Friday, November 20, 2009
Meat-free, dairy free, gluten free pescatarian. What's up, SEAN!!
This past Sunday at around 10am I decided to try not eating any meat, wheat or dairy. Not for any reason than to just see if I could and what it would be like. I have to say, not eating cheese and bread definitely makes me feel less fat. I love both of those things more than most other foods with the exception of all of the japanese foods. So I have been eating a lot of vegetables and brown rice and fruit and veggie booty. Oh veggie booty, I love you a lot. I like doing it a lot more than I thought I would but I do miss eating a sandwich. A friend recently reminded me of Liz Lemon's theory that the common denominator of all humans is that all we really want is to eat a sandwich in peace. It's not a bad theory. Who doesn't like doing that? The japanese, that's who.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Did you not have chicken on Saturday? I wasn't paying attention because it was so delicious! Maybe the Japanese don't like sandwiches, but in China they love Subway, and consider it to be a nice place to eat - or so Kurt tells me. Also, the name there is Sai Bai Way (I'm sure that is spelled wrong), which means competition of 100 flavors.
I just checked, and I was close! It's Sai Bai Wei.
I didn't eat chicken! I did, however, eat meatballs and pizza and cheesecake last night. Suh Bah Way! Very clever and very conveniently close sounding. I wonder what "subway" means in English. I bet not competition of 100 flavors.
I don't know if Japanese people don't like sandwiches, which may not be widely available like the delicious nutty, seed-encrusted Kaiser bun served at a walk-in deli counter in Berlin.
If the definition of a 'sandwich' is something tucked between two slices of classic pieces of bread, then, no, perhaps, traditional Japanese cuisine doesn't have a sandwich, after all its inventions is said to be by the Earl of Sandwich needing something quick between different activities e.g. gambling card games or rounds of golf, some such But, if one considers rice grains complement to wheat or rye grains (they're all grasses, well, maybe 'wild' rice is a grass--maybe not the round polished short-grained rice), the nori maki is a classic 'sandwich' with a bit of something spicy tucked into a mildly palate-whetting morsel. Consider a piece of succulent fish and lightly pickled cucumber, gobi, matchstick carrots, soy-seasoned caramelized mushrooms, or lightly sesame-oil roasted omelette in a rice roll wrapped with toasted nori, and embellished with ginger slices, or coldwater radishroot (that zesty ground green root paste). This would not be unlike an English cucumber sandwich at tea time.
Fast foods are well within the realm of traditional Japanese foods include elements of fast food, as displayed on street corners such as skewered tori teriyaki (grilled chicken pieces), and other grilled delicacies served with various types of sauces, noodle soups (eaten quickly with a great deal of auditory effect), and all matter of snacks.
Filled or unfilled buns, are another almost universal type of food, from the French deep-fried beignet, to Bavarian cream doughnut, to Chinese pao or bao, to Japanese bun filled with sweetened red bean paste, chestnuts, or other flavors such as green tea used with a mild bean such as lima. Mmmm. Mochi or ricecakes filled with these filling are known as daifuku.
An easy way to make a bean bun is to use littler rounds of buttermilk refrigerated biscuits. Flatten, depress the center. Place a small nut-sized ball of filling in the center and gather the sides to enclose and form a filled bun. Steam, bake (with egg glaze), or microwave. Serve with hot plain tea. Other tea time fare include little 1-inch pancakes with a nut-sized ball of beanpaste eaten as a cake, or a little beanpaste balls sandwiched between cookie wafers similar to the thin waffles, baked like a pizelle-maker.
There are jillions of regional tradtional cake-type sweets, made from yams, sweet potatoes, and flavored with herbs, to hard candies similar to horehound, and lemon drops, to baked crisps of sweet potatoes dusted with sugar crystals or powdered sugar.
I studied a Japanese peasant cookbook and found many ways to think about eating foods without resorting to techniques that incorporate animal products.
What is vegetable booty?
Touche, Cinnamon! (omg)
Veggie booty is a snack food of puffed rice and corn with kale, carrots, spinach etc. It's good and good for you.
I'm moving out just in time for this no fun diet to continue. Although between the pizza booty and sushi, I think I'd still be OK. Especially if you can make some of those buns Cinnamon talked about! I'm on day 1 of "no sweets" which doesn't include gum, gumballs, sweetened greek yogurt or fruit. I expect my fruit and yogurt intake to increase exponentially now that "10 jam cookies" aren't on the menu...
SHUT UP, SUGIE! Pizza booty has dairy so of course I would never eat that!
As far as Asian sandwiches go, I had a Vietnamese sandwich two nights ago. It was amazing and delicious.
Thanks, Zoe. Veggie booty sounds good. I'll try it.
Growing up, my mother cooked very meals (same weekly menu without using seasonings) which was was very low in meat, but when served, often included fat, and leaned heavily on breads, cakes, and boiled, canned, and other methods of preservation for vegetables. We drank non-fat reconstituted dry milk, but that was a concession to enormous milk intake for a large young family. We did a lot of baking from classic recipe books which seem to overdo amounts of ingredients like margarine, sugar, and eggs (no low-fat nor fat-free ingredients). Pre-processed foods added trans fats every chance available.
I learned a lot more about diet and types of food after I married my husband. (I could tell quickly, I'd have to come up with some strategy as 1) my mother had never allowed anyone in the kitchen when she was cooking, and 2) another time, my husband seemed physically sick when I described how mother baked fish in milk in the oven). I told him when we were engaged that I hadn't learned to cook and he'd have to teach me how to cook what he liked.
It took only a few years to change taste perceptions; animal fat started to taste like the smell of body odor, whole milk seemed incredibly rich, we rinsed hamburger fat after cooking, and began to eat fresh spinach and other greens for a large proportion of the meal. I never ate sloppy joes or chili with puddles of oil on top again.
My friend from across the Yangtze from Shanghai ate Subway for the first time Sunday. She seemed to enjoy it, as well as some of all the choices. She ordered chicken, and all the vegetable fixings topped with Ranch dressing. It seemed to go well with pumpkin pie.
Post a Comment