268991 Thu Dec 07 17:42:05 -0800 2000 29 17 What's My Craving? 0 1417431 Anyone here ever tried it? The real thing,not the green horseradish junk commonly called wasabe. Thu Dec 07 17:42:05 -0800 2000 0 Tinfoil 1 1417434 Yes, I often get fresh wasabi (a closer romanization to the original Japanese than wasabe), but then I live in Japan. It's a wonderful little root with a gnarly exterior, and I wouldn't be surprised if you can get it fresh in the U.S. now. Fresh is way better than the powdered analog, with is bright green, compared to the dull speckled green of the real thing. Interestingly, in the past 10 years or so, Japanese food makers have been putting fresh ground wasabi paste into plastic tubes, and you can use it like those ground garlic pastes in the tube. It doesn't need any preservatives as long as it is mostly kept away from air, and it is far more convenient than getting the fresh root, though marginally inferior in aroma. However, DO NOT give a tube of this stuff to a friend and say it is Japanese toothpaste as a prank. I repeat, DO NOT do this. Also, sushi places in the U.S. really over-do it on the wasabi in sushi, compared to the practice in Japan. This could be because Americans expect more bravado from their ethnic foods, or possibly because most Americans really don't like the taste of fresh raw fish but hork down sushi anyway because it is fashionable. In Tokyo, wasabi is used very sparingly between the fish and the wad of rice, and is NEVER put in soy sauce for sushi, though when eating sashimi (just the fish) a tad is mixed with the soy sauce. Fresh ground wasabi is also eaten with soba (buckwheat noodles) in its cold varations, usually as an addition to the dipping sauce. That's enough. If you want to know more, please ask. Cheers, Bryan Harrell Tokyo & San Francisco Thu Dec 07 23:31:54 -0800 2000 1417431 0 Bryan Harrell 2 1417438 Bryan, I've got to take exception to your sentence below. "In Tokyo, wasabi is used very sparingly between the fish and the wad of rice, and is NEVER put in soy sauce for sushi, though when eating sashimi (just the fish) a tad is mixed with the soy sauce." I too lived in Tokyo (lived in Japan for nine years), and while your post is largely accurate, I *often* saw wasabi put in soy sauce for sushi in Tokyo. If the wasabi was freshly grated (ie. not the powdered stuff), then people would sometimes put a smidgeon on top of the sushi itself according to taste (not the soy sauce). But if the wasabi was your standard nasty powdered stuff, then people generally add a *small* amount to the soy sauce used for dipping. Please don't mislead Chowhounds by making such a sweeping generalization as saying that "wasabi is NEVER put in soy sauce for sushi." Thanks. Deb H. Fri Dec 08 12:27:25 -0800 2000 1417434 0 Deb H. 3 1417455 While I realize that Deb H. may have had wasabi in soy sauce with sushi someplace in Japan, I have never seen it done in the 23 years I have lived here. My 52 year old wife, a native of Tokyo, has never seen this done either. She also adds that the true sashimi aficionado does not put the wasabi in the soy sauce but rather spreads a tiny bit on the surface of the fish after it has been dipped in soy sauce. It is likely that Deb H.'s experience may have been out of Tokyo, but more possibly it could have been done for her by a sushi chef who believed that foreigners like to eat sushi this way after hearing about the practice in the U.S. In any case, it was not my intention to mislead Chowhounds, so I do stand by my so-called sweeping generalization. By the way, in Japan you can buy wasabi-flavored potato chips (usually of surprisingly high quality), which strike me as a Japanese answer to BBQ chips of the U.S. Kampai, Bryan Mon Dec 11 18:07:07 -0800 2000 1417438 0 Bryan Harrell 4 1417460 Bryan, Or shall I call you J.J./Jim Wong? Please get out of the house a little more. You will see many, many Japanese putting a little bit of powdered wasabi in their soy sauce for sushi. I already concurred that freshly grated wasabi is put on the surface of the fish and not in the soy sauce. I stand by my assertion as I have experienced it in Japan. Please do not try to categorize my experience in Japan as you have no knowledge of it. It would not surprise me if you have applied the same standards of judgment to your food critique. Deb H. Tue Dec 12 01:38:18 -0800 2000 1417455 0 Deb H. 5 1417461 Ouch, way way more cranky than appropriate, Deb! There's