1
" Eating a meal in Japan is said to be a communion with nature. This particularly holds true for both tea and restaurant kaiseki, where foods at their peak of freshness reflect the seasonal spirit of that month. The seasonal spirit for November, for example, is "Beginning Anew," because according to the old Japanese lunar calendar, November marks the start of the new tea year. The spring tea leaves that had been placed in sealed jars to mature are ready to grind into tea. The foods used for a tea kaiseki should carry out this seasonal theme and be available locally, not flown in from some exotic locale.
For December, the spirit is "Freshness and Cold." Thus, the colors of the guests' kimonos should be dark and subdued for winter, while the incense that permeates the tearoom after the meal should be rich and spicy. The scroll David chose to hang in the alcove during the tea kaiseki no doubt depicted winter, through either words or an ink drawing. As for the flowers that would replace the scroll for the tea ceremony, David likely would incorporate a branch of pine to create a subtle link with the pine needle-shaped piece of yuzu zest we had placed in the climactic dish. Both hinted at the winter season and coming of New Year's, one of David's underlying themes for the tea kaiseki. Some of the guests might never make the pine needle connection, but it was there to delight those who did. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
2
" Along with the greening of May came the rain. Then the clouds disappeared and a soft pale lightness fell over the city, as if Kyoto had broken free of its tethers and lifted up toward the sun. The mornings were as dewy and verdant as a glass of iced green tea. The nights folded into pencil-gray darkness fragrant with white flowers. And everyone's mood seemed buoyant, happy, and carefree.
When I wasn't teaching or studying tea kaiseki, I would ride my secondhand pistachio-green bicycle to favorite places to capture the fleeting lushness of Kyoto in a sketchbook. With a small box of Niji oil pastels, I would draw things that Zen pots had long ago described in words and I did not want to forget: a pond of yellow iris near a small Buddhist temple; a granite urn in a forest of bamboo; and a blue creek reflecting the beauty of heaven, carrying away a summer snowfall of pink blossoms.
Sometimes, I would sit under the shade of a willow tree at the bottom of my street, doing nothing but listening to the call of cuckoos, while reading and munching on carrots and boiled egg halves smeared with mayonnaise and wrapped in crisp sheets of nori. Never before had such simple indulgences brought such immense pleasure. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
3
" The miso store entailed much sampling. Although all miso consists of crushed boiled soybeans, salt, and a fermenting agent called koji, the types differ based on whether rice, wheat, or barley is added to the mix. The flavor and color of each style can also change, depending upon the amounts of soybeans, type of koji (made from either beans or grains, inoculated with the mold Aspergillus), and salt that are added, as well as how long the miso ages. Brick-red miso, for example, comes in both sweet and salty varieties and is made with either barley or a mixture of barley and rice. Because it tastes somewhat coarse, it usually seasons hearty dishes, such as brothy seafood stews. Similar in flavor is the chocolate-brown miso. Mainly composed of soybeans, it has a bold earthy tang best enjoyed in robust dishes, such as potatoes simmered with miso.
Shiro miso, or "white miso," is a Kyoto specialty. Smooth, golden, and quite mellow, it is said to have evolved to suit the tastes of the effete aristocracy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is used extensively in Kyoto cooking, including tea kaiseki, and often comes seasoned with herbs, citrus, and mustard. Because of its delicate nature, it tends to be used as a sauce, mainly to dress vegetables and grilled foods. A saltier version appears most often in American markets. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
5
" The tour concluded with our buying the ingredients for shabu-shabu to enjoy that night with Tomiko and her husband. Sitting around the wooden table in Tomiko's kitchen, we drank frosty Kirin beers and munched on edamame, fresh steamed soybeans, nutty and sweet, that we pulled from their salt-flecked pods with our teeth. Then Tomiko set down a platter resplendent with gossamer slices of raw beef, shiitake mushrooms, cauliflower florets, and loamy-tasting chrysanthemum leaves to dip with long forks into a wide ceramic bowl of bubbling primary dashi. I speared a piece of sirloin. "Wave the beef through the broth," instructed Tomiko, "then listen." Everyone fell silent.
As the hot dashi bubbled around the ribbon of meat, it really did sound as though it was whispering "shabu-shabu," hence the onomatopoeic name of the dish.
I dipped the beef in a sauce of toasted ground sesame and soy and as I chewed, the rich roasted cream mingled with the salty meat juices.
"Try this one," urged Tomiko, passing another sauce of soy and sesame oil sharpened with lemony yuzu, grated radish, and hot pepper flakes. I tested it on a puffy cube of warm tofu that Tomiko had retrieved from the dashi with a tiny golden wire basket. The pungent sauce invigorated the custardy bean curd. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
6
" As Tomiko and I sank to our knees on floor pillows, her mother filled our sake cups with an amber-green liquid. Called toso, it was a traditional New Year's elixir made from sweet rice wine seasoned with a Chinese herbal-medicine mixture called tososan. Meant to ward off the evil spirits, the drink was honeyed, warm, and laced with cinnamon and peppery sansho.
