Japanese cooking : A simple art

So as for my first subject, I'll be talking a lot about Japanese cooking. I'll be covering techniques, traditions but most importantly the philosophy behind the Japanese cuisine and how it impacted ours. Feeling like splitting this over a couple posts, cause it's a big book, guys.

If you are asking yourself why is she telling me all of this, i'm kinda obsessed with Japan. I'd love to go there and stay there for a month but it's so expensive and really not possible right now. My best friend and me, we are determined to go, so one day it will happen for sure. Till then i'm doing some research into the Japanese cuisine. My best friend bought me a copy of "Japanese cooking : A simple Art" by Shizuo Tsuji which got me really inspired.

The preparation and serving of fine as well as routine Japanese food is more obviously mixed, than is ours, with other things than hunger. At its best, it is inextricably meshed with aesthetics, with religion, with tradition and history. It is evocative of seasonal changes, or of one's child-hood, or of a storm at sea. All this delicate pageantry is based on things that we Westeners are either unaware of or that we accept for vaguely sentimental reasons.

I wanted to give you guys a really good example of the incorporation of all these important elements such as tradition, history, the seasonal changes and the aesthetics. Wagashi are traditional Japanese confections mostly served with tea. If you want to find out more watch the video that Great Big Story created !

We have never been taught to make little look much, make much out of little, in a mystical combination of ascetic and aesthetic as well as animal satisfaction. Not only are our ideas of what is delicate and rare different from those of the Japanese, but so is our conditioning. North Americans for instance, must combine many ethnical influences in their methods of cooking and eating, because they all are the offspring of other cultures.

The Chefs of France, who had all gone off to taste sushi and tempura , had been so captivated by the Japanese aesthetic that they changed the way they cooked. Like French artists at the turn of the century, whose contact with the art of Japan had literally offered a new perspective on the world, the great French chefs of the 1970s and 80s returned from the east and began to radically rethink their art. Traditional French cooking had been a way of bending nature to the will of man, but now the chefs began to look at what they were doing from a different position. For centuries the French had been focused on the arcane chemistry of the kitchen, but now they began to emphasize the integrity of ingredients.

Influenced by Japan, Nouvelle Cuisine put nature first and insisted upon a new reverence for simplicity. This emphasis on simplicity meant that chefs went looking for new sources for their products and embraced an entirely new universe of ingredients. Menus began to change. Tableware changed too, for this food spoke to the eye as well as the mouth, giving the plate an entirely new place at the table.

The last thing I want to talk about is Kaiseki. I stumbled upon it in the book and I think it's absolutely worth talking about. So what Kaiseki is... The great Kaiseki restaurants offer a kind of edible poetry served on antique dishes, and one could not simply call up and make a reservation, introductions are required. It's basically our 'Haute Cuisine' but I just have the feeling that the meaning of a traditional Kaiseki course is much more deeper than the haute cuisine dishes in my culture.
Want to know more about Kaiseki ? Watch this video !

I think it's save to say that the Japanese are really determined, specialized and caring about the products that they deliver. I would love to see more of this introduced in my culture. I admire the pureness of the food and the thought put into it. It's my biggest inspiration!

Are you also a big fan of Japanese food? Let me know !
More about this coming up soon :)

Greets
Komia