Author: Lucy Seligman

Festive Fare: Traditional Treats for New Year’s
NEW YEAR’S IS ONE OF THE BEST TIMES IN JAPAN – at least for eating. Shogatsu, the New Year’s holiday, is celebrated from midnight on December 31 until January 3 or 4, or even longer by diehards.

No New Year’s banquet would be complete without a bowl of zoni, soup with toasted mochi (pounded rice cakes). While most Japanese dishes differ from region to region, zoni varies virtually from house to house. This zoni, a variation of the Kyoto-style, uses sweet white miso paste, and is one of my favorites..

Although I live in the States, I continue to celebrate Japanese New Year’s to this day with my daughter, albeit in a less traditional and fancy way. We look forward to it every year. It is a welcome ritual to closing out the year. And yes, a lot, okay, way too much mochi is consumed!

The Wonderful World of Osechi: Japanese New Year’s Recipes

New Year’s is one of the best times in Japan, at least for eating and relaxing. Get Lucy’s Osechi cookbook, full of recipes that are fast to make, easy, and quite delicious for your New Year celebrations (along with the history and traditions and little tidbits Lucy always includes). Get the book!

Makes a great gift too! Did you know on the Amazon page there’s an option to give it as a gift?

My recipes may include affiliate links, so without costing you anything extra, I’ll earn a small percentage of the sales if you purchase these items through these links. Thank you for your support!
Kyoto-Style Zoni

Lucy Seligman

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Course Soup
Cuisine Japanese

Servings 4

Ingredients

10 ½ oz. small taro satoimo, peeled, rubbed with salt, rinsed, and kept in a bowl of water to prevent discoloration until ready to cook
3 ½ oz. carrots peeled and cut into thick rounds
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms optional, stems cut, with a criss-cross incision made on the cap
4 ½ cups dashi fish stock*
2 tablespoons white miso fermented soybean paste, or more if you like it very sweet
8 mochi cakes
Fresh trefoil or parboiled spinach optional
To garnish:
A few slivers of yuzu Japanese citron peel
A handful of dried bonito flakes

Instructions

Boil the taro, carrots, and mushrooms (if you decide to use them) in the dashi stock for roughly 10 minutes, until soft enough to be pierced with a toothpick.
Take a few tablespoons of the hot stock out of the pot and combine with the miso in a small bowl. When thoroughly blended, incorporate back into the soup.
Meanwhile toast the mochi until they begin to swell. Then add them to the soup, swirl around until warmed, and turn off the heat.
To serve, pour the soup into four deep bowls, making sure there are two mochi in the middle of each bowl. At the last moment, add any greens, and top with a sliver or two of yuzu peel and a sprinkling of bonito flakes. Serve immediately.

Notes
How to make Konbu Dashi Stock:
Take a 6-inch piece of kelp (konbu), wipe lightly with a damp cloth and put into a pot with 6 cups water. Bring to a boil and remove kelp. Add a generous 3/4 cup of dried bonito shavings (katsuobushi) and boil for one minute. Turn off heat and after 2 minutes, strain.

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Soba Celebrations for a Happy New Year!
IN JAPANESE CULTURE, soba (buckwheat) noodles have always been seen as a “happiness” food, served on special occasions. It is traditional, too, when moving into a new house to greet your neighbors with hikoshi soba (moving soba). This involves a play on words, as soba also means “close” or “near” – like neighbors.

Another soba custom is toshikoshi soba (year’s-passing soba), supposed to be the last food to touch your lips on New Year’s Eve. The tradition is so established nationwide that often reservations are needed even for buying the freshly made soba to cook up at home. One year I attempted to make my own: working with fresh buckwheat flour proved extremely hard, but my toshikoshi noodles won nods of approval from the family even though, without the special chef’s knife used by soba cutters, they were a trifle thick.

According to a diary written by a samurai named Watanabe Hyotaro between 1839 and 1848, it was common in those days to go out and eat soba on the last day of the year. An even older story, from the Kamakura period (1185-1333), relates how in Hakata, Kyushu, a businessman from China named Shakokumei used to distribute buckwheat flour to poor people on the last day of the year, telling them how it was to erase the year of poverty and welcome in a good new year.

