How to Live Japanese by Yazawa Yutaka

Author:Yazawa, Yutaka [Yazawa, Yutaka]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
Published: 2018-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

From fast food to main course

Tempura (天麩羅), that quintessentially Japanese deep-fried dish, actually has its origins in Portugal. The cooking method of deep-frying with a batter arrived in Japan in the 16th century with the Jesuits – and while they were persecuted, we kept their cooking.

At the time, cooking oil was generally made from sesame seeds, and was so expensive that tempura was a food reserved for the rich.

As the price of cooking oil came down with increased production during the Edo period, tempura became popular, particularly in the new capital, Edo, where it was sold by street vendors. It was one of three ‘Edo foods’ that originated and were popularised in Edo, alongside sushi and soba noodles.

Tempura as a street food was usually made with vegetables, especially root vegetables such as lotus root and sweet potato. Seafood such as shrimp and eel caught in Edo Bay was also used (and was known as Edomae [江戸前], meaning ‘in front of Edo’). The ingredients were coated in a batter of egg and flour, then deep-fried in hot sesame oil in front of eager customers.

It was only much later, around the end of Tokugawa shogunate in the mid-19th century, that tempura vendors began to have their own restaurants. It wasn’t until at least 1923 that tempura spread beyond the city now called Tokyo, when the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed the restaurants of many tempura chefs, who moved to Osaka and elsewhere to sell their food.

If you go to a specialist tempura restaurant in Tokyo (not so much outside the capital), you can still see traces of the former street-vendor style of service. You choose from the ingredients on display and tell the tempura chef behind the counter which ingredients you want to be fried. The knack of the chef is to control the oil’s temperature in accordance with the ingredients so the tempura is fried with the core of the ingredients remaining soft and flavourful.

As mentioned above, sushi (鮨) also originates from Edo. However, a wider definition of sushi as a method of preserving fish with rice using vinegar existed long before that.

What happened in Edo was the invention of nigiri sushi (握り寿司), where a piece of fish is served on top of a vinegar-flavoured rice ball. In other words, sushi as it is globally known today.

Unlike tempura, sushi only became popular in Edo in, it is generally believed, the first half of the 19th century, but it quickly caught on. At first, the rice portion of sushi was much bigger than it is today, and it was regarded as a quick snack, or even fast food.

The availability of fresh Edomae seafood was the important factor in the early days of nigiri sushi – nationwide popularity had to wait for the introduction of the refrigerator. As improved refrigeration techniques arrived, the ingredients used for sushi became more numerous. At first, they were almost exclusively the types of fish that could be caught in nearby seas, such as horse mackerel, sardine and bonito. Modern staples, such as tuna, came more recently as they became easier to transport and store.

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