English
I leave for America in three days...
Denman Glober Cornell University Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies Stanford Japan Center
I leave for America in three days, and odd as it may seem, what I already miss is the food. From an American point of view, the Japanese love of food is a strange and mysterious thing. I have yet to reconcile for myself the juxtaposition of stick-thin Japanese men and women and Shijo-Kawaramachi, the most densely-restauranted area I have seen in any major city of the world. Though lacking understanding, I am rich in appreciation. Whenever I go out to dinner I try to find a different restaurant, only allowing myself to repeat a location with friends. This has taken me into some of the better (and worse), more unique (and strange), restaurants in various corners of the city. Take, for example, the green-awninged tofu restaurant on the north side of Imadegawa, just west of Kitanotenmangu. Try their tofu tiramisu, tofu soup, or tofu smoothies, all of which are quite delicious and completely unexpected. Follow Kiyamachi south of Shijo, and try the best milkshake I have found to date in the basement of Jelly Beans Rocket. Or sample the eclectic variety of dishes in one of Kiyamachi's bar tower restaurants called Aglio. They have classic washoku, plates of cheese, steak (in the winter), and excellent mango juice. Every dish is delicious. And this only scratches the surface of a long list of "favorites." Without exaggeration, I have eaten at a larger number and greater variety of restaurants in Kyoto than in my entire youth in the U.S. I can resist the department stores and the omiyage-shops, and with some effort, I can even turn away from the bookstores. But not the food. Take the cake. Japanese cake is superb. I spent spring semester visiting a dozen cafes trying the ichigo cake for my final presentation in Japanese. Then I spent a good 8 minutes in a minute critique of each shop's cake. However, practically speaking, they were all delicious. With the food in mind, I would just as willingly visit Japan for a pastry tour as France. The only reason foreigners don't comment on superb Japanese pastry is that, unlike Western cars, French cake could not be improved upon, even by the Japanese. One of the things I am often asked by Japanese when they realize (usually after a long list of things I'd like to eat for supper) that I like their food is "What is your favorite Japanese food?" The easy answer is mochi - easy because it covers such a large variety of foods. Mochi dango, mochi in Ramen, gohei-mochi, mochi with macha . . . the list goes on and on. As I wonder about who first stamped on grapes to get wine, I wonder who originally came up with the idea of pounding rice until it was a sticky mass of dough. I like to imagine Benzai-ten descending on her dragon one moonlit night to a peasant's hut, calling to him to bring her some rice in a barrel, pulling out a mallet, rolling up her sleeves and saying something like, "Now this is how it's done . . ." The hard answer is Om-rice. Though neither complicated nor subtle, there is something extremely appealing to me about the combination of egg, rice, and ketchup which asks to be eaten day after day, summer or winter, morning or evening. Though we in America have our scrambled eggs and sausage, there is something in the loaf-like quality of om-rice which evokes the comfort of bread just out of the oven. So I leave Japan in 3 days, and I will miss the people and the places. But those feelings of loss will come later. For now, I miss the food.