A LOOK INSIDE JAPAN’S SPRINGTIME -Japan’s food and drink agenda

22.March.2017 | FOOD

Halfway between winter and spring equinox, the plum flowers will start to blossom across Japan. The 88th day of spring marks the first day of tea leaf picking for a new season, and the leaves of this harvest fetch high prices. 210 and 220 days from the beginning of spring are pegged as days that typhoons will most likely come, causing much dismay to farmers. While it may sound like a parody, since ancient times, Japan has taken seasonal cues from the natural calendar. This is particularly evident in cuisine, meaning that if you’re in Japan during the spring months, you can look forward to a special selection of things to eat and drink.

Sansai 

sansai are often used as ingredients in shojin ryori(buddist vegetarian cuisine).

sansai are often used as ingredients in shojin ryori(buddist vegetarian cuisine).

These are the wild mountain vegetables that poke their welcome heads out as soon as the snowy blankets and chill of winter start to give. Sansai are usually bitter and provide timely astringence to break down fat and toxins stockpiled through colder months. The most common types include takenoko (bamboo sprouts), taranome (Japanese angelica-tree roots), fuki (butterbur) and nanohana (rapeseed)
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    28.March.2017 | FOOD

    Traditional Japanese cuisine—washoku—has been registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2013. For both foreign residents and tourists, it is one of the highlights of Japan.

    Seasonality plays a pivotal role in the choice of ingredients and even the tableware in washoku. Rice, a staple part of Japanese cuisine, is naturally also included in every washoku meal. Japanese rice is praised for its soft, springy texture and expert preparation, and as a low-fat carbohydrate providing energy throughout the day, many consider it the secret to Japanese longevity.

    Washoku meals often come in the form of a set meal, usually described by the phrase, ichiju sansai—one soup and three sides. Notably, the word rice isn’t even included in that phrase, implying that it is such a staple of the meal, it doesn’t even need to be mentioned. Although set meals can be eaten throughout the day, often overlooked by visitors is the humble traditional Japanese breakfast: wachoshoku (“Japanese morning meal”).

    Compared to Western breakfasts, traditional Japanese breakfasts emphasize freshness, health and balance, but not at the sacrifice of any quality.  They are filling but not heavy, and foreigners who try traditional Japanese breakfasts often report feeling satisfied and energized throughout the day. Metropolis writers have crisscrossed Honshu sampling some of the best wachoshoku on offer.

     

  • 【Interview】Just a newtown boy TOFUBEATS

    19.March.2017 | MUSIC

    Yusuke Kawai grew up just outside of Kobe in a “new town,” the Japanese term for a planned community. Kawai, who records music under the name tofubeats, describes his government-developed hometown: “There’s no city center and no local shopping streets like in other towns. Every station has similarly designed shopping malls, just with different names.” They were ideal residential zones, with big-city vice swapped out for big-box chains and department stores. Kawai recalls the only cultural center of any sort being a music shop, rental store Tsutaya and second-hand shop Hard-Off.

    “The new town was made from nothing, and so we didn’t really have any traditional festivals. To me, it was vacant. The new town didn’t really have its own uniqueness in Japan.”

    Yet this space helped develop Kawai’s creativity and shaped his approach to music. As a teenager, he spent most of his time absorbing the CDs available at Tsutaya and used any other free time to hunt down new sounds on the internet. “I tried to find anything interesting around me, but there were always only ordinary things. And so I started to think that I have to remix what I had to make something new.” Kawai spliced up mainstream J-pop sounds and YouTube discoveries into a fidgety style, which helped him connect with like-minded people on message boards.

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