in alphabetical order.
Aemono, Japanese for ‘dressed (harmonized) things’, is one of the two Japanese terms for a salad (the other being sunomono). The distinction between aemono and sunomono is not always clear.
Aemono salads may include fish, shellfish and seaweeds, poultry, and cooked vegetables or may be made of only one ingredient. There is no standard dressing for aemono. Sauces are often based on vinegar and soy sauce, mixed with other ingredients, such as tofu, miso, or toasted and ground sesame seeds.
Indeed, the role of sesame seeds in dressings for aemono is of great importance. For these purposes roasted sesame seeds are either roughly chopped with a knife or, more commonly, ground to varying degrees by means of a suribachi (a giant earthenware mortar, often measuring over a foot in diameter) and a surkogi (a correspondingly large wooden pestle, looking like a truncheon). Egg yolk may also be used. Other ingredients for the dressing include fish roe, kinome (leaf buds of sansho), mustard, wasabi, grated daikon (see radish), poppyseeds, and peanuts. These basic materials are mixed with soy sauce, vinegar, dashi, saké, sugar, water, etc.
Two of the best-known examples of aemono are Horenso no goma-ae, which is spinach with sesame seeds, and Shira-ae, vegetables with a dressing made from tofu.
Agemono, the term for something deep fried. Deep-frying in a light batter (tempura) is the best-known technique, but some foods are deep fried with no more than a dusting of flour and some without any coating. In the second category are tiny fish skeletons from which the flesh has been removed for separate cooking; these are reputedly delicious. The third category includes halves of small eggplants, and other small vegetable items.
Mushimono, the category of steamed dishes (mushi means to steam). Chicken, fish, other seafoods, and vegetables are steamed; also glutinous rice, after having been soaked in water. They are often treated first with saké, and standard Japanese ingredients such as daikon (see radish) and konbu play a supporting role.
By far the most popular example of mushimono is Chawan-mushi. (Chawan means a teacup, though nowadays lidded cups specially made for this purpose are used.) This is basically a steamed custard. Small pieces of poultry, fish, shellfish, vegetables, fungi, etc. are put at the bottom of a cup, and beaten eggs mixed with dashi are poured into it. The whole thing is then steamed slowly. This is especially popular with children, and is the only dish in the whole repertoire of Japanese cookery to be eaten with a spoon. Another well-known steamed dish is Tamago dofu. This is egg tofu. A block-shaped, firm, savoury egg custard is made with dashi. It is usually chilled and served with soy sauce thinned with dashi.
Nabemono, the category of one-pot dishes (nabe means a pot or pan), many of which are cooked at the table by the diners. The typical pot used in nabemono cookery is an earthenware one called donabe. Its body is glazed inside only, the lid on both sides. The Japanese one-pot dish best known in western countries is sukiyaki. This consists of thin slices of beef, preferably well marbled, cooked in a shallow pan with various vegetables, chrysanthemum leaves, tofu and thin konnyaku noodles. Hosking (1996) adds: ‘Sugar or mirin and soy sauce are liberally added as the cooking medium, and when the various things are cooked, they are dipped in raw egg and eaten. From this bare description the dish does not seem very inviting, but sitting on a tatami in the inebriated mood of a party, most people enjoy it greatly. There are specialist restaurants that only serve sukiyaki.’
A popular example of nabemono is shabu-shabu, a Japanese adaptation of the Mongolian hotpot. After describing the platter of freshly cut vegetables, with fish, poultry, or meat, which is ready for the guests, Tsuji (1980) observes:
This sort of dish puts into practice the Japanese culinary principle of eating the freshest food just lightly cooked and beautifully presented. On the table is a cast-iron pot or earthenware casserole, filled with broth, set on a heating unit. The meal begins, and with chopsticks everyone slides morsels of fresh food into the pot, fishes them out just as they are cooked, usually a minute or so, and dips them in a seasoned sauce in individual dipping bowls.
The broth is water flavoured with konbu; or it may be chicken stock. Anything to be cooked which would take a long time is parboiled beforehand. This way of cooking and eating is very popular in Japan, especially in winter, and most households have a portable gas or electric ring to serve as the heating unit.
Nimono, simmered dishes, a method of cooking which is applied to fish, octopus, meat which calls for slow cooking, chicken, vegetables, beans, chestnuts, etc. The term may also be used for a dish which is steamed over a simmering liquid. Thus octopus is first rubbed with grated radish, then steamed over a simmering liquid which includes dashi and saké for as much as 10 hours, after which it emerges tender and with an undamaged skin.
Okashi, a Japanese culinary term which indicates small items of what can loosely be described as confectionery, such as are served to visitors with tea.