nothing wrong with taking stabs at what might have caused someone else's experience to differ...we do that here all the time. It by no means precludes you from chiming in with corrections. Chowhounding is about detective work and theorizing, that's half the fun! Nothing personal! Bryan's a real guy, I assure you (very nice one, too), and I see nothing provocative in his message. Maybe this is all just miscommunication? It's damnably easy in online communication to mistake people's tone, and I think that may be what happened here. Back to the chow! Tue Dec 12 02:20:35 -0800 2000 1417460 0 Jim Leff 6 1417462 Hope I'm mistaken, but i read Bryan's message as awfully patronizing. Probably made more irritating by his failure to acknowledge what Deb carefully stated in her post. Tue Dec 12 02:48:33 -0800 2000 1417461 0 Melanie Wong 7 1417477 these posts remind me of another ritual. Milk before or after you get a cup of tea poured in UK. Wasabi before or after or together with dipping in the soy sauce seems just that. Ritual. If not, then I'd like the "consumer reports/chowhounder" taste test to show one way was better over an other. In similar vein I've eaten english mustard with sausages, say, within gravy, with gravy, on top of gravy and all have been great! Tue Dec 12 22:32:45 -0800 2000 1417462 0 yvonne johnson 8 1417478 Also remindes of an earnest discussion I once overheard on a train platform, between two ladies of a certain age, regarding the proper way to make/define a toasted cheese sandwich. Points of debate: is it cheese on toast, or bread with toasted cheese, or should both items be toasted? Do you toast the cheese first, as it takes longer to melt than it does to toast bread (often resulting in burnt toast with melted cheese)? I never got to hear the verdict, as the oncoming train drowned out their words. Wed Dec 13 06:11:48 -0800 2000 1417477 0 magnolia 9 1417482 that's funny. In my view, the best way to make a cheese toasty is to follow my husband's directions. 1. place good quantity of grated, good cheese (I like Cabot cheddar, and you can butter the bread if you like) on slice of bread 2. Grill (cheese side up) till melted 3. Place second slice of bread on top of cheese, and grill till bread is golden 4. take spatula and turn sandwich over and grill untoasted side till golden A grilled cheese sandwich is much nicer I think than one slice of toast with cheese on it. And on the topic of heating things up maybe some wasabe would be nice! Cayene pepper sprinkled over the cheese, or onion mixed in with cheese before grilling are good. Wed Dec 13 10:35:07 -0800 2000 1417478 0 yvonne johnson 10 1417483 Good grated Cheddar...with wasabe, sounds like you've just invented Japanese Rarebit! Wed Dec 13 10:53:45 -0800 2000 1417482 0 magnolia 10 1417484 little bit of mustard on the top slice goes well too! Wed Dec 13 11:50:50 -0800 2000 1417482 0 Gene 8 1417502 I've said this somewhere in Chowhound before (about the pronunciation of scones), but, as with so much else in Britain, the whole milk-in-first controversy is largely a class thing. Some think the milk tastes a bit more "cooked" when the tea's poured in after it. But mostly it's the upper classes who do tea first and milk second, and the lower-middle/working classes who do milk in first. Of course, this may be on its way out by now, but it was certainly in force when I was growing up in the South of England. Wed Dec 13 18:11:18 -0800 2000 1417477 0 tamara 9 1417509 Isn't it a matter of using a spoon? If you pour the tea into the milk, it mixes by itself. Tea first requires a spoon for mixing, thus creating another item for washing up. Perhaps the wealthy didn't mind making more work for the help. - VF Thu Dec 14 09:59:28 -0800 2000 1417502 0 VF 10 1417514 Funny, ignorant of this controversy, Ive always put my milk in last after tea/coffee and sugar- figure that, as with coffee, the sugar will melt better in the hotter fluid. Didn't realize that I was unconsciously expressing a class affinity! Thu Dec 14 12:15:42 -0800 2000 1417509 0 jen kalb 9 1417510 This came up during a recent visit from my son's British in-laws. Their theory is that the upper classes used bone china which is fired at a high temperature and can withstand the heat of very hot tea. Less expensive pottery (presumably used by hoi polloi)is fired at lower temperatures and is more likely to crack on contact with the high heat, so the milk goes in first to cool the tea a few