Lonely_Planet_Asia_September_2017

COMPILED BY JESSICA COLE, TIENLON HO, REBECCA MILNER AND IPPO NAKAHARA

The islands of Japan extend over 2,000 miles – discover

them with these authentic dishes to try there or at home

JAPAN

A

t first glance, one might believe

that Japan is a place of extremes.

Its cityscapes drip with brain-

blurring neon, and pop culture

mania verges on cult-like status. Its capital

has more Michelin-starred restaurants than

any city on Earth, and its trains are faster

than anyone else’s.

But to take those facts in isolation is to

miss the point. It’s not the extremes so

much as what they counter. Together, each

element thrives in delicate symbiosis. The

Japan of sacred mountains and Zen temples

and the Japan of skyscrapers and karaoke

don’t just tolerate one another – each owes

its peculiarities to the existence of the other.

As with its culture, so too with its

cuisine. In Japan it’s believed that food

should be devoured by all five senses: not

just smell, taste and sight, but also touch

(the texture of ingredients, the smooth

warmth of bamboo chopsticks), and even

sound – a ryotei (high-end restaurant) is

oddly quiet, the better to appreciate the

experience of eating.

Imprinted on the Japanese psyche is the

traditional philosophy of the five elements,

which rests on the principle that each

element (earth, wood, fire, water and metal)

must be balanced against the others for the

world to maintain its equilibrium.

In cooking, each type of ingredient

relates to one of the five elements by its

taste and colour. Even culinary techniques

follow suit: boiling, steaming and

poaching, for example, relate to water, and

smoking to wood. Any Japanese meal –

whether it’s a simple taro stew from deep

within the Japan Alps or the most refined

kaiseki meal in imperial Kyoto – aims to

blend these elements for balance and

nutrition. To satisfy the eyes, a well-

executed meal should include all five

elemental colours: red, white, black, green

and yellow. A homemade dinner might

typically comprise a sashimi dish, grilled

fish, mushrooms, simmered vegetables and

deep-fried tempura, along with the ever-

present rice and miso soup.

Unsurprisingly, this balance provides

myriad benefits for our health, as does

the act of lingering over our food and

cherishing each mouthful. Back to those

extremes: the Japanese live longer than

almost anyone else in the world. Perhaps

it’s time to start taking notes.