Sunday, June 21, 2009

和洋折衷(Wayou Setchu) Compromise between Japanese and Western styles

I think we can eat a lot of foods that have variety. Also we like to research new and original tastes. We are creating many foods that are taken over other countries’ taste. Japanese word, 和洋折衷, means things that compromised between Japanese and Western styles. We have made some foods of 和洋折衷. These foods express our originality.

For example, Anpan あんパン is very standard food for Japanese. It is a bun filled with bean paste and sold in almost bakeries. It is so delicious and one of my favorite foods when I was a child. Anpanman is an anime character that is known well for Japanese children. Bean paste (餡) is Japanese traditional food. However, bun is western food.

There are cakes that is used powdered green tea (Matcha). They are so delicious. Cake is western food, but Matcha is Japanese food. Western and Japan culture grow into one.
Tarako (たらこ) spaghetti is a kind of pasta in Japan. It is mayonnaise and soy sauce based and so delicious. Tarako is ovary of cod and tastes salty. It is Japanese typical ingredient. We normally eat it with hot rice. If Italian eat tarako spaghetti, they might say it is not Italian food. It is certainly not Italian food. It is Wayou Setchu food.
Some Wayou Setshu foods take root in our food culture. They are not traditional, however, another kind of Japanese foods.

2 comments:

Lizhi said...

Japanese are very creative in their food. Japanese-Western cuisine has always been our Malaysian favorite. We have a lot of restaurants like Pasta de Gohan and Pasta Zanmai which serves Japanese-Western style food, and is very popular here.

Most of the Japanese food here has also been created to suite local taste, mostly by Japanese chefs who opens their restaurant here.

I've been to Hokkaido last year and the food and place is just fantastic.

Keep it up and update us more about your life in Japan.

Gambate!

Ricky said...

Thank you for your comment. I'm happy that you can eat and enjoy Japanese foods in Malaysia.
Hokkaido is a prefecture that there are a lot of delicious foods, fish, potatos and so on. You are lucky to be able to eat these foods.
I hope you are interested in other Japanese culture through my blog!