Perhaps the most persuasive explanation for the tradition, however, is that in the Edo era (1603-1867) merchants used to clean factory floors with soba dumplings to pick up any gold filaments. So it became a superstition that soba “collected gold”. Eventually factory workmen started to make toshikoshi noodles, and ordinary people copied them – all in the hope of having a prosperous new year.

The Wonderful World of Osechi: Japanese New Year’s Recipes

New Year’s is one of the best times in Japan, at least for eating and relaxing. Get Lucy’s Osechi cookbook, full of recipes that are fast to make, easy, and quite delicious for your New Year celebrations (along with the history and traditions and little tidbits Lucy always includes). Get the book!

Makes a great gift too! Did you know on the Amazon page there’s an option to give it as a gift?

My recipes may include affiliate links, so without costing you anything extra, I’ll earn a small percentage of the sales if you purchase these items through these links. Thank you for your support!
TOSHIKOSHI SOBA

Lucy Seligman

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Ingredients

6 ¼ cups water
A 3-inch by 3-inch piece of kombu kelp wiped with a damp cloth and lightly slashed to release the flavor
2 oz. katsuobushi dried bonito flakes
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin sweet sake
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 lb. dried or 1 ¼ lbs. fresh soba noodles
4 dried or fresh shiitake mushrooms stemmed (reconstitute dried ones by soaking in warm water with a dash of sugar for 30 minutes – reserve 2 tablespoons of liquid to add to broth)
½ lb. chicken breast cut into thin slices
2 large Japanese leeks white part only, cut diagonally into thin slices
5 ¼ oz. spinach trimmed, parboiled, and drained
Seven-spice pepper to taste for garnish

Instructions

Heat the water with the kelp in a deep saucepan. Just before it boils, remove the kelp and pour in the dried bonito flakes. Boil, stirring, for about three minutes, then strain into a clean saucepan. Add the soy sauce, mirin, salt, and mushroom liquid. Bring to a boil again; taste, adjust seasoning if necessary and cook over medium heat for a few minutes.
Five minutes before serving, heat up the chicken and leeks in the broth. In another pan, cook the noodles according to instructions on the package, then drain and rinse to get rid of the starch.
To serve, place a mound of noodles in each deep soup bowl. Top with one mushroom and separate mounds of chicken, Japanese leeks, and spinach. Gently ladle on the broth and serve immediately. Pass the seven-spice pepper separately.

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Get Breakaway Matcha Delivered With A Special Offer for Thanks For the Meal Readers

I admit it, that I am very obsessed with Matcha! And you may be wondering, what is matcha? It is finely ground powdered ultra-premium Japanese green tea. It can be drunk hot or cold.

Look for my interview with Eric Gower, the owner of Breakaway Matcha from Marin County in the coming weeks for more on the wonders of Matcha!

In the meantime….

Breakaway Matcha is offering our readers 10% off + free shipping! Just use the code THANKSFORTHEMEAL. Go to https://www.breakawaymatcha.com. Your life will never be the same!

All photos courtesy of and copyright ©Breakaway Matcha.

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Chanko Nabe: A One-Pot Dish for a Pot Belly
A little unknown fact about me is that I love sumo! It is one of the few sports I’ll watch. When I lived in Japan, you couldn’t tear me away from the television whenever sumo was on. I even went to a live Sumo tournament in Tokyo with my then father-in-law and it was sublime! We dined on elegant and yummy bento boxes, drank a lot of beer! and watched sumo for hours. I’ve never had so much fun at a sports event in my life. To this day whenever I think of Sumo wrestlers I still giggle over their appearance and antics, but don’t be deceived, they are true athletes.

YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN SUMO WRESTLERS in action – remarkably fat, semi-naked, they spend a lot of time hitting themselves on the posterior and prancing around doing what appears to be a rain dance in a dirt ring, trying to knock each other down. At first it looks pretty ludicrous, but after a while you begin to find them rather endearing.

The secret of sumo wrestlers’ rotund figures lies in enormous helpings of chanko nabe, a one-pot dish that is their staple fare. It can, in fact, be just about any form of nabe (one-pot) cooking, but traditionally it is chicken-based.