To display the contents of the lacquer boxes, Tomiko's mother had arranged the various layers in the center of the table. The top layer always contains the traditional sweet dishes and hors d'oeuvres, while the second layer holds steamed, boiled, and vinegared offerings. The third box consists of foods that have been grilled or fried.
Since not everything fit into the lacquer boxes, Tomiko's mother had placed a long rectangular dish at everyone's place holding three different nibbles. The first one was a small bowl of herring eggs to represent fertility. Waxy yellow in color, they had a plastic pop and mild saline flavor. Next came a miniature stack of sugar- and soy-braised burdock root cut like penne pasta and tossed with a rich nutty cream made from pounded sesame seeds. Called tataki gobo (pounded burdock root), the dish is so named because the gobo (root) symbolizes the hope for a stable, deeply rooted life, while the homonym for tataki (pounded) also means "joy aplenty." The third item consisted of a tiny clump of intensely flavored soy-caramelized sardines that tasted like ocean candy. Called tazukuri, meaning "paddy-tilling," the sticky fish symbolized hopes for a good harvest, since in ancient times, farmers used chopped sardines along with ash for fertilizer. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
7
" Because this tea kaiseki would be served so soon after breakfast, it would be considerably smaller than a traditional one. As a result, Stephen had decided to serve each mini tea kaiseki in a round stacking bento box, which looked like two miso soup bowls whose rims had been glued together. After lifting off the top dome-shaped cover the women would behold a little round tray sporting a tangle of raw squid strips and blanched scallions bound in a tahini-miso sauce pepped up with mustard. Underneath this seafood "salad" they would find a slightly deeper "tray" packed with pearly white rice garnished with a pink salted cherry blossom. Finally, under the rice would be their soup bowl containing the wanmori, the apex of the tea kaiseki. Inside the dashi base we had placed a large ball of fu (wheat gluten) shaped and colored to resemble a peach. Spongy and soft, it had a savory center of ground duck and sweet lily bulb. A cluster of fresh spinach leaves, to symbolize the budding of spring, accented the "peach," along with a shiitake mushroom cap simmered in mirin, sake, and soy.
When the women had finished their meals, we served them tiny pink azuki bean paste sweets. David whipped them a bowl of thick green tea. For the dry sweets eaten before his thin tea, we served them flower-shaped refined sugar candies tinted pink.
After all the women had left, Stephen, his helper, Mark, and I sat down to enjoy our own "Girl's Day" meal. And even though I was sitting in the corner of Stephen's dish-strewn kitchen in my T-shirt and rumpled khakis, that soft peach dumpling really did taste feminine and delicate. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
9
" We began with two buttery sweet edamame and one sugar syrup-soaked shrimp in a crunchy soft shell. A lightly simmered baby octopus practically melted in our mouths, while a tiny cup of clear, lemony soup provided cooling refreshment. The soup held three slices of okra and several slippery cool strands of junsai (water shield), a luxury food that grows in ponds and marshes throughout Asia, Australia, West Africa, and North America. In the late spring the tiny plant develops leafy shoots surrounded by a gelatinous sheath that floats on the water's surface, enabling the Japanese to scoop it up by hand from small boats. The edamame, okra, and water shield represented items from the mountains, while the shrimp and octopus exemplified the ocean. I could tell John was intrigued and amused by this artistic (perhaps puny?) array of exotica.
Two pearly pieces of sea bream, several fat triangles of tuna, and sweet shelled raw baby shrimp composed the sashimi course, which arrived on a pale turquoise dish about the size of a bread plate. It was the raw fish portion of the meal, similar to the mukozuke in a tea kaiseki. To counter the beefy richness of the tuna, we wrapped the triangles in pungent shiso leaves , then dunked them in soy.
After the sashimi, the waitress brought out the mushimono (steamed dish). In a coal-black ceramic bowl sat an ivory potato dumpling suspended in a clear wiggly broth of dashi thickened with kudzu starch, freckled with glistening orange salmon roe. The steamed dumplings, reminiscent of a white peach, was all at once velvety, sweet, starchy, and feathery and had a center "pit" of ground chicken. The whole dish, served warm and with a little wooden spoon, embodied the young, tender softness of spring. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
10
" To our surprise and delight, dinner was stupendous. Served in our room at the low polished wood table, it exuded a freshness and artistry we had not seen since leaving Kyoto. The sashimi- sea bream, squid, and skipjack- tasted as clean as a freshly sliced apple. Rusty-red miso soup had a meaty fortifying flavor enhanced with cubes of tofu and slithery ribbons of seaweed. The tempura, served in a basket of woven bamboo, shattered to pieces like a well-made croissant. Hiding inside the golden shell was a slice of Japanese pumpkin, a chunk of tender white fish, an okra pod, a shiitake mushroom cap, and a zingy shiso leaf.
Pale yellow chawan-mushi also appeared in a lidded glass custard cup. With a tiny wooden spoon we scooped up the ethereal egg and dashi custard cradling chunks of shrimp, sweet lily buds, and waxy-green ginkgo nuts.