degrees. Thu Dec 14 10:37:50 -0800 2000 1417502 0 Rosa Rasiel 7 1417532 "Hope I'm mistaken, but i read Bryan's message as awfully patronizing." Perhaps you are, because my intent was not to patronize. Rather, for me it was like hearing that German people put chocolate sauce on sauerkraut. At first incredulous, then curious at the insistence without indication of location of this curious practice. But yes, patronizing is a delicate thing. As an American living in Tokyo, I have often experienced patronizing attitudes of British people when I express interest in British ales, a patronization which turns to resentment when they realize I know far more about the subject than they do. Or Chinese people working in Chinese restaurants who pretend not to understand me when I ask for fermented tofu for my congee or spiced fermented miso with certain dim sum dishes. Regardless of the variety of the Chinese language they speak, they most certainly come to understand what I want when I write out the Chinese characters for the item, then their patronization turns to resentment when I turn out to be not exactly the white person they would like me to be. I just happen to have a deep interest in food and drink. And just because I am a white American shouldn't somehow render me ignorant or insensitive of things I have experienced and like, and have taken to my heart. In Deb's case, all I am capable of imagining is that her experience is somehow isolated, and not typical of what normally happens in Japan, particularly Tokyo, which is the actual birthplace of the style of sushi (edo-mae) considered in Japan the definitive style. In many conversations with Tokyo sushi chefs over the years, what invariably pops up (since I am obviously American) is the crazy way they have seen Americans eat sushi in New York or Chicago or LA or where ever. "Why do they put more wasabi in the murasaki (sushi slang for soy sauce)" they ask incredulously, "...maybe they don't like the taste of raw fish after all." Now, to cut to the Chowhound Chase, the real question should be "Does it taste good? You know, if you put more wasabi in the soy sauce for sushi?" That should really be all that matters. Answers anyone? With good intent... Bryan Fri Dec 15 04:43:29 -0800 2000 1417462 0 Bryan Harrell 8 1417534 Bryan, Do you write for Celebrator Beer News? Fri Dec 15 09:40:30 -0800 2000 1417532 0 Jim Dorsch 9 1417536 Yes, I do write for the Celebrator. That's why your name looked familiar on the board. I have been their Tokyo Correspondent since 1994. Cheers, Bryan Fri Dec 15 10:56:37 -0800 2000 1417534 0 Bryan Harrell 8 1417564 "Why do they put more wasabi in the murasaki (sushi slang for soy sauce)" they ask incredulously, "...maybe they don't like the taste of raw fish after all." Anecdotal evidence only I'm afriad. But from a party conversation yesterday. The (english) chap said: "i don't really like raw fish. What I like is the rice, seaweed, soy sauce, wasabi and the ginger. You could forget about the raw fish, in my opinion. The ginger is my favorite bit" I, on the other hand, like the taste of salmon roe and salmon sushi. But, now I'm learning from the posts that I probably put on a lot more wasabi than some Japanese people do. I'm going to experiment with less. Sun Dec 17 18:57:06 -0800 2000 1417532 0 yvonne johnson 9 1417565 Don't apologize for liking what you like. According to Chile Pepper magazine, all the trendiest sushi bars in Mexico City serve spicy sushi with spicy dipping sauces. Sun Dec 17 19:10:09 -0800 2000 1417564 0 Katherine 8 1417571 This is all very interesting... "I have often experienced patronizing attitudes of British people when I express interest in British ales, a patronization which turns to resentment...Or Chinese people working in Chinese restaurants who pretend not to understand me...then their patronization turns to resentment when I turn out to be not exactly the white person they would like me to be." Why do you think this is? Why would anyone resent someone for expressing knowledge of/or interest in another culture? What kind of white person do non-white people expect you (or anyone else) to be, and if so, why? I wonder if I've ever been 'patronized' and didn't realise it... Mon Dec 18 06:35:59 -0800 2000 1417532 0 magnolia 9 1417578 Hello All We reserve this board (just as we do most of the others) for discussion of food--and sometimes drink--topics. Won't you please continue this digression on our Not About