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One story has it that during the Edo era (1603-1867) a group of wrestlers visiting Nagasaki learned to cook meals in a Chinese wok, or chanko – and brought the habit back to Edo (now Tokyo). Another theory holds that Hidekatsu Watanabe, a former wrestler who owned a restaurant in Tokyo, named the stew in honor of sumo stable masters, or “fathers” (chan), and their “sons” (ko), the wrestlers. But the most likely origin of the dish, although not the name, is that it was invented in the Meiji period (1868-1912) by former yokozuna (grand champion) Hitachiyama. On retiring he opened his own stable where, to save time, he introduced a simple one-dish meal.

The reason behind the preference for chicken is that chickens have two legs, like sumo wrestlers standing in a dohyo (sumo ring). For a wrestler to be on all fours means losing a bout, so it is considered unlucky to eat anything with four legs.

Chanko nabe stock can be flavored with salt, soy sauce, kelp, dried bonito shavings, or a combination of these. Each stable has its own special flavor: some add mirin (sweet sake), others butter. Since the stock is so flavored – good enough to enjoy on its own as a soup – a dipping sauce isn’t necessary. Many sumo wrestlers are diabetic, so chefs are careful about sugar, but otherwise almost anything can be added. The current fad is to add spicy Korean kimchi (pickled cabbage).

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Chanko Nabe: A One-Pot Dish for a Pot Belly

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Ingredients

1 ¾ lbs. chicken parts with bones
3 quarts water
A 6-inch piece of kombu kelp, wiped with a damp cloth and lightly slashed to release flavor
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
8 fresh shiitake mushrooms trimmed
12 oz. shirataki fine white konnyaku [devil’s tongue] noodles
7 oz. spring onion white part only, cut into 2-inch pieces
4 oz. mitsuba trefoil, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 block of grilled tofu drained and cut into 1-inch squares

Instructions

Pour boiling water over the chicken parts to get rid of the odor. Place the chicken, kelp, water, and salt in a Donabe pot or deep soup pot over high heat. When nearly boiling, discard the kelp, turn heat down to a simmer, and cook, covered, for about 20 minutes. Skim off any scum. Remove the chicken to a bowl with a little stock to keep it moist; strain the rest of the stock and, if you prefer, let cool to room temperature and skim off excess fat.
Arrange all the ingredients on a large platter. Half-fill a deep casserole with stock and heat to boiling. Prepare a heat source at the dining table, transfer the casserole to it, and add some chicken, vegetables, and tofu. When just cooked through, allow guests to help themselves to a selection from the pot. Continue adding more ingredients as needed.

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Guest Blog Post: Sake Paired with Whaaaat??

My niece, Corina Seligman, knows her sake! So I asked her to do a guest blog on some of its finer points. –Lucy

Corina’s fridge… filled with Sake!

I sell sake for a living. After 15 years of bartending and a few years in management I have recently transitioned to the other side of the industry: sales.

I work for Empire Merchants, the oldest and largest liquor distributor in New York. There are over 1,400 employees and 13 divisions. I work in the vintage wines division, the smallest in the company. My position was created just this year and I am their first and only sake specialist.

While I am still very new and most of my peers and many of my buyers don’t know much about sake, the world is wide open for me. One of my biggest goals is to demystify sake for Western drinkers. Sake is not meant to only be drunk with sushi. I can never say that enough!

For those who find the idea of drinking sake with anything other than a spicy tuna roll or a hot bowl of ramen, here’s what I have to say to them:

Think of sake the way you would think of wine or beer- the food pairings have little to do with the country of origin and everything to do with flavor profile and balance. Does your mouth salivate at the thought of pizza (Italian) and beer (very likely German, American, Belgian, etc.)? How about pairing Thai or Indian food with an off-dry Riesling (probably German, American or French)? How delicious does a dry French rose paired with some sweet and savory all American BBQ sound? You get the point.

So why do people think sake is any different when it comes to food pairing? Sake is arguably one of the most versatile beverages on the planet. Many can be served at various temperatures, some are undiluted, sparkling, unfiltered, infused and even aged! Sake is perfect for food pairing. If there’s a dish, there’s a sake for it.

Without diving too far down the rabbit hole, I’d like to suggest a few not-so-obvious food and sake pairings. Feel free to use any sake of a similar style and experiment on your own! You can thank me later 😉

Recommended sake pairing #1: Fuku Chitose Yamahai Junmai “Happy Owl” with Oaxacan-style mole

This sake is from the Tajima Brewery and is traditional in every sense of the word. The small brewery only makes Yamahai sakes where they allow the rice to sit in the open air so it can absorb all the air-born micro-organisms as it ferments. This particular Yamahai has a more mellow attack than most, but you can still taste the umami flavors in its fragrant and rich mouthful. I’ve heard rumors that they sell dark chocolate at the brewery which is what gave me the idea to pair it with a dense, complex, chocolatey mole sauce layered over chicken, beef or chunky vegetables. A delicious pairing and perfect for the coming winter months!

