May 10, 2006

my first kani miso

My first encounter with kani miso was accidental. It was during my first weeks in Japan, when I would buy things in the grocery store just because they were labeled in hiragana—the Japanese alphabet I could read—instead of kanji, the thousands of complicated Chinese-based characters of which I knew approximately thirty. So when I saw the word kani, crab, I thought I was buying a container of fried crab meat, and it wasn’t until halfway through dinner that I began to detect the muddiness of the flavor, a certain bottom-of-the-sea taste I remembered from an hour-long seafood feast I had eaten in Thailand, encompassing every type of crustacean and mollusk I had ever heard of, and culminating with a plate of prawns swiftly beheaded by the hostess of the meal, the thin green brain fluid pooling on the serving plate, a sight which had ended the meal for me. Looking down at the fried thing in my chopsticks now, I noticed the grayness underneath the batter. What was I eating? I finished the remaining pieces, but vowed to stick with the kare age, fried chicken, next time.

Sitting at the local kaitenzushi (conveyor-belt sushi) restaurant a few weeks later, I watched the approach of a roll stuffed half with crab meat, half with a dollop of some mysterious substance the color of wet cement, with the thick and shiny texture of mayonnaise. (A condiment not out of place at kaitenzushi restaurants, incidentally—hamburger steak and a squirt of mayo balanced atop a small finger of rice, anyone? …Anyone?)

“What is that?” I asked, as my friend James grabbed the plate and added it to the growing pile in front of him.

“Kani miso.”

“But what is it?”

“Crab guts. Want one?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to look like a wimp. “Okay.”

As he plopped one of the two rolls on my plate, he told me about the first time he had eaten crab guts; it had been at this very kaitenzushi place, on a night when he came alone and sat at the counter, next to an old man presiding over a giant pile of empty plates. I imagined a rainy night, possibly with lightening, and the old man as wizened and dirt-streaked, most likely with a blind, rolling, cataract-ridden eye.

“I reached out to take some kind of clam sushi and I saw he was watching me,” James said. I thought of the darting cataract eye. “So I asked him if the one I picked was any good. He said no”—I could see his cackling, wrinkled face—“but the one he was eating was. So the next time it came around, I tried it. And I liked it.” A flash of lightening! The claw-like hands, curling triumphantly around their disposable chopsticks! A flayed and defeated crab lying supine in the kitchen behind the conveyor belt!

There was still the matter of the kani miso on my plate, and the dawning realization that I had eaten fried crab guts for dinner once.

I picked it up with my chopsticks, the guts glossy in the fluorescent glow of the conveyor belt. I dipped it in my small dish of soy sauce. I ate it. There was the dense crab meat, then the squish of guts between my teeth, the bottom-of-the-sea taste, but even stronger this time, as I chewed through the rice and seaweed wrapping. It tasted like crab, but dirty crab. Like a dirty martini—something dusky and thick beneath the clean sweetness.

“Huh,” I said. There was no flash of lightening. “It’s okay.”

But the next time I went out for kaitenzushi I found myself picking it out of the conveyor-belt line-up, enjoying the disgusted look flickering behind the eyes of those at the table who would never try crab guts, their open-mouthed incredulousness as I popped the pink and gray pieces into my mouth and chewed. “Mmm…” I said, hamming it up in the face of their revulsion, and it actually did taste better than the first time I had eaten it.

And after that, I started eating kani miso for myself.

Link | Comment (1) | Categories: Firsts | Sushi | Weird

May 3, 2006

the reinvention of sushi

The first version of sushi, called narezushi (“matured sushi"), was originally a method of preserving large amounts of fish caught at the same time. It was made by spreading a layer of boiled rice on the bottom of a wooden cask, then covering it with a layer of salted fish, more layers of rice and fish, an inner lid, a stone weight and water to the top of the container. After about six months, the rice would ferment and lend a tangy flavor to the fish, which was eventually removed from the rice remains, sliced and eaten raw. You might call it the cheese of the fish world. (Or you might just call it gross. And really, I can’t blame you.) Narezushi, versions of which exist all over Southeast Asia, has been made in Japan for the past 1,000 years and is still being made in the Lake Biwa area, though no information exists as to why.

Around the fifteenth century, namanare-zushi (“raw-mature sushi”) appeared. It was the fast-food version of narezushi, ready to eat after fermenting for several days to a month. In that amount of time, the rice would ferment enough to take on an acidic taste, but still remain whole, and was eaten along with the fish. Unlike narezushi, it was only made in small quantities, usually for festivals and other special events.

In the late seventeeth century, someone thought, “Wait—this is still kind of gross. Why don’t we just add some vinegar to the rice instead of packing it in a box for a month?” and thus hayazushi (“quick sushi”) was born. It was later popularized in Edo as a snack food called nigiri-zushi, which is the sushi we eat today.

Link | Comment (4) | Categories: History | Sushi

April 30, 2006

the sushi party

I was told to take the 11:25 train to Hozumi, wait outside the north exit and look for Kaori, who would be wearing a pink hat. From there, we would be picked up by Chikako, the daughter of one of the English teachers at my school, who was driving us to the sushi party. I had never before met the people having the party nor the people who would be taking me there. But I figured a party described to me as attended by a bunch of old people who loved to eat and catered by a professional sushi chef had to be good.

I found Kaori in her pink hat, waiting outside the exit with her boyfriend, Adam, an English teacher originally from New York. They were carrying a set of hand bells. “I hope you don’t mind playing with us this afternoon. Adam is going to help, too,” she said, holding up the bells.

