I believe we all eat more food, but a formal meal, its dining order, how much do we know?
Just like a formal Western meal, which is divided into appetizers, soups, side courses, main courses and desserts, a formal Japanese meal, the order of the meal is also very careful.
This is because when you eat in order, you can feel the taste of food 100%.
Honminsu, Kaiseki and Kaisai belong to the formal Nippon food category, which follows a strict dining order (and is not cheap, of course). Knowing the basics before you start eating will help you get the most out of your meal.
The order of Japanese food seems very complicated, but in fact, it is nothing more than western food, which is divided into appetizers, main dishes, main food and sweet food. But the content contained in each part is richer and more detailed.
Daily meal order
Appetizer: 1. Pay first + starter; 2. Bowl first; 3. Sashimi
Main course: 4. Boiled/steamed; 5. Burning/baking; 6. Raise objects
Medium dish: 7. Sorrel
Staple food: 8. Stop bowl + stained food + imperial rice
Finishing touches: 9. Fruit/dessert
Are you a little confused?
To a menu I believe you at a glance ~
A standard daily menu
Pay first: red fish roe mixed with mashed radish
Starter: Marinated egg yolk, Yundan mixed jellyfish, grilled fish cubes
First bowl: If bamboo juice
Sashimi: Tuna and snapper sashimi
What to cook: Boiled chicken with vegetarian dishes
Roast: Grilled eel
Yangwu: Prawn tempura
Sorrel: jellyfish and acetic acid
Bowl: Small mushroom bean curd miso soup
Imperial rice: white rice
Stains: pickles, pickles, pickles
Fruit: watermelon
In fact, the logic is very simple: first serve a small dish, so as to avoid guests waiting for a long time, and then provide a bowl of clear soup, to clear the mouth, so as not to eat the taste of wine is too strong.
After that, main courses such as sashimi, boiled food, and roasted food (optional according to the amount of food) are served. Finally, miso soup, rice, salted vegetables, and sweets are served to fill the stomachs of the guests.
1. Pay first + starter
The prelude to the meal
In short, it’s an appetizer. Generally, they are cold dishes, seasonal strong, bright colors, color, fragrance, taste and shape are very exquisite, but also in order to allow guests to start the meal in a comfortable mood. So, no matter how hungry you are, be sure to enjoy it before you start eating.
The starter can be served in a single bowl or on a three – or five-way platter. The most famous platter is “eight inches” (the name is very direct, inch as a unit, eight for the length of tableware measurement, so eight inches refers to the use of the length and width of 24 centimeters of tableware on the front left vegetables or grains, left behind put seafood).
2. Bowl first
Clear your mouth with a bowl of clear soup
The first bowl is a clear soup made of fresh vegetables, fish and other ingredients. The most common soup is made of wood fish flower. The first bowl is clear to the bottom, the taste is light, and has the flavor of soup, soup is generally very little, mainly in order to clear the mouth, for the next meal preparation.
Here to mention the soup in the diet etiquette. There is no spoon in the soup. Remember to drink it directly with your mouth. If there is solid food in the soup, you can use chopsticks to pick it up, never directly “drink” into your mouth.
It’s rude to eat soup with a spoon in Japanese food
3. Sashimi
Taste the taste of the ocean in season
We can eat sashimi with a bowl to remove the taste from the mouth of the first taste and the first dish. Sashimi is also known as sashimi. Sashimi is made with tuna, snapper, bias fish, mackerel, bulba, bass, shrimp, shellfish and so on. Sashimi is different in different seasons.
Sashimi is also eaten properly. To dip it in soy sauce, turn the sushi upside down with the fish side down (never dip the rice in soy sauce or remove the fish from the rice for dipping). Wasabi can be dipped or not, but remember not to toss wasabi in soy sauce.
Plus, no piece of sushi is too big to bite in half! It takes one bite to put the sushi in your mouth, so that the ingredients reach your tongue first. As for whether to pick it up with chopsticks or grasp it with your hands, either way is OK, but the hand is more authentic.