Food board? (FYI, the best way to continue a discussion on another board is to send a reply to a given thread saying "Meet me on the XXX board, look for subject title "YYY") harrison Mon Dec 18 11:01:24 -0800 2000 1417571 0 Harrison 5 1417531 "Or shall I call you J.J./Jim Wong?" Call me anything you like; it won't bother me. "Please get out of the house a little more." Actually, I have done so ever since I moved to Japan in 1977. One of my hobbies is bicycle touring, and I have toured through most of Japan's prefectures in the time I have lived here. If you are interested in that, please check out my book "Cycling Japan" published by Kodansha International. In any case,in all my travels over all those years I have never seen Japanese putting wasabi in the soy sauce they use to dip their sushi (the edo-mae variety) into. Sorry, Deb, but I just have never seen it. Perhaps you could enlighten me on where you have seen this practice. I am a bit curious at this point. Some sort of alternate Japanese reality that I am not aware of. So please back up your assertion, and I will certainly stand corrected. Cheerfully yours, Bryan Fri Dec 15 04:23:30 -0800 2000 1417460 0 Bryan Harrell 6 1417562 Bryan, Although I'm generally not fond of the "trot out all your Japan qualifications before I listen to what you have to say" school of thought, it looks like that's what you're asking for. So for the record, I lived in Japan for 9 years (5.5 years *in Tokyo*, 3.5 in Osaka). I majored in Japanese in university, speak & read fluent Japanese (including the sushi slang & Osaka-ben), worked in Japanese corporations, lived with a Japanese boyfriend for four years, cooked with the mothers of my Japanese friends, etc. Okay, that's out of the way. Back to the original topic. When I lived in Tokyo, my husband & I were members of a microbrew club that sent out your newsletter, and we also have your Cycling Japan book. I respect your experience, but that said, I have seen literally hundreds of Japanese people (yes, in Tokyo, eating Edo-mae sushi as well as other types) putting *a little bit* of powdered wasabi into the soy sauce for dipping. Again, as I've stated earlier, this is not done with freshly grated wasabi, which is instead placed on the fish *in small quantities* after dipping. You may have a lot of knowledge about Japanese drink & other things Japanese, but that does not invalidate my experience of having seen this done hundreds of times all over Japan (including in Tokyo). I do not live in a parallel universe. I reacted the way I did because I read your response as being extremely patronizing and trying to invalidate my experience. It's simply incorrect to say people in Tokyo *never* put wasabi in soy sauce for dipping sushi (be it Edo-mae or any other type). This is an overstatement; it happens every day. Again, in an ideal world, powdered wasabi simply would not exist, and we'd all be using lovely freshly grated wasabi. I, too, have had sushi chefs & regular Japanese people ask me why Americans "put more wasabi" in the soy sauce, but this is usually followed by "than Japanese do" (ie. "Nihonjin yori" or "naze *sonna ni* ireru?" -- basically "chotto dake de ii desho?" or "isn't just a little wasabi enough?"). So yes, I know that Japanese people are generally shocked at the *amount* of wasabi Americans use, but they themselves generally add wasabi in small amounts. Anyway, Japanese are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from non-Japanese -- nothing new there. I know where you're coming from about Japanese perceptions & patronization of non-Japanese; it gets old after a while, doesn't it? Back to the Chow. Best, Deb H. Sun Dec 17 14:28:42 -0800 2000 1417531 0 Deb H. 7 1417567 Back in 1995 when I was the lead architect of WWW.CANON.COM, one weekend I bumped into my boss Haruo Murase, president of Canon USA, at a little place in Port Washington N.Y. only frequented by Japanese corporate types (Canon, Olympus and Minolta have their U.S. headquarters on Long Island, many of the employees live in Port Wash.). At this little hole in the wall I actually watched him engage in the practice of putting wasabi into the shoyu. I asked him about it and he told me that this was not something traditional to the practice of eating sushi but learned to do in Tokyo, and it was a new-fangled thing that he liked. Maybe this is something that they learned from us? It would not surprise me given the large number of little