita mountain forests who needed a portable and hearty meal they could roast over a fire. Grandma purchased these dinner items from an Akita co-op that prepares traditional local cuisines. She sent them to the family in a box wrapped in decorative flower-print paper. Today, kiritanpo serves as a sort of Tohoku-region soul food that nostalgically brings Papa and Mama back to their childhoods and brings Shawn and his wife back in contact with her eccentric and loving grandmother.

Most cooking in this kitchen is done using either a three-burner gas stove or a 1,500-watt convection microwave. As is true for most Japanese homes, there is no standalone oven, no dishwasher, and no garbage disposal in the sink. Instead, there is a yellow mesh bag in the kitchen sink for all scrap food items that can later be emptied. Mama prepares all meals in the kitchen on a single rectangular white cutting board, forcing her to clean off the cutting board after each use. There is a cotton cloth on the preparation counter used to clean up most spills and condensation. Otherwise, a paper towel roll and another cotton towel hanging from the refrigerator on magnetic hooks can be used. Oils, sauces, and other bottled ingredients are kept under the sink. At the far end of the kitchen are three large white trash bins for burnable items, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, and all other plastic containers and wrapping. There is a door leading directly out of the kitchen into the side yard, but this door is blocked by these bins and is never opened.

The first step in Mama’s dinner preparation is the donning of her green cooking apron, the one with Monet-like watercolor flowers printed on it. In addition, she wears a white medical face mask tonight while she cooks because she has been fighting off a cold and wants to avoid contaminating the food. The last special item of clothing that Mama wears as she cooks is a particular pair of house shoes. Mama is a bit too short for the counter height in the kitchen, so she wears slippers with a slight heel while she cooks.

Mama begins prepping the ingredients for the kiritanpo hot pot dinner. First, she washes the Japanese parsley and leeks in a stainless steel bowl with very cold water. Next, she cuts the parsley and leeks into roughly two-inch-long pieces on her white cutting board. She opens the package of ito-konnyaku, dumps the contents out into a strainer, then pours the remaining konnyaku noodles onto the cutting board for slicing. Mama then takes the kiritanpo out of the refrigerator, places them on a large blue ceramic plate, covers them in plastic wrap, and microwaves them at 500 watts for three minutes. While these warm up, she begins bringing the soup mix containing tofu, chicken, maitake mushrooms, and burdock root to a boil. Today she uses a hinai-jidori chicken stock made from bones and cartilage that comes in a package, but she reminds everyone that in her childhood it would have been made from scratch. The smell of the boiling maitake mushrooms is really breathtaking. Mama laments that wild mushrooms are becoming much harder to find, reminiscing about picking them with her mother when she was young in Akita. Mama uses long wooden chopsticks to stir the mix as it boils. She samples the soup using a small white soy sauce plate as she prepares the meal, and she approvingly smiles after tasting it. The ingredients might not all be sourced from the same places as those of her childhood, but kiritanpo nabe is still delicious. She adds the Japanese parsley, leeks, and ito-konnyaku to the broth just before turning the heat off, signaling the end of her cooking.

Meanwhile, Papa has been sitting in the living room watching the weather report on the news, while Shawn’s wife has been upstairs taking care of their son. From the kitchen Mama asks Papa where a certain serving dish is, but when he comes into the kitchen and begins looking for it in the cabinets above the stove, she becomes angry, worrying that dust will fall out of the cabinets and into the prepared food. Papa retreats from the kitchen into the safety of his reclining massage chair in the living room while Mama continues plating. She opts for distributing the soup into individual ceramic bowls instead of bringing the hot pot itself to the table. She divides the ingredients into the bowls using the same wooden chopsticks she used for cooking, giving Papa a bit more than everyone else. After pouring the soup into the bowls, she begins handing them over the counter to Shawn and to Papa, who has returned from a quick massage in his chair. Shawn’s wife joins the family, bringing their son downstairs with her, and she sets him in his electronic rocking bed in the corner before helping to set the table. As Papa and Shawn continue placing the bowls on the table, Shawn’s wife makes minor adjustments to the table arrangement and reminds them of cutlery and wares they have all overlooked. Papa sneaks into the kitchen and grabs four small blue ornate plates used for side dishes and places them on the table. Tonight they are for store-bought kimchi—an odd compliment to traditional Akita cuisine but one the family all enjoys nevertheless. Papa also grabs a bottle of Kubota Manjyu sake from the fridge and places it on the dining table along with small serving cups. Papa cannot drink alcohol due to a negative physical reaction from even a slight amount (sometimes referred to as the Asian flush syndrome), but Mama and Shawn indulge on this special culinary occasion in this sake that is best served cold.