In a black lacquer bowl came a superb seafood consommé, along with a knuckle of white fish, tuft of spinach, mushroom cap, and a tiny yellow diamond of yuzu zest. A small lacquer bucket held several servings of sticky white rice to eat with crunchy radish pickles and shredded pressed cabbage. A small wedge of honeydew melon concluded the meal. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
13
" Several minutes later, Tomiko met me at the top of the stairs in her wedding kimono. She was totally transformed. Out of her blue jeans, loose shirt, and bulky sweater, she radiated femininity.
The kimono elongated her torso and created a smooth cylinder from neck to toe, the hallmark of a beautiful Japanese figure. A striking navy obi with red, yellow, white, and turquoise chrysanthemums hugged her waist. A flirtatious cream collar peeked out from under the pale peach robe. The sleeves were just high enough to expose a sensual swatch of skin above her wrist. When she moved her arm, the inner fold revealed an erotic flash of scarlet and white silk. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
14
" I busied myself with the seaweed, while Stephen pulled out flexible opaque salmon bones. After skinning the fish, he sliced it down the center seam, creating two pieces, which he cut into quarter-inch-thick slices. Then, like magic, he transformed a knob of ginger into a miniature golden haystack.
I handed him the slippery piece of kelp, which he squared off and placed on a bamboo sushi roller. Next, he laid several slices of salmon across the shiny middle, sprinkled it with a few threads of ginger, and rolled it up like a nori roll. After sealing the cylinder in plastic wraps, he handed it to me.
"Cut this into bite-size pieces." The sweet and tangy kelp yielded like a cooked lasagna noodle under the sharp knife, creating exotic coral-and-sienna pinwheels.
Next, we made delicate egg crepes to wrap around thick oily slices of mackerel that we soaked in a bracing mix of dashi, sugar, and soy. This was followed by a small "salad" of lightly salted white fish "noodles" tossed with salmon roe and lemony yuzu. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
15
" Unlike the miso soup served in restaurants, however, which contains lots of little goodies, like seaweed and diced tofu, the miso soup served at a tea kaiseki usually features one central ingredient that breaks the soup's surface. Depending upon the season, you might encounter a square of bean curd, a ball of wheat gluten, or a wheel of daikon radish simmered in dashi until butterscotch sweet. These central ingredients are usually cooked separately before being placed in the soup bowl and crowned with a seasonal garnish, such as fall chestnut, peppery spring shoot, or fragrant summer herb. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
16
" One day we strolled down the Philosopher's Path, which proved as enchanting as I had hoped in the fragrant pink bloom of spring. Since ancient times, the Japanese have heralded the arrival of the cherry blossoms because they symbolize the ephemeral beauty of life.
But it isn't just the three or four days of open flowers that stirs the senses. It is their arrival and departure. Looking at a bud about to burst open offers the pleasurable anticipation of rebirth, while the soft scattering of petals on the ground is often considered the most beautiful stage of all because it represents the death of the flowers.
Another day I took John to one of my tea kaiseki classes to watch the making of a traditional picnic to celebrate the arrival of the cherry blossoms. While he sat on a stool near my cooking station, Stephen and I cooked rice in water flavored with kelp, sake, and light soy, then packed it into a wooden mold shaped like a chrysanthemum. After tapping out the compact white flower, we decorated it with two salted cherry blossoms.
We wrapped chunks of salted Spanish mackerel in brined cherry leaves and steamed the packets until the fatty fish turned milky in parts. We also made cold seafood salad, pea custard, and chewy millet dumplings, which we grilled over a charcoal burner until brown and sticky enough to hold a coating of ivory Japanese poppy seeds. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
18
" Strangely enough, the Japanese base most of their traditional desserts on beans. Called an, this smooth chocolatey-looking paste is made from azuki beans boiled in sugar and water. I encountered it for the first time one afternoon when I helped myself to a traditional Kyoto sweet resembling a triangular ravioli stuffed with fudge. What a shock to find a center made from azuki beans, instead of cocoa beans!
Sometimes sweet makers choose chestnuts or white kidney beans to make the an, which they craft into dainty flowers, leaves, and fruits that look just like marzipan. Using special tools and food coloring, they fashion such masterpieces as prickly green-jacketed chestnuts with dark brown centers, winter white camellias with red stamens, and pale pink cherry blossoms with mint-colored leaves to commemorate the flower's arrival in April.
The bean fudge also fills and frosts other confections, including pounded glutinous rice taffy called mochi and bite-size cakes, made from flour, water, and eggs that are baked until golden. These moist confections go by the name of namagashi and are always served before the thick whipped green tea at the tea ceremony. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
20
" As my grandmother discovered long ago, the Japanese excel in cultivating nature. Their gardens come in numerous styles, including paradise gardens, dry-landscape gardens, stroll gardens, and tea gardens. Although each type has its own goal, tray all share the same principle: nature is manipulated to create a miniature symbolic landscape.
A paradise garden is meant to evoke the Buddhist paradise through the use of water dotted with stone "islands." Dry-landscape gardens, usually tucked away in Zen temples, use dry pebbles and stones to create minimalist views for quiet contemplation. Stroll gardens offer changing scenes with every step, a pool of carp here, a mossy trail there, and a small bridge to link them both, while a tea garden provides a serene path to take you from the external world to the spiritual one of the teahouse. "
― , Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto