Kibo ( Brimming With Hope ): Recipes and Stories From Japan's Tohoku
Page 1
Text and some photos (EA01, EA02, EA03, EA04, EA05, EA06, EA07, EA08, EA09, EA10, EA11, and EA12) copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Andoh
Photographs copyright © 2012 by Aya Brackett
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
With the exception of text and photographs by Elizabeth Andoh and Aya Brackett, the following essays, additional photographs, and illustrations are reprinted by permission:
“The Language of Sake” copyright © 2012 by Yukari Sakamoto.
All rights reserved.
“Nuclear Diaspora” and accompanying photograph copyright © 2012 by Jane Kitagawa.
All rights reserved.
“Brimming with Hope” and accompanying photograph copyright © 2012 by Hiroko Sasaki.
All rights reserved.
Photograph KS01 by Karen Shinto
Photographs RW01, RW02, RW03, RW04, RW05, RW06, RW07, RW08, RW09, RW10, and RW11 by Rebecca Womack
Ceramics CW01, CW02, and CW03 by Catherine White
All maps copyright © by Map Resources
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Andoh, Elizabeth.
Kibo (brimming with hope): recipes and stories from Japan’s Tohoku / Elizabeth Andoh; photographs by Aya Brackett.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: “A tribute to the recipes and traditions of the people of Japan's Tohoku region before and after the earthquake of March 2011, by Japanese culinary authority Elizabeth Andoh”—Provided by publisher.
1. Cooking, Japanese. 2. Cooking—Japan—Tohoku Region. 3. Cookbooks. I. Title.
TX724.5.J3A526 2012
641.5952'11—dc23
2011051573
eISBN: 978-1-60774-370-5
Food styling by Karen Shinto
v3.1
A Ten Speed Ebook Original
Contents
MAPS
What’s in a Name?
INTRODUCTION
Tasting Tradition: Recipes and Culinary Tales from the Tohoku
= vegan/vegetarian
Onigiri Story
Pressed Rice “Sandwiches” (Onigiri)
The Language of Food
Salmon Rice Topped with Red Caviar (Harako Meshi)
Fried Tōfu and Mountain Vegetable Pilaf (Michinoku Kokeshi Bentō)
Creative Kokeshi
Kinkon-Zuké
Ordinary Miso Soup (Teiban no Miso Shiru)
Sea Vegetables
Pinched Noodle Soup with Pork (Hittsumi-Jiru)
Scaling Up for a Small Crowd
Home, Hearth, and Hot Pots
Oysters-on-the-Riverbank Hot Pot (Kaki no Doté Nabé)
Good to the Last Drop: Ojiya
Celebration Hot Pot (Tsuyuji, Kozuyu, Zaku Zaku-Jiru)
Straw-Wrapped, Brine-Simmered Tōfu (Tsuto Tōfu)
Rice Straw (Wara)
Banana Leaves and Corn Husks
Fish Sausage Patties (Sasa Kamaboko)
Fish Sausages
Miso-Seared Scallops (Hotaté no Miso Yaki)
Squid Jerky and Carrot Strips (Ika Ninjin)
An Americanized Taste of the Tohoku
A Vegan Taste of the Tohoku
Chrysanthemum and Enoki Mushroom Salad (Kiku-Bana to Énokidaké no Nihai-zu)
Squash Blossom and Enoki Mushroom Salad
Chrysanthemums (Kiku)
Walnut-Miso Stuffed Shiso Leaves (Shiso Maki)
Salmon-Stuffed Kelp Rolls (Shaké no Kobu Maki)
Variation on a Theme: Kelp-Alone Scrolls (Mini Kobu Maki)
Foxy Rolls (Kitsuné Maki)
Osechi (A Feast for the New Year)
Persimmons Stuffed with Fall Fruits in Pine Nut Tōfu Sauce (Matsu no Mi Shira Aé, Kaki Utsuwa)
Rice Taffy Dumplings with Crushed Édamamé (Zunda Mochi)
Measuring Rice Flour
A Guide to the Kibō Kitchen
Menu Planning and Vegan/Vegetarian Options
About Rice
About Stocks
About Sauces
Special Ingredients
Special Techniques
Special Tools
About Saké
The Language of Saké, a Miniguide by Yukari Sakamoto
Moving Forward: Japan in Recovery
Nuclear Diaspora by Jane Kitagawa
Brimming with Hope by Hiroko Sasaki
A NOTE ABOUT LANGUAGE
THE CAST OF KIBŌ CHARACTERS: COLLEAGUES, COHORTS, COLLABORATORS, AND CONTRIBUTORS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAP DETAILS
For detailed maps of each region, please refer to the Map Details section at the end of the book
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Japan’s northeast is spoken of in various ways. Most common is the generic though geographically descriptive word: Tohoku. Tō means “east” and hoku means “north.”
The word sanriku (literally, “three riku,” or “areas”) is territorial terminology that encompasses riku ō, riku chū, and riku zen. In 1896 a large and destructive earthquake hit the region and media coverage at the time coined the phrase Sanriku to describe the larger area.
Michinoku, literally the “remote road,” refers to the northern territories and is cloaked in a romantic aura. It was made famous by the seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Bashō in his travel-inspired verse, “The Narrow Road to the Interior.” The current spelling of Michinoku, using hiragana (syllabary symbols), no longer contains clues to the meaning contained in the original calligraphy, one of which is riku—the same riku as appears in sanriku.
Introduction
The devastation of Japan’s Tohoku and Kanto regions began with an earthquake of remarkable force on Friday, March 11, 2011, at 2:46 in the afternoon. The record-breaking tidal waves (tsunami) that immediately followed left crushing, crippling destruction in their wake. In the days, weeks, and months thereafter, nature’s onslaught continued with hundreds of very strong aftershocks, many accompanied by yet more tsunami and by landslides. When winter thawed into spring, melting snow revealed deep, destructive fissures in the landscape. To compound the horror, damage to the Fukushima power plant produced severe and extensive energy shortages and wreaked radiation havoc, forcing widespread evacuation and focusing world attention on safety issues in the use of nuclear energy. The triple calamity—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown—officially has been named the Great Eastern-Japan Earthquake Disaster (Higashi Nihon Dai-Shinsai), shortened by most to a painfully simple word: Disaster (Shinsai).
Yet, as Japan struggled—continues to struggle—to rebuild in the aftermath of tragedy, the prevailing mood is one of dogged determination, imbued with hope. In a single Japanese word: kibō. And that is what I have chosen to name this culinary tribute to the Tohoku.
THE BIRTH OF THE KIBŌ BOOK PROJECT
When the first huge, terrifying quake hit on Friday afternoon, March 11, I was in my Tokyo kitchen preparing for a cooking workshop the following day. Having lived through several large quakes before, including one in which I spent hours trapped in an elevator before being rescued, I went into automatic action trying to pretend it was just a drill, not the real thing. Trembling (me and the earth together), I shut off the stove and clambered my way to the front door. As I propped it open—a precaution since frames can shif
t, jamming doors shut—I witnessed a crane on the construction site across the street sway and totter. I donned my emergency-ready knapsack and crouched down in the doorway. The initial quake lasted for several minutes—it seemed as though it would never stop.
Still trembling (me and the earth), I turned on the emergency news channel and learned the center of seismic activity (the largest on record in Japan, revised later that month to 9.0) was off the coast of Sendai. Gigantic tsunami (tidal waves) were predicted, and came … and kept coming, with hundreds of aftershocks. Transportation in Tokyo came to a halt, and communication services were widely disrupted—frustrating, frightening. And then, news of the nuclear accident in Fukushima …
In the weeks that immediately followed the Disaster, it became increasingly clear that mass evacuations, necessitated by the nuclear accident, would create a diaspora: displaced communities and disrupted lives.
Like others in Japan who had been spared significant property damage or personal injury, I wondered how I could help. As volunteer groups sprang up everywhere to address emergency needs, I found myself thinking more about long-term recovery. I was especially concerned with the plight of the refugees who were being relocated to distant places. I wondered how a writer and teacher of Japan’s traditional culinary arts could assist those in the devastated Tohoku area. After much soul-searching, I resolved to chronicle the culinary heritage of the Tohoku—especially of the three prefectures that were hardest hit: Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate—before traditional foods there morphed into unrecognizable fare, or disappeared entirely. By writing in English, I could engage a wide-reaching readership, introducing them to local flavors while providing the global community with a way to share in the region’s aspirations and determination. Even further, I sought a publishing house that would join me in supporting Japan’s rebuilding and renewal efforts.
My stalwart agent, Lisa Ekus, helped me hone my proposal. In the stifling heat of the summer of 2011, with frequent and severe aftershocks still rocking the Tohoku and nuclear power plant closings throughout Japan leaving homes and businesses everywhere with little or no cooling, we submitted my proposal to Ten Speed Press.
They responded enthusiastically, and shared my philanthropic commitment! But … they also challenged me to rethink the platform, time frame, and scope of what I had originally envisioned. There would be time later, they said, for a more exhaustive treatment of the subject. (They knew, all too well, from working with me on my previous books, Washoku and Kansha, that my manuscript would be “information dense.”) Instead, they urged me to write something much shorter, more timely: an e-original that could be published by March of 2012, the first anniversary of the Disaster. That meant delivering a complete manuscript in just a few months—Washoku and Kansha had each been five-year projects! Both those books had been written with the help of a demographically diverse, geographically dispersed group of volunteer recipe testers whose feedback enabled me to understand how best to make unfamilar food enticing and accessible. I knew that Kibō would benefit from the same approach, so I immediately sent out a call for volunteers through my newsletter. I was, thankfully, wonderfully deluged with offers to assist me.
At the same time, Ten Speed Press assembled a multitalented team of editors, designers, photographer and food stylist, public relations and marketing experts. Dozens of people came together to help me create this book. Please read the details in my “Cast of Kibō Characters.”
Tasting Tradition
Recipes and Culinary Tales from the Tohoku
HAVING COMMITTED to an electronic format and an incredibly short timeline for finalizing manuscript, I was faced with the difficult task of selecting just a few dishes to represent the Tohoku region. I consoled myself with a well-known Japanese saying: hara hachi bu ni isha irazu. Similar to our saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” the Japanese say, “A stomach eight-tenths full needs no doctor.” Culinary satisfaction is not linked to satiety, but rather to being slightly hungry when you leave the table. In Kibō, I aim for hara hachi bu: to whet your appetite for more.
In Western cultures, we speak of “breaking bread together” as a way of establishing and nurturing human connections. The recipes in Kibō are more likely to have you marveling at the deep, rich flavor of miso-seared scallops or sharing the simple pleasure of a plain salted rice ball (onigiri) recalling that it was the first food tasted by most survivors in the shelters.
ONIGIRI STORY
Everyone in Japan has an onigiri story. Most are nostalgic narratives of mother waking early to pack lunch, hands reddened from pressing steaming rice into bundles. Mom is likely to have stuffed the rice with katsuo-bushi (fish flakes) if her child had an athletic competition or an important exam to take (a play on words because katsuo means winning and bushi means warriors). Biting into a fish flake–filled onigiri half a century later, a retired businessman might recall the glorious moment he learned of his acceptance to a top university, or the day his high school ball club won the regional pennant. For many of today’s teenagers, whose mothers are no longer dedicated homemakers, onigiri might conjure up konbini camaraderie: classmates gathering at the local convenience store for an afterschool snack.
