is there ever a good time to bring up whale meat?

 It’s probably difficult to take an unbiased stance on the topic of hunting whales for whale meat. It is a reality however, that in certain places, like Japan (and where else?), whale has been hunted and eaten for hundreds of years. During the restoration after the war, whale hunters supplied the impoverished population with thousands of tons of whale meat to bolster food stocks.

MacAurthur, as it happens, encouraged this practice – possibly because it was a cheap source of food, and also possibly because excess whale oil was then taken back to the United States and Europe, where it was used in the making of many things from lamp oil to soap. In fact, it became such a main source of food that only a few years after the war, over fifty percent of the meat eaten in Japan was whale meat. It’s since the end of the war that whale meat became a staple of school lunch, and even though it lost its popularity as Japanese consumers were able to afford pricier meats, asking around I’ve noticed most people remember having eaten whale at school growing up.

The loophole - if you want to call it a loophole - that Japanese whalers have operated on since the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 is a provision that allows countries to catch a certain number of whales for scientific research. The meat from these scientific catches is then distributed for sale and eventually reaches grocery stores and restaurants. Mm, science meat.

 

Because this is a very sensitive topic to a lot of people, I’ve tried my best to remain neutral, but you can probably pick up my bias anyway. For those of you that live under the “don’t fry it until you try it” mantra, I will just say this – I have eaten whale. A sashimi plate of it was pushed upon my nose under the pretext that it was a cut of beef served rare.

Upon eating the first bite, the old man who had invited me to try it burst out uproariously, “It’s whale! Haha!” I protested that he might have considered a method other than deceiving me into eating it, his words: “What are you, Green Peace?”

shinkansen bento – a step up on the ekiben

Eki, in Japanese, means train station. So the eki bento, or ekiben, is the train station bento box. At stations all around the country, quick bento lunches can be bought right on the station platforms before boarding a long train home, and the Shinkansen bullet trains – equipped with flip-down trays and roomier seating - are the best trains on which to put this practice to use.

But, coming back from my trip to Kanagawa and Tokyo - which ended up being predominantly a culinary excursion - I decided to finish my time with an upgraded ekiben, something the station platforms wouldn’t be able to supply.

Like many train stations in Japan’s larger cities, Shin-Yokohama station is connected to a network of shops and a basement-level food court, although the term food court gives the wrong impression. Laid out like the jewelry section in a department store, vendors sell freshly made bentos of all kinds – whether sushi, chili shrimp, or cob salad. 
 
The price is a bit steeper down here, where they charge per hundred gram, but the quality is high. As you can see here, I went with some maguro tuna sushi and an assortment of tasties like marinated squid, hijiki salad, and salmon roe over noodles.

Put together with some Yebisu white silk beer it cost me near 25 bucks, but all in all, this high-speed picnic made the trip back a lot more comfortable.

a sticky situation with honey, jam, and unlimited crackers

On a drive way out to Karuizawa in Nagano prefecture, I noticed the air getting cooler and cooler as we climbed through the mountains. The snow had nearly all melted away off the Karuizawa ski slopes by the time we got there, but the sakura cherry trees were still in full bloom. Having watched the flowers drop off those trees in my more tropical (well, tropical enough to have a few palm trees, anyways) town of residence a full month before, it was refreshing to see. But that wasn’t the main attraction for driving out into the middle of nowhere.

No, Karuizawa, wouldn’t you know it, is a well-known shopping destination. Fueled by the money pouring from a community of wealthy vacationers and retired salary men with a penchant for golf, this sprawling country club and shopping mall serves all the world brands names that you would expect – Burberry, Chloé, Dunhill, The Gap.

But it wasn’t hand-bags and suit jackets I was looking for. Down the streets and beautifully flowered lanes heading away from the mall, Karuizawa opens itself to the specialties of its region – honey, jam-making, and hand-carved wood furniture.

 
The beauty of these shops was the free samples! Bins of crackers lay out, with sample spoons for the testing and trail of every imaginable type of jam or honey. Fig jam, chestnut tree honey, blueberry and rum jelly. Barely avoiding a diabetic overdose, I munched my way through dozens of shops in search of the perfect cracker bite. I found it in a raspberry and red wine jam that became the purchase of the day. Kudos Karuizawa, now I just need some cheese.

rare - less medium rare than it once was?

Many people might agree with me about this already, which makes bringing it up controversially as if I were arguing for its cause sort of a feint, but steaks are best rare to medium rare. This has been a recent realization for a lot of people though, with overblown fears of raw meat poisoning and poor understanding about cook temperatures in general driving people to scorch their steaks. But in a meat where succulence is everything I don’t at all understand why you would want to fry through the core to make a burnt-out chunk of what could have been magical.

garlic steak flavored rice crackers - mystery genius?

I remember as a young kid going to this supposedly fancy steakhouse called The Hindquarter, which my parents had somehow procured a gift certificate for. When I was young the family wasn’t invested heavily into red meat, and honestly speaking steak was a virtual mystery to me, something that I only saw on Swanson Hungry-Man and Applebees commercials.

This steak, which based on my childhood memory - mixed with my current knowledge - I am convinced must have been rump roast, was so blackened and cooked to death that my young pre-teen teeth never were able to bite through it. I remember being profoundly disappointed, since the waiter had gone out of his way to recommend it to me. Steaks were supposed to be expensive because they were incomparably delicious.

