Culture Day

   Living in Japan, I am surrounded by "culture". Japanese language, Japanese style TV, manga, food, history, fashion, transportation, morals, ethics... But really, culture is relative, and you only realize what you are experiencing is "culture" when you're out of your normal "culture". The line between my American culture and my Japanese culture is blurry times, and I find myself no longer starry-eyed over things I once was. Those elements of "culture" have become normal.

   The first weekend of November was a 3 day weekend, celebrating, betcha can't guess, Culture Day. Once upon a time-about 100 years ago- it was celebrated as the Meiji Emperor's birthday. The Meiji Emperor (given name:Mutsuhito. Fun fact: all the Japanese emperor's name's have ended in ~hito since forever ago) was head of state during Japan's transformation from a feudal nation to a highly industrialized world power.After the second world war, it was eventually reinstated as a national holiday. This year, I actually did something culture-y!

    Ever made sashimi? Neither had I, but I've lived here long enough that I now am starting to see the spare bits and pieces of fish at the market less as "Ick!" and more as "Hm, how could I cook THAT?". Sashimi is just another one of those things that I was too scared to try making by myself.

    Enter Junji, a friend of TG's, who was born and raised in the Shikoku region. He is a Renaissance Man, with a wide pool of knowledge and a generally uncle-ish manner. We went over to his house to be shown how it's done, Mind you, sashimi is the actual fish. All that "sushi" people are eating is actually the name of the vinegared rice. So delicious...

    Anyway, so the first stop was the fish market, where we picked out some mackerel pike, Japanese amberjack (yellowtail), and red sea bream. The fish mongers were nice enough to clean out the insides, but we had the joy of chopping the heads off ourselves.I'm not squeamish, so that wasn't an issue, but man I need to work on my knife skills. It was labor intensive: Remove the scales (if needed), hack off the head, slice in half around the spine, repeat on the other side, remove the ribs from both flanks, slice a skinless fillet. I was terrible about slicing the flanks off, but decent at taking the skin off. After we were left with out fillets, we then cut them into bite-sized pieces. For sashimi, it is very important that you NOT wiggle your knife back and forth while cutting the fish. It messes up the fat deposits. 

    Throwing the rice together was sticky, messy affair, but the end result was a feast! Coupled with the fish head soup Junji made, his homemade beer, and hot coffee when the wind picked up in the evening, it was a lovely day.I haven't made sashimi since that weekend, but now I know if I really want to impress any visitors that I have the perfect menu hidden up my sleeve!