What is my onigiri story? Had you asked me before the Disaster, I would have reminisced about the young New York woman who visited rural Japan in the 1960s (me, then) who became a middle-aged omusubi maven (me, now). The story would have started with my first taste of shockingly sour uméboshi (pickled plum). Buried deep inside a bundle of lightly salted rice that the locals had called omusubi (not onigiri), I found the softly wrinkled, dusty-pink, mouth-puckering plum oddly wonderful with the rice: an unexpectedly satisfying mini-meal. In the ensuing years, I have made countless omusubi for my daughter and her grade-school teammates (I wonder if their food memories associate smoky-sweet katsuo-bushi with winning the swim tournament?), for my husband and his fishing buddies (their preferred filling is tarako or cod roe), for my kitchen assistants (omusubi filled with bits of soy-stewed kombu or salted salmon flakes … or whatever happened to be on hand that day), and for myself (I remain a staunch fan of uméboshi).
Now, after the Disaster, I have a different tale to tell: it is an ode to onigiri, a chronicle of culinary bonding between a culturally diverse, compassionate community—Yanesen, part of Tokyo’s retro Shitamachi district—and the survivors of tsunami-ravaged Kesennuma Port, in Miyagi Prefecture.
Like many Tokyoites who had survived March 11 greatly shaken-up but with little personal injury or property damage, Yanesen residents wanted to help those in the stricken Tohoku shelters where ready-to-eat food was still in short supply weeks later. They swung into action with a “soup kitchen” of sorts. Dubbing themselves the Onigiri Troops, local housewives, shopkeepers, and members of the Otsuka Mosque (a Tokyo-based Islamic group) gathered at Genkoji (Buddhist) Temple to produce thousands of onigiri. Their activity was recorded by nonfiction writer Mayumi Mori and posted to her blog, which is how I became aware of their efforts.
Mori’s camera zooms in and out, creating a riveting collage of images and sound snippets early in April. We see the mosque’s truck being packed up with food and supplies (somehow they managed to navigate nearly 200 miles of quake-ruptured roadways to make multiple deliveries). We hear the organizers tell us how they gathered dozens of volunteers and got donations from local merchants. We see the efficient onigiri production line (scooping, weighing, shaping, and wrapping the rice bundles) and follow a woman who hauls a tray laden with hundreds of finished onigiri to the bone-chilling room at back. (Optimal kitchen hygiene requires the rice be completely cooled before packing it up for the long journey.) We see tired women taking turns massaging each others sore shoulders and taking care of each other’s children.
The most poignant episode is of a young, bandana-clad mother struggling with her decision to leave the Tokyo area; her newly launched business selling produce from small local farms cannot survive the onslaught of consumer uncertainty regard
ing possible radiation contamination. She is concerned, too, for the safety of her own family. But she does not want to abandon the Yanesen community that so warmly welcomed them, the newcomers from Osaka, just a few years ago. The camera captures her tears, and then gently pulls back.
In closing, the production line replays in slow motion, ending with mini-portraits of several volunteers—disposable gloves removed now that the rice-pressing work is finished. Gauze masks lowered reveal tired, but smiling, faces.
Pressed Rice “Sandwiches”
Pressed Rice “Sandwiches”
ONIGIRI
Salted, pressed rice sandwiches—onigiri—are easy to pack up, transport, and eat, making them a substantial, satisfying finger food. Most are shaped into triangles, though logs called tawara, or “rice sheath,” and balls are also common. Plain, white rice stuffed (like a sandwich) with a filling is the norm, but mazé gohan (cooked rice that has been tossed with other cooked foods) is also used in making onigiri. Rice “sandwiches” are usually wrapped with strips of nori (laver), though onigiri are sometimes slathered with miso or brushed with soy sauce and grilled. (These are called yaki onigiri, or grilled pressed-rice and are divine!) In children’s lunchboxes, onigiri are often decorated and made into cute shapes. The finished food can be called either onigiri or omusubi.
This recipe shows you how to form four (substantial-sized) to six (small-sized) triangular-shaped onigiri from 2 cups of cooked rice. You can easily feed a large crowd by cooking more rice; consult the chart in the Cooked White Rice recipe. I offer instructions here for stuffing your onigiri with classic fillings—uméboshi (sour pickled plum) and/or okaka (seasoned fish flakes)—and wrapping them with nori (laver), but feel free to experiment with other foods.
MAKES 4 TO 6 ONIGIRI
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups cooked white rice (meshi), freshly prepared and still warm