Recommended sake pairing #2: Taiheikai Tokubetsu Junmai “Pacific Ocean” with a Charcuterie and Cheese plate

I’m currently obsessed with this sake. It is very well balanced with just the right amount of nutty earthiness with a bright juicy effervescence on the tongue. Pretty much everything I love in a sake all poured into one beautiful bottle. The complexity in this sake lends itself to being paired with many flavors and textures. My ideal afternoon spread would be for the sake to play off of the delicate creaminess of cheese, tart and sweetness of fruit, and the salty richness of meat. Let’s break it down a little more by finding flavors in this platter to compliment the three pronounced aspects in this sake-nuttiness, juiciness and slight umami.

Here are some more specific suggestions:

Mild creamy cheeses with a hint of nuttiness:

Fontina, Gouda, Camembert, Brie, or Jarlsberg

Sweet and zesty Fruit. Key word is fresh fresh fresh!

Crisp apples and pears, white peaches, nectarines, honeydew melon and lighter fleshed melons (I wouldn’t do cantaloupe or watermelon as their flavors may be more pronounced for this but feel free to experiment!)

High quality sliced meats to enhance texture, salinity and umami:

Prosciutto and dry cured salami. Plump green olives can also be a nice vegetarian option in this category!

Recommended sake pairing #3: Hanahato Kijoshu Sake “Gorgeous Bird” with Chocolate Fondue and other Desserts

I first discovered this sake when I was working as the bar manager at a high end Japanese restaurant in California. Hanahato was pretty polarizing for the staff when we first tried it due to its pronounced nose being very heavy on the umami notes. Some even said it smelled like fish sauce or soy sauce! But if you can get past the unexpected smell, this sake, served at room temperature, has a similar taste profile to a sherry or port with a dense honey/nutty aroma.

Kijoshu is a rich and luxurious sake that is created by replacing some of the water used during the fermentation period with finished sake. In other words it’s a sake fortified with sake! Hanahato has been aged for eight years and has notes of dried fruit and earthy mushrooms. Anything that can be classically paired with either a ruby or tawny port would be a delightful pairing with this sake.

My restaurant had a decadent dark chocolate fondue dessert and I loved blowing people’s minds by pouring them a small taste of the Hanahato to accompany it. Other great pairing options would be a dark chocolate mousse, a nutty pecan pie, gooey bread pudding or even a classic hot fudge sundae. Yummmmm!

These are just a few ideas I have for thinking outside the (bento!) box and having some fun with sake and cuisines from all over the world. I’m looking forward to sharing more of my sake food pairing adventures in the months to come. For now I’m going to pour myself a nightcap of Daiginjo in a big elegant Bordeaux glass because sometimes sake is also pretty damn great on its own.

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Trefoil and Shimeji Mushroom Pasta
We are having another heat wave in the Bay area, so spending as little time as possible in the kitchen is my modus operandi at the moment. I have been hankering for mushrooms a lot these past few weeks. This is a yummy and quick pasta dish that incorporates East-West elements. Although I use shimeji mushrooms, I bet other mushrooms would work just as well.
Trefoil and Shimeji Mushroom Pasta

Lucy Seligman

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Ingredients

12 ounces of spaghetti
2 to 3 large bunches of trefoil mitsuba, washed, stemmed and roughly chopped
11 ounces Shimeji mushrooms washed, slightly stemmed and separated into bite sized pieces
1 tablespoon butter + extra
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium cloves garlic peeled and minced
3 to 4 tablespoons dry white wine
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

Boil water for spaghetti and prepare according to directions. Meanwhile, sauté the garlic in olive oil and one tablespoon butter. Add shimeji mushrooms, white wine and salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, turn on heat again and add trefoil. Cook for one minute.
Place spaghetti in a large serving bowl and toss with extra butter and Parmesan cheese. When combined, add trefoil-mushroom mixture, toss well and serve immediately.

