Christmas Cake: The Results!

So, Christmas has come and gone. Whatever happened to that cake I promised to make? How did all of my hopes and dreams of becoming a master sponge-cake chef resolve? The drama? The intrigue? The whipped cream and strawberries?!

Find out about all this and more after the jump! Well, maybe not all that stuff about drama and intrigue...

(Note to RSS readers: You may or may not have to visit the blog to see the rest of the article.)

Merry Christmas!

You can probably guess, even if just by looking at the picture to the right, that Christmas is a little different in Japan than we know it here.

The broad strokes are still there - families and friends sometimes exchange gifts, and houses are decorated with Christmas lights.

But the types of gifts, when there are any, tend to be "cute" (or, as the Japanese would say, かわいい; kawaii), typically being things like teddy bears or scarves — things that we Westerners might give on Valentine's Day. Inexpensive gifts are also given around this time of year, more due to the upcoming new year than to Christmas, to less intimate friends. Here's an interesting excerpt on that subject:

More obligatory year-end presents are given during this season as well to people who have done you a favor during the year, however, in contrast to Christmas presents, they are given between companies, to bosses, to teachers, and family friends. These presents are known as 'Oseibo' and are generally things which are perishable or which wear out quickly for which the price can readily be checked because of the system of 'on' and 'giri' (loosely translated obligation and reciprocity). These presents are usually purchased at department stores so that the recipient can check the price and return something which relates to the scale of reciprocity.

Billy Hammond

More significant than the difference in gifts are the differences in actual tradition. The Japanese often celebrate Christmas with two signature foods. The first is a Christmas cake, a sponge cake topped with whipped cream and strawberries (click the picture for a recipe). By the way, I plan to make one of these myself for Christmas - I'll post the results, wish me luck!

The second, bizarrely, is Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC managed to hijack Christmas with a very successful ad campaign some decades ago, and now takes reservations for "Christmas Chicken" as early as October. Many Japanese believe that this is how Westerners celebrate the holiday as well.


Hmmm... this post is getting a bit too long for me to talk about New Year's in Japan, like I originally planned. I'll leave that to my next entry, and I'll close this one up with a Christmas song straight out of Japan. If you want to read more about Christmas in Japan, check out the links below the video.

Christmas in Japan:
Wikipedia
TanuTech
Santas.net

PS: My savings have passed 25%!

First image retrieved from Unusual Life.
Second image retrieved from Japan Guide.

Oyakodon and days of the week

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Oyakodon (親子丼) is a simple dish, consisting of chicken, eggs, green onions, rice, and such like. The reason why I mention it isn't that it has some amazing flavor that we westerners shouldn't live without, but rather because of its name.

The first character in the word oyakodon is oya (親), meaning "parent". The second is ko (子), meaning "child". The last is don (丼), meaning something like "bowl". So,  oyakodon is the "parent and child bowl", because we eat the parent (the chicken) and the child (the egg) in the same bowl. Horrible, right?

Anyway, moving on, I now use my laptop and iPod entirely in Japanese. No, I really can't make sense out of most of the text, but I am slowly learning useful new words, such as 時計 for "clock" and 天気 for "weather", through forced immersion. The most immediately useful thing that I have learned this way, though, is the days of the week:

• 日曜日 (nichiyoubi) - sun day 
• 月曜日 (getsuyoubi) - moon day
• 火曜日 (kayoubi) - Mars day or fire day
• 水曜日 (suiyoubi) - Mercury day or water day
• 木曜日 (mokuyoubi) - Jupiter day or wood day
• 金曜日 (kin'youbi) - Venus day or metal day
• 土曜日 (doyoubi) - Saturn day or earth day 

It's worth noting that their weekday names are very similar to ours. Our first day is "Sunday", which is followed by "Monday", and our last day is "Saturday". This is no mistake — it would seem that the practice of naming days of the week after the visible planets was borrowed by China and Rome from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and then eventually was delivered in whole to Japan and in part to us. For comparison, here are the Latin day names:

Dies solis - "Sun day"
Dies lunae - "Moon day"
Dies martis - "Mars day"
Dies mercurii - "Mercury day"
Dies iovis - "Jupiter day"
DIes veneris - "Venus day"
Dies saturni - "Saturn day"


Well, I'd better stop here. I am about to fall asleep on the keyboard! I really need to do this earlier in the day.


First image retrieved from AllAbout.co.jp.
Second image is my own

Sushi!

Sushi: vinegared, short-grained, sticky white rice served with fish, vegetables, or other ingredients.

— Wiktionary

I included the definition of the word "sushi" above because of the common misconception that it means "raw fish". No, it doesn't, and raw fish (called sashimi in Japanese) is not a necessary ingredient of sushi. However, let's be honest: all of the best and most popular varieties of sushi do have raw fish.

Rather than write a needless article about what sushi is and what kinds there are (that's already been done by countless others before me), I will write a needless article about my experience with sushi. It's my blog, right?

When I first tried sushi a few years back, I approached it with a skeptical mind. The sushi was served, and I, fork in hand (as I had yet to master the art of eating with chopsticks), tried my first roll.

I was not impressed.

You see, we (meaning myself and some of my family) ordered two rolls that I remember. One was called the Rainbow Roll, which my dad had tried and enjoyed before. The other, which I never intend to eat again, was the Philadelphia Roll. All that is important to know about these two is that the first has a lotta fish and the second has a lotta cream cheese.

I tried the Philadelphia Roll first. I nearly gagged — I didn't know about the cream cheese, which I can't stand in the gratuitous amounts present in my sushi. I moved from that to the Rainbow Roll, which looked quite intimidating with slabs of raw fish piled on top. It tasted alright, but I couldn't help but think "rawfishrawfishrawfish" as I ate it.

As such, my first experience was not great. But, something strange happened. After a few days, I began to crave that peculiar flavor of sushi. I couldn't explain it; I didn't enjoy myself the first time, but for some reason my body was telling me to get more.

So, I eventually went back again with my dad and my brother. This time, as I bit into a tuna roll, I found that I actually liked it. I can't explain it.

So, to make a long story short (as the hour grows late and my bed beckons), I am sold on sushi now. I highly recommend that you give it a chance yourself if you haven't already. But, a word of warning: don't try that horrid, vomit-inducing stuff that you see at your local Chinese buffet. Go to a Japanese restaurant and order something fresh.

Now, photo credits, then bed:

First and second images retrieved from Wikipedia.
Third image by Epstein Design.