The following cooking, steaming, baking, burning and raising are the highlights of this cooking. Depending on the price of the menu and the size of the meal, the main course may be paired differently. For simpler dishes, you may serve only 2 of 5 main courses.
4. Cooking/steaming
The root of taste in Japanese ingredients
Horn cooking, nectar cooking, if bamboo cooking, Zhi Bu cooking, have a foot cooking… When we travel in Japan, we often see such names. These are boiled dishes, simply put, boiled dishes.
According to Japanese chefs, the real source of flavor in Japanese cuisine is the little-known boil. The taste of the cooking is rather bland, so in the main course, it is usually the first dish.
Boiled food is usually served in a small bowl, emphasizing the original flavor. Some have gravy, some don’t. Sometimes they also serve dishes with regional flavors, such as Kanto miscellaneous (also known as Tokyo miscellaneous) and Kansai miscellaneous (also known as upper miscellaneous).
When it comes to steaming, the most common is the moo shu in the tea bowl, which is filled with a variety of things. In addition, there are some wine steamed dishes, such as some fish, and some shellfish steamed.
5. Burning/baking
The heaviest bite of the meal
With so much light food in front of us, we can move on to some slightly heavier dishes. Here comes the roast and the roast! Although it is a kind of barbecue that we often eat, there are many kinds of barbecue methods such as salt roasting, sea urchin roasting, teriyaki roasting, egg yolk roasting, and Tanraku roasting.
tips are to eat grilled fish, you can squeeze lemon on the fish, or put soy sauce on the table on the mashed radish, put a piece of fish, put the mashed radish on the fish. After eating the fish, eat the root of the ginger buds on the plate.
Chili powder, pepper these provided seasoning, remember not to pour on the food without authorization. It should be evenly distributed in one corner of the food plate.
6. Raise objects
No one likes to fry
Of the main courses, the general dish is the last, after all, it is the greasiest. The so-called Yangwu, is fried dishes, according to the oil and food materials are divided into three types: tempura, skewyoung, Gillette.
Tempura is the special representative of fried food. Tempura is usually served with a base of stock, soy sauce and mirin. Dip lightly in the puree, but not the whole thing. It is recommended to start with lighter vegetables or fried shrimp and finish with stronger ones.
7. Sorrel
Use to adjust the flavor after the main course
Sorrel is a kind of cold food sour vegetable, which plays a refreshing role. Most of them are placed after the main course and before the miso soup to remove the greasy feeling in the mouth after the main course. So this dish is not a big dish, but very popular in Japan, almost every meal must have. Vinegar-flavored jellyfish is one of the most common sorrel.
8. Stop bowl + stain + imperial rice
Increase satiety
After all, the amount of food is small, so people with big appetites may feel insufficient after eating the main course. At this time, a bowl of fragrant rice with miso soup and side dishes will make people feel satisfied! So, you can also think of this part as the fixed food that you order in many daily food stores.
The stop bowl is also called the back bowl. Miso soup, for example, is a typical back bowl. General banquet generally have two soup, namely clear soup and miso soup. Usually a miso soup can be served.
Pickled pickles are pickled pickles, among which yellow radish pickles (a salty sweet pickles, radish bright yellow, crisp and shiny) and pickles (pickled pickles in Nara, Kyoto, have long been lost to soybean paste, also called Nara pickles) are the most common.
Royal rice is usually mother and child rice, eel rice, tempura rice, etc. The imperial rice, the stop bowl, and the marinated food are usually served together, starting with a miso soup, followed by a meal, and ending with preserved vegetables. Pickles are always followed by miso soup or a meal.
8. Fruit/dessert
A sweet ending
Finish the meal off with fresh fruit in season or a small Japanese dessert. Things like ice cream, pudding, cake, and fruit and soup are common desserts.
To sum up, as one of the most exquisite and orderly cuisines, the core essence of Japanese cuisine is:
Order, steady, slow, clean, quiet.
Mastering the sequence is just the first step. When eating and eating, do not appear to be in a state of panic, do not rush to eat each dish. Don’t stain the table, floor or clothes while eating. Don’t make any noise while chewing…. Following these little details is how we respect a food culture.