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Canada Travels: Part 2–Victoria, BC

I fell in love in Victoria–His name was Sampson, a noble horse. He took us on a horse-drawn Tally-Ho Carriage Tour through the historic James Bay neighborhood where some of the oldest houses in Victoria still stand. Amazingly, Alisa, my hostess, knew the lively and engaging female carriage driver. She turned out to be a godsend as she recommended we dine at Il Covo Trattoria, where I became quite smitten with our blue-eyed very tall Roman server, we shall call him Luigi, from Italy. As the night wore on, and I drank more vino!, I was able to converse and yes, flirt quite a bit with him in Italian. It was July 1st, and everybody in Canada was in a very happy and festive mood, waiting for the fireworks to begin to celebrate their 150th birthday. We sat out in their lovely garden, as dusk came on, eating and drinking, then wandered back to our hotel, Inn at Laurel Point, for a nightcap, before the fireworks began.

AURA Waterfront Restaurant + Patio

How lucky were we that the Executive Chef at AURA Waterfront Restaurant + Patio restaurant and patio at Inn at Laurel Point is Japanese? His name is Takashi Ito and his food is amazing! We enjoyed quite a few meals at Aura Waterfront, and I loved the Japanese and Asian inspired elements that were wrapped into dishes from breakfast to dinner and the attention to detail in the dishes, which let’s face it, is unusual in a hotel restaurant.

Watermelon Salad (and photo credit) by AURA Waterfront Restaurant + Patio

Some of the highlights included an amusing take on Eggs Benedict at breakfast called Seafood Latkes Benny with okonomiyaki pancake as its base with shrimp, smoked salmon, kimchi hollandaise, seaweed salad, etc, a beautifully presented and delicious Watermelon and Sprout Salad with yuzu caviar, and a white soy glaze, the most fabulous Asian-style Risotto with sea asparagus (used a lot in British Columbia and one of my new favs), coconut, bonito flakes, spot prawns, and some delicious desserts such as a Deconstructed Shortcake which used yuzu foam, and almond sesame crisps to a lovely Panna Cotta which included sake jelly and cherry blossoms. We floated back to our room, feeling very well fed, continuing to rave about our dinner and planning our next visit to Aura.

Panna Cotta (and photo credit) by AURA Waterfront Restaurant + Patio

Shortcake (and photo credit) by AURA Waterfront Restaurant + Patio

Seafood Latkes Benny (and photo credit) by AURA Waterfront Restaurant + Patio

Sooke Harbour House Resort Hotel

We also drove out to the legendary Sooke Harbour House Resort Hotel and ate in their restaurant. This is a gorgeous country inn set on a bluff overlooking the stunning Salish Sea (aka the Straits of Juan de Fuca). Our corner table faced a corner of their three acre pristine garden filled with edible flower blossoms and rare herbs and in the distance, the mesmerizing sea. Again, I loved the Japanese influences in so many of the dishes.

Since we were having brunch, we started with spicy Bloody Mary’s that included sea asparagus, a Chargrilled Lettuce Salad with smoked feta and pickled shallots, and a Sashimi platter that included the most tender octopus and melt in your mouth freshly caught salmon. Okay, I will admit we ate a lot more dishes!, but we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the food and the view.

I had such a great time in beautiful Victoria, that I want to go back and keep eating!

Leave a note in the comments section (see below) with your favorite Japanese restaurant in Canada!

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Canada Travels: Part 1–Vancouver, BC
Just back from a wonderfully fulfilling and fun gastronomic trip to Vancouver and Victoria. I was thrilled to see how much of a Japanese influence on food there is in Canada. I had planned this trip without realizing that Canada turned 150 years old on July 1st! So young. Lol. I celebrated watching fireworks with the rest of Victoria in front of my hotel, Inn at Laurel Point, overlooking the Marina. Gorgeous!

Here are some highlights:

I stayed in the Pt. Grey area of Vancouver in the Western part of the city near the water. It’s a lovely residential area and I was within walking distance to 4th Ave., filled with great restaurants, shopping, etc.

Yuji’s

220-2083 Alma St., just off of 4th Ave. www.yujis.ca

My friend and hostess, Alisa, called Yuji’s her neighborhood Japanese restaurant, but it is more than that. The owner, Yuji, has worked at and owned another restaurant in Vancouver named Yuji’s Japanese Tapas. In 2011, he left for Jakkarta to open a restaurant, but a year later found his way back to Vancouver. He opened up Yuji’s, a smaller more intimate neighborhood restaurant.