On the table there is a small ceramic soy sauce container, a plastic container of toothpicks, and a small condiment bowl filled with packages of Japanese mustard and tartar sauce. There is also a damp blue towel on the dinner table used to clean up any messes such as sauce droplets. Television is central to this family’s meals, and so the remote is placed in the center of the dining table accordingly. There are no place mats on the table, and there are no napkins either. Instead, tissues and paper towels that are set on the adjacent counter inside the bay window are available whenever needed. Looking around the room as the table is set, it becomes clear from the bric-a-brac on the walls how important time is in Japanese culture. There are two calendars mounted on the walls as well as an analog clock that is set 20 minutes ahead, guaranteeing that if you plan your schedule by that clock, you should be prepared by your desired departure time. Since there are exceptionally punctual buses and trains to be caught in Japan, time is truly of the essence.

Before dinner, Papa takes an offering of rice to a small shrine kept inside the house near the front door called hotoke-sama (venerable buddhas) that serves as a memorial to the family’s ancestors. After he returns, they begin dinner with the phrase itadakimasu, which roughly translates as “thank you for the meal and everything that went into it.” Everyone picks up their chopsticks and digs in to the kiritanpo nabe. They talk at the dinner table, but the conversations are mainly about the content of the television program they are watching at the time. They might comment on political or economic news stories, play along with a quiz show, or laugh at a variety show. The family dog used to be in the dining room during meals, being fed bits of the meal by Papa and Mama, but since their grandson was born, the dog has been restricted to the living room, mainly out of fear of her biting the baby. The family eats, watches television, and laughs and chats a bit. The meal finishes without any grand announcement or agreement; each person at their own pace simply places their chopsticks over the rim of their bowl with the tips facing 9:00, and the meal is over.

The Elderly

In many nations it is considered polite to serve the elderly first at the table or to reserve the best portions for them. In cultures as disparate as West Africa and China, respect for elders means that they are always given first place, and the youngest are fed last. Fascinatingly, in most modern Western cultures it is children who are fed first, either because they are impatient, might need help, or are considered more important to feed. Since the elderly rarely live in the same household with children in most modern societies, their pride of place has largely disappeared, and in elder communities and homes, cafeteria-style dining replaces the pride of place that respected elders once held.

After the meal the whole family helps clear the table, but Mama does all of the dishes. On a night of exceptional plating or proportions, Shawn and his wife might help dry dishes after Mama washes them. Shawn and his wife normally leave the table earlier than Papa and Mama for two reasons: they have to attend to putting their son to bed, and his wife’s parents normally stay seated at the table for an additional hour or so after dinner watching television programs that Shawn and his wife are not huge fans of (particularly historical period dramas).

Kiritanpo Nabe (Cylindrical Rice Hot Pot)

(makes 5-6 servings)

10 handmade kiritanpo (rice cylinders)

⅔ pound chicken thigh meat

4 cups hinai-jidori soup mix (straight type, not concentrated) or substitute chicken stock and a combination of onion extract and Japanese flavoring ingredient extract (kombu, tuna, sake, soy bean)

1 bundle Japanese parsley (also known as water dropwort or Chinese celery)

1 bundle leeks

1 large burdock root, julienned

1 cup ito-konnyaku, noodle-shaped (also known as elephant yam)

1 bouquet maitake mushrooms (also known as hen-of-the-woods, ram’s head, or sheep’s head mushrooms)

¾ pound tofu, soft

1.Cut the leeks into approximately 2-inch pieces, cut the Japanese parsley and ito-konnyaku into 2- to 3-inch pieces, and break the maitake mushrooms apart from the bouquet. Julienne the large burdock root.

2.Wrap the kiritanpo individually in plastic and microwave at 500 watts for three minutes. Remove using an oven mitt or cloth for safety.

3.Cut each kiritanpo into three equal pieces. Breaking it into pieces by hand is also fine.

4.Prepare the hinai-jidori soup mix and add the tofu, chicken thigh meat, maitake mushroom, and burdock root. Bring the mix to a boil and add seasoning, soy sauce, and/or cooking sake to taste.

5.Turn the heat off and add the ito-konnyaku to the mix.

6.Add the kiritanpo, leeks, and Japanese parsley just before serving.

Be careful not to add the kiritanpo to the soup if it is still boiling, as the rice cylinders might easily break apart inside.

Additionally, some people add mochi, udon noodles, or rice to make a heartier meal. These items should be warmed up or cooked prior to adding them to the soup mix and should be added just before serving.