“Oh. Okay.” I had never played the hand bells before. Or even known people still played them outside of elementary school Christmas concerts.

Chikako arrived to drive us to the party. In the car, I tried to find out what, exactly, I was in for. “Do people often have parties like this in Japan?” I asked Chikako.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Right, Kaori?”

Kaori poked her head between the two front seats. “It’s not a party,” she said. “It’s an enkai for the ojisans and obaachans.” A drinking party for the grandpas and grandmas. Awesome.

But as soon as I walked in the door of the tiny cabin, I knew it was going to be good. The house, just one big room plus a sleeping loft completely built of wood from the local mountains, was filled with the smoky smell of fish being grilled on the irori, open firepit, in one corner and the welcoming cheers of the old people sitting around the grill, the food-laden coffee table and the kitchen counter, where two sushi chefs were making sushi to order.

We were hustled to the counter immediately. Adam and I were adorned with sashes which read, “Special Guest” and the sushi chefs were told I was an English teacher from California. The news seemed to impress them, but colored their view of what I could and couldn’t eat. My first three pieces were basic: ebi, tamago and maguro -- shrimp, rolled omelette and tuna. From there I had pieces topped with fresh-grilled unagi (eel), hamachi (yellowtail), tako (octopus), uni (sea urchin), ika (squid) and toro (tuna belly). I wanted the head chef, Taisho, to realize I wasn’t just some squeamish foreigner, that my motto is “Nandemoii!” (Anything is okay!) I wanted to impress him. There was a strange pile of brown sticks that looked like Slim Jims sitting on top of the refrigerated case. “What are those?” I asked Chikako. She asked the head chef, who said they were gobo, burdock root, a starchy, slightly stringy and very Japanese vegetable. So when it was time for my next round of sushi, I said, “Gobo to…” – I spied silvery mackerel skin glinting in the case – “…saba.” The uproar was instantaneous. “Saba!” came the general cry. “You can eat saba?” I nodded my head, yes yes, I like it, really, I can eat it, and saw several people shaking their hands in amazement. There was a small smattering of applause, which was repeated after the chef had laid the mackerel sushi on my plate and I popped it into my mouth. Kaori tapped my arm and said, “He says you know what you’re doing.” I looked at the chef, who was watching me with a grin on his face, and smiled through a mouthful of fish and rice.

Unidentified marine life.

After several more rounds of sushi, we had to leave the counter to make way for other guests, so I moved over to the irori, where a smiling man drinking an enormous glass of yuwari (shouchuu mixed with hot water) was grilling a sea bream head, a snail and several small river fish. On the other side of the room, a man dressed in a red sequined suit stood up, produced a microphone and told a few jokes, then asked all the first-time partigoers to stand up and introduce ourselves, a group which included Chikako, Adam and me. After my undazzling-but-at-least-in-Japanese introduction, I joined in on Chikako and Kaori’s rendition of “A Whole New World” on the hand bells, then watched in awe as the hostess of the party and Kaori’s mother played a duet on the koto.

Everyone was getting steadily more drunk. Chikako and I went outside to dig up bamboo shoots with a pick-ax and marvel at the open-air bath and barbecue pit in the backyard. I realized I was partying with a bunch of hippies. Japanese hippies! Later I found out that most of the people at the party, who meet up once a year to eat, drink and karaoke together, initially met in high school because they all kept getting thrown off the same train for being too loud. It made perfect sense.

Me making a gobo roll, wearing the official sushi-making hat.

Back inside, Kaori asked the sushi chefs if they would teach us how to make sushi and they enthusiastically agreed. For some reason, I went first. After washing my hands, I dipped my fingers in the small bowl of water on the counter, then slapped it all over my palms as Taisho had done. From the wooden tub of vinegared rice, I pulled out a small chunk, which I squeezed into a flattened ball with my right hand. In my left, I picked up a piece of ika and held it perpendicular to my fingers at the top of my palm with my thumb, as he demonstrated.

“Wasabi,” said Taisho, dabbing a glob onto his piece of squid.

“Wasabi,” I said, and did the same.

Then came the hard part: putting the rice on top of the squid, flipping them over and shaping the rice using my thumb, forefinger and middle finger, a process which left me with rice-covered fingers and a lumpy but acceptable piece of ika nigiri. The host of the party, a man who I kept staring at because he looked exactly like Bill Murray, if Bill Murray was a Japanese man living in a small cabin in Tarui, promptly ate my sushi and pronounced it good.

After making a big tuna roll and a smaller gobo roll with the assistant chef, I retired my sushi-making hat and let someone else have a try. I’m undoubtedly better at eating sushi than making it.

My gobo.

After a rousing game of Bingo, which led to me winning a truly enormous bag of Japanese snacks and candies, it was time to leave the old folks to their once-a-year partying and head home. A crowd of about ten people followed us to the car, including a man in his late 50s who asked if I had a boyfriend, then feigned tears of sadness when he found out I did. “I’m coming to Los Angeles!” he yelled in Japanese as we pulled away, everyone else waving and laughing.

"Are you going to be like your mom and her friends when you get old?" I asked Kaori, who just laughed, looking embarrassed. She looked so abashed, I didn't want to tell her what I was thinking: that I hoped she would be, and I hoped I would be -- because those grandpas and grandmas sure know how to party.

Link | Comment (4) | Categories: Parties | Sushi