June 9, 2008

The Most Important Ingredient for Japanese Cuisine/日本料理で一番大事な食材

I haven't talked about the most important ingredient for Japanese cuisine: soft water. Japanese cuisine absolutely calls for soft water.
日本料理で一番大事な食材のことを話していませんでした。軟水。日本料理には軟水が是非とも必要です。

Generally, the water in Kanto (Eastern Japan, which includes Tokyo) is harder than that in Kansai (Western Japan, which includes Kyoto and Osaka), and this is one reason why dried bonito was used in Kanto for dashi, while kombu was used in Kansai. You cannot extract umami components from kombu if the water is hard.
一般的に、関東の水は関西の水より硬水で、それが、関東では鰹節が出汁に使われ、関西では昆布が使われていた一つの理由です。硬水だと、昆布から旨み成分を抽出することができません。

The other reason why kombu was popular in Kansai is that it was easy to ship kombu from Hokkaido, where it was collected, to Kansai via the Sea of Japan, but not easy to ship it to Kanto via the Pacific Ocean.
昆布が関西で人気があったもう一つの理由は、産地である北海道から関西へは日本海を通って運ぶのは簡単だったが、関東へ太平洋を通って運ぶのは簡単ではなかったことです。

I once did some google search, and I was glad to find that the water here in my area was very soft (hardness: 16).
以前、グーグルで検索したんですが、私の住む地域の水はとても軟水(硬度16)であることが分かり、うれしかったです。

3 comments:

Fawn Bertram said...

I'd just like to say thank you for writing such insightful bilingual blogs and encourage you to keep doing so! I just happened upon your blog when I made a google query of "chicken thigh japanese," in an attempt to find out what the Japanese word for "chicken thigh" was, since it's generally not listed in the dictionary. Such is the reason that bilingual blogs and my bilingual cookbook are of amazing help while I'm studying abroad in Japan. Thank you again!

Hiroyuki said...

Fawn Bertram: Thanks for your compliment!! And, did you get what you wanted, the japanese term for chicken thigh?
tori no momo niku
tori = chicken
no = 's
momo = thigh
niku = meat
The Japanese for chicken breast is
tori no mune niku.

Fawn Bertram said...

I ended up just buying the cheapest chicken actually, haha. Thank you though!