Although we didn’t order it, he offers a variety of Omakase and most ‘locals’ sit at the sushi bar and watch him prepare dishes. Everything we ate was delicious and beautifully presented. Yuji imports most of his fish directly from Japan. We ate grilled sablelfish, beef tongue and duck breast. The uni (sea urchin) was so briny, and so luscious on your tongue.

La Quercia

3689 W. 4th Ave., www.laquercia.ca

La Quercia, also in the Pt. Grey area features Northern Italian cuisine. I really felt I was back in Italy, eating divine dishes such as home-made Tagliatatelle with a rich Gorgonzola sauce and one of my all-time favorites, Vitello Tonnato—from the Piedmont region. Cold, sliced veal (you can also use turkey) covered with a melt-in-your-mouth creamy smooth sauce that has been flavored with Italian oil-packed tuna, lots of lemon juice and capers.

Other places I ate at included:
- Purebread for a bacon-chive-cheddar cheese scone just near Gastown in the downtown area.
- Rosemary Rocksalt Bagels in North Vancouver, a chain that serves chewy Montreal-style bagels that were amazing!
- And even the local pub, The Cove, served a wonderful roasted tri-color beet salad with crispy yam fries with aioli.
- I went to the public market on Granville Island, and picked up Vanilla-infused Maple Syrup and Maple butter to bring home.
- And as I was leaving Vancouver airport, I picked up Candied Smoked and Maple Glazed Salmon (other Canadian specialty products) as gifts.
Leave a note in the comments section (see below) with your favorite Japanese restaurant or shop in Canada!

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Lucy is Interviewed by Amber Temerity

I was just interviewed by the delightful Amber Temerity of http://www.embracingtemerity.com/ about the official launch of my new blog which focuses on Japanese food! I also have a Facebook page and you can find that at https://www.facebook.com/ThanksForTheMeal/. You can sign up on either my FB page and or website so you will automatically get blog postings as they come out. If you love Japanese food as much as I do, listen in and get cooking!

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The Art of Ramen: Basic Chicken Stock For Ramen
This is a simple yet delicious stock base to make for any of your Ramen recipes. If you want to try other bases for the stock you can use cracked pork bones (for a richer stock) and even shelled short-necked clams. You can also quickly sauté the clams in sesame oil for a lighter stock or mix these with the chicken to create a different tasting stock.

This is one of five recipes in the “Art of Ramen” series.
The Art of Ramen: Basic Chicken Stock For Ramen

Lucy Seligman

4.50 from 2 votes

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Ingredients

1 chicken carcass or 7 ounces chicken wings cleaned**
1 Japanese leek negi, cut in half
1 medium-sized onion peeled and halved
1 medium-sized carrot peeled and halved
1 large knob ginger peeled and halved
3 to 4 egg shells***
7-1/2 cups water

Instructions

Place all ingredients in a soup pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a high simmer, and cook, covered, for two to three hours, skimming of the scum occasionally. Strain the stock using a cheesecloth-lined colander; pressing down on the remaining ingredients with the back of a large wooden spoon to release all the flavor. If not used immediately, cool and freeze the stock until needed.

Notes
*This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled to yield enough stock for 10 to 15 servings. The stock can be frozen for later use. One serving is 1-1/4 cups.
**Cracked pork bones (for a richer stock) and even shelled short-necked clams, quickly sautéed in sesame oil (for a lighter stock) can replace or be mixed with the chicken to create a different tasting stock.
***The egg shells help to kill the smell of the carcass and/or bones, and to absorb some of the scum.

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Want More Ramen Recipes?

Check out the Art of Ramen post with the history or ramen, ramen cooking tips, and all 5 reciepes in the Art of Ramen series:

The Art of Ramen: “Tampopo,” Ramen history and more
Lucy Seligman
In Juzo Itami’s definitive movie on ramen, “Tampopo,” a woman fights for her economic survival by learning the art of ramen (Chinese noodles in soup) making. Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture, the local economy survives due to the largest concentration of ramen shops in Japan. Why? Ramen is a successful Chinese import, made from wheat flour, eggs,…

Continue Reading The Art of Ramen: “Tampopo,” Ramen history and more

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