obscure things here and there that the Japanese culture has imported from America. Sun Dec 17 19:47:07 -0800 2000 1417562 0 Jason Perlow 7 1417570 Deb, Thanks for the detailed description. From now on I will definitely start noticing whether or not people are putting wasabi into soy sauce for sushi. As you say,it happens, and I stand corrected, though all my experience so far has only included Japanese people slyly deriding the practice, not actually doing it. However, when you say "putting powdered wasabi into soy sauce" I presume you mean putting *reconstituted* powdered wasabi into soy sauce. Putting the actual powder into the soy sauce would make the whole mess very strong tasting, I suppose, as the soy sauce liquid would be absorbed into the wasabi powder. Anyhow, popular convenience store o-nigiri (those triangular rice balls, for the benefit of others lurking) now contain anything from a tempura'ed shrimp to mayonnaise and mentaiko to hunks of ginger-fried chicken, so tastes are certainly changing. After seeing a few of those, hey, what's a little more wasabi powder in the murasaki. Curious that you first confused me with a J.J. Wong, then you seem to have known about me all along. I am also curious about the homebrew club "that sent out your newsletter." As far as I know, I was the only person sending it out (first by fax, then by e-mail around 1996). Were you in Foreign Fermentations? You know, I could have met you and your husband. Feel free to write me personally on bryanharrell@yahoo.com. Cheers, Bryan Mon Dec 18 00:42:47 -0800 2000 1417562 0 Bryan Harrell 8 1417617 Bryan, You asked for clarification that when I wrote "powdered wasabi", I meant reconstituted powdered wasabi. Long answer short: yes. I mean, think about what's served with sushi. Not a pile of dry powder. Earlier you wrote, "Fresh is way better than the powdered analog, with is bright green, compared to the dull speckled green of the real thing." I think we're talking about the same thing here -- reconstituted -- as the powder itself is dull green until it's reconstituted with water anyway, at which point it becomes bright green. "Curious that you first confused me with a J.J. Wong, then you seem to have known about me all along. I am also curious about the homebrew club "that sent out your newsletter."" My J.J./Jim Wong comment was made in jest, referring to what I perceived as the belittling tone of your message. I hadn't put two and two together about the cycling book & the beer writing until you made a point of mentioning your Cycling Japan book and Jim Dorsch mentioned Celebrator Beer News. The microbrew club that my husband belonged to in Japan evidently went by some different names over the years, but showed up on our credit card bills as "Village Reseller" or "Village Seller" or something similar until it abruptly stopped shipments to regular members in mid/late 1998 (didn't start up again by the time we left Japan in early 1999). My husband mentions that the printed newsletter that came with the shipments of beer had lead articles that you'd written (suppose it could be someone else). I'd refer back to the newsletters themselves, but they didn't get packed in our move back to the States. C'est la vie! Hope this helps. Best, Deb P.S. It wouldn't surprise me if we know people in common -- the gaijin community in Tokyo isn't all that big. Wed Dec 20 12:15:04 -0800 2000 1417570 0 Deb H. 4 1417609 >>By the way, in Japan you can buy wasabi-flavored potato chips >> You can even buy them in Portland, Maine! And I do love them. Actually, I'm not sure they are potato chips. The consistency is more like styrofoam, putting me more in mind of rice cakes. But tangy. Tue Dec 19 15:15:12 -0800 2000 1417455 0 DF 1 1417658 Just gave my husband fresh wasabi root for his birthday. He has sushi two times a week and I thought is would be a great gift. Easy to get although not cheap. Go to www.freshwasabi.com to order, they ship right away and it arrives in a cooler in two days. Mine arrived with a cold pack that was still working. The roots last a month and my husband is enjoying it. The taste and texture is quite different. The roots come with a grater and you let it stand for about 10 minutes before using it. Now he orders his take-out sushi without wasabi and puts it on himself. The flavor has more depth and the texture is light - the sting is strong. A nice treat for someone special. Mon Dec 25 12:37:55 -0800 2000 1417431 0 dh