It wasn’t until a barbecue at a family friend’s house - Leonard's house - some years later that my image of them was revived. Leonard’s steaks were juicy and medium-rare. He hadn’t used rump either (who tricks a kid into thinking that’s a nice cut?), but skirt steak. He wasn’t so afraid of a lawsuit that he wouldn't dare to leave the center soft and pink. His confident steaks were appalling, revitalizing, and eye-opening for me at the time. That juicy, rich color matched the richness of Swanson's commercials perfectly.

By the way getting that perfect pink is all about temperature control. That and a grill pan. You can do it on a flat pan, but get the grill pan - it’s just more awesome!

pottery continued - and to be continued

my first attempt here at making a bowl on the wheel

As promised I have to update you on my newest endeavor - Japanese pottery making. Mr. Sano runs a small workshop out in the foothills on the outskirts of Takamatsu, and he kindly agreed to teach me some of his methods.

Since food and plateware share an obviously integral connection, I thought it'd be nice to learn some techniques while thinking about what could be plated on them.

One thing that I always notice about Japanese earthenware like pottery is that it tends to be more natural in shape - rougher and more reliant on it's materials. The potters are clearly not always aiming for that perfect round shape; plates that look like torn sheets of paper and unspun handmade cups with thick one-sided glazes. Mr. Sano's pottery is a prime example of this, pottery that doesn't deny what it is - dirt and clay.

This time around managed to finish up some bowls, sauce dishes and little things but they still need to be glazed. Update and finished pottery after they get fired.

food graffiti on the bottom of a sauce dish

I know I am, zaru you?

Recently I found myself hiking through the mountains in the rurals, when I happened across this udon and soba shop. Kind of a strange thing about Japan, but delicious places are often out in the middle of nowhere sitting all by themselves. I went inside to find a narrow hallway of a place already filled with families and a soccer team.

what could be simpler?

This area isn't known for soba - Japanese buckwheat noodles - as well as other areas, so it's somewhat rare to find. I ordered it zaru, which means it comes as is, cooled noodles on a big plate with a pot of tsuyu broth for dipping. Soba tsuyu is basically a thinned dashi with some soy, and then they often give you wasabi to mix in as you like. Yes, I happen to like a lot, thanks for asking.

I know some people are confused by a giant plate of noodles and only noodles. Isn't there supposed to be a sauce or a chicken breast on it or something? But I've come to appreciate the simplicity of it. If the noodles are made well, it's quit delicious. As a lunch, the simple carbohydrates keep slow-burning away until dinner when you're feeling pleasantly hungry again. And hey, if the amazingly culinary Italians like pasta with just a little olive oil on it (and they do), this doesn't seem so strange.

sudden whim or pottery barn?

So, I decided to take up pottery. I figured, I spend all this time plating food, right. How far back can you take that? Well, I guess it doesn't get much further back than making the plates. The last time I tried this out though was as a student in high school, so I knew I'd need some help.

Fortunately that's where living in rural Japan comes in handy. I have found a teacher, now I just need to get my hands dirty. I'll shoot out another update on this when I have some work to show.

simple is most probably best

yeah, it turns out they're not

The old adage “simple is best” is one that chefs and cooks - as well as designers - can often be heard saying, but follow irregularly. I remember many instances of falling into this trap myself. Once I spent all this time working out a new steak sauce, and I was so excited about it that I ended up putting it on thick on some burgers I had just made for some friends. To my horror (although in hindsight, not surprisingly) the reaction ended up being a lackluster, “it’s ok, but I wish I could taste the meat more”. Covering up the main ingredient in the burger – the patty – I’d sort of killed the part that should have been speaking for itself.

Ken over at www.onlyknives.com made this travesty

It’s important to let ingredients that can already talk say their part, and pick out things that help flavors along rather than smothering them out. I think in the current generation we’re all working to get better about this. Fancy techniques and special effects have never been able to beat good solid basics, but it seems like everyone's been realizing that in a big way lately.

Photoshop filters proved this one a long time ago. I’m also pretty sure the Star Wars movies proved it (and a lot of recent movies besides); layer after layer of special effects with less and less meaning behind each one. We all have to ask ourselves – is what I’m doing adding to the situation? Whoa, sounds like one of those motivational speeches.

just what you were looking for!

Welcome to food graffiti! food graffiti a food design blog and something of a New Year's resolution.

I would say design is a way of life, like art is a way of life. I think of  art as a search for beauty, and design as the conscience application of what was found searching.  If art is flowing and shapeless like water, then design is a bottle or a container that gives art a specific form. Art is hard to understand I think, but good design helps anyone recognize what an artist is trying to say.

Food is a necessary part of life as well as a way of it. Everyone knows that eating badly hurts your body. But like eating badly can hurt you, eating well can make you healthier, stronger, and happier. Good design also gives us good impressions, just like bad design gives us bad impressions. Anything can be designed, so of course food can be designed too. Interior designers, city planners, and graphic designers all understand how important good design is to change how people see and think, but chefs understand it too.

The thing is though, not everyone feels confident about making good food, let alone making it look pretty, right? That's where I hope this blog will come in. I want to show you how fun, creative, and original you can be with food without worrying too much about recipes, traditions, or not having the right ingredients on hand at the time. That's why the recipes here are loose and based more on ingredient types rather than specific ingredients - oil, leaves, herbs, that kind of thing. Along the way I hope to show you tips and ideas that will have you - metaphorically - spray-painting the culinary brick wall of your kitchen.

My name is Daniel Chamberlin. By combining good eating with good design I believe anyone can make some awesome food, and I want to share that with you. Take the paint you have laying around - let's make some graffiti!