About Japanese Food

Japanese food is refined and elegant, its preparation and presentation honed over the centuries so that its flavours are pure and delicate. Like many of the world's highly developed cuisines, Japanese food celebrates and highlights the flavours, textures and colours of seasonal produce. The first produce of the season is prized.

Indeed, the connection with nature is one of the defining hallmarks of Japanese food. Where possible, food is eaten in as natural a state as possible, as fresh as possible, as this is considered the ultimate way to eat. Fresh fish and shellfish are eaten raw (sashimi) or lightly pickled with vinegar or salt. Likewise, produce is often only lightly cooked and what and how people cook is highly influenced by the seasons.

To further enhance the purity of the food, Japanese cooking rarely mixes different food types, and sauces are normally served in separate dishes as dipping condiments. This is in contrast to many other cuisines, where long slow cooking and the addition of many spices are common, so that the final dish becomes something quite removed from the raw ingredients. In Japanese cooking, perhaps more than any other cuisine, the raw produce is paramount.

As well as exquisite flavour, visual beauty is an essential element; the type of plate or dish is as important as what is on it. The Japanese have also perfected the concept of negative space; where the empty parts of a serving platter serve to emphasise the beauty of the food placed on it.

Many devotees of Japanese food speak of the importance of clean flavours and simplicity. The health aspects of food are not to be underestimated; part of the attraction of buckwheat noodles, for instance, is also the knowledge they have a beneficial effect on the body.

The main flavourings are dashi stock (made from seaweed in the form of dried kelp called konbu and/or bonito fish in the form of shavings of the smoked dried fish), shoyu or soy sauce, and miso made from soybean paste.

A full Japanese banquet aims to tease the taste buds by using a range of cooking techniques – a likely combination is a mix of raw food, dressed food such as salads or cold dressed noodles known as aemono, deep fried (agemono), steamed (mushimono), one-pot (nabemono), simmered (nimono), soups (suimonoor shirumono), vinegared (sunomono), glazed (teriyaki style) and pickled (tsukemono).

Source: SBS Food