Okashi are also taken with the special whisked powdered tea at the end of a formal meal, but they are not part of it. A Japanese meal has no sweet course corresponding to western dessert, except for the fruit with which it always ends. Only after it has ended come tea and any accompaniments of the tea.
The name okashi comes from a word meaning fruit, and refers back to the time when fruit or dried fruit was commonly eaten between meals, as a snack and a sort of forerunner of confectionery. Traditional Japanese confectionery also has an after-runner in the form of western cakes and sweetmeats. These originally arrived under Portuguese and Dutch auspices at the end of the 16th century, and at first did no more than influence Japanese confectionery but have recently begun to supplant it.
Okashi are made from various ingredients, but the majority of them are based on sweet bean paste (most often made with azuki bean). They fall into various categories, determined by the method of manufacture, keeping qualities, precise purpose, etc.
Shirumono, a term which may apply to all soups or to thick soups in particular; in the latter case it contrasts with suimono (below), clear soups.
Suimeno, the Japanese name for clear soups. (Suimono means, literally, ‘a thing to sip’ as the Japanese do not use a spoon for their soup but drink it directly from the bowl.) Other soups are classed as shirumono. (Nomenclature is not clear cut here. Sometimes the word shirumono, which means ‘a liquid thing’, covers all soups, including delicate, clear soups as well as substantial, thick ones. Suimono is then a subcategory of shirumono.)
Suimono are usually based on dashi. They take their place at an early stage in the meal. One of the most popular is Kakitama-jiru, a beaten egg soup with a tang of ginger, related to the egg drop soup of China. Another is Tori no suimono, a clear chicken soup which may incorporate chrysanthemum leaves and shiitake mushrooms.
Sukiyaki, see nabemono, above.
Sunomono literally means ‘vinegared things’ and refers to salad-like items which have been given a vinegar dressing. This dressing may be of various kinds; there are at least a dozen and a half well-known ones, with various flavours provided by other Japanese ingredients.
Teriyaki, a term which refers to a special glaze applied to fish, meat, or fowl in the final stages of grilling or pan-frying. This glaze is sweet and is based on a trio of favourite Japanese ingredients: soy sauce, saké, and mirin. Teri means gloss and yaki (as in yakimono (below)) refers to grilling or pan-frying. The glaze is called teriyaki sauce and may be bought in a commercially prepared form or made at home.
Tsukemono, the Japanese term for pickles, covers one pickled fruit (see umeboshi) and an exceptionally wide range of vegetables. The traditional method of home pickling was in rice bran in large barrels, and salt pickles have also been used extensively, but there has been an increasing tendency towards buying commercially prepared pickles. These include many regional and local specialities. Generally, the display of pickles in Japanese food shops outshines anything to be seen in western countries; and this reflects the special place which pickles occupy in a Japanese meal. Although younger people now perceive them as optional, older Japanese regard them as indispensable to the closing stage of a meal (cf cheese in France and something sweet in Britain).
The vegetables most popular as pickles include daikon (see radish), cabbage, cucumber, eggplant, and radish greens. Western vegetables introduced to Japan are pickled in just the same ways as indigenous vegetables.
A link has been seen between the heavy consumption of pickles of all kinds by Japanese and their unusually high rate of stomach cancer, but it is not clear whether one particular category of pickles is implicated more than others.
Yakimono, the name for a grilled dish in Japan. Such dishes are normally placed towards the end of a meal and do not involve large helpings.
The grilling may be done over the flame or indirectly, the food being shielded by a flameproof metal mat, or in a pan. In the latter case the western culinary term would be ‘pan-frying’ rather than ‘grilling’. However, the Japanese term has a meaning which extends to pan-frying and to baking in an oven (rather as ‘roasting’ in England has come to mean baking in an oven or ‘roasting’ in a pot, as well as the original form of roasting, in front of an open fire).
When grilling is done over charcoal, Japanese cooks do not prefer an aromatic charcoal which gives a smoky flavour, but rather ‘one that burns smokelessly and odourlessly and emits a very hot heat so foods grill quickly. The best hardwood charcoal, called bincho, is made of oak, which came, traditionally, from Wakayama Prefecture. Bincho was named after a wholesale charcoal dealer. This charcoal is so hard and shiny that when poured from its sack it looks and sounds like large obsidian chips’ (Tsuji, 1980).
Foods which are grilled are threaded onto skewers more often than in western countries; and it is also common for them to be cut up and marinated beforehand. Skewering foods so that, after being grilled, they will look good and be crisp outside but moist inside is an art which is practised earnestly, with excellent results.
Zensai, a Japanese term for what are called appetizers or hors d'œuvres in western countries, zakuski in Russia, etc. The correspondence is close in terms of position in the structure of a meal, although the choice of items and the delicacy of presentation are different.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Tsuji, Shizuo (1980), Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, Tokyo: Kodansha International.
