57 Fun Facts About Japanese Food

Traditional Japanese cuisine, built on rice and seasonal ingredients, is known by what name?

Washoku joined UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2013, honoured not as a set of recipes but as a social custom tied to the seasons and festivals.

The phrase ichijū-sansai, describing a typical Japanese meal, means what?

One soup, three sides echoes the trays of formal honzen banquets, yet the phrase now describes everyday home meals, whatever the dishes.

Raw fish is optional, so what is the one defining ingredient of sushi?

Vinegared rice arose when Edo-period cooks mixed vinegar in to give the rice a sour taste, so sushi no longer had to wait to ferment.

Yoshiaki Shiraishi got the idea for kaiten-zushi, sushi that circulates past diners, from watching what?

Beer bottles on a brewery conveyor gave Yoshiaki Shiraishi the idea while he was struggling to staff his small Osaka sushi bar and serve customers cheaply.

What does the word sashimi literally mean?

Pierced body is the literal meaning, and the name isn't reserved for fish: horse meat, yuba and konnyaku are all served as sashimi too.

Ramen's alkaline wheat noodles trace back to which community in Japan?

Yokohama Chinatown supplied the Cantonese cooks for Rairaiken, the 1910 Tokyo shop often called Japan's first ramen restaurant.

Tonkotsu ramen, invented in Kurume in 1937, has a broth based on what?

Pork bones boiled hard make the milky broth, which began by accident when a Kurume cook's stock was left on high heat too long and turned cloudy.

Tempura arrived in Japan in the 16th century thanks to which visitors?

Portuguese Jesuits get the credit, and Nagasaki's early batter held sugar and sake, so tempura was first eaten without any dipping sauce.

Miso and soy sauce are made by fermenting soybeans with which fungus?

Aspergillus oryzae, known as kōji mould, releases enzymes that break the beans' starch and protein down into sugars and amino acids.

Dashi, the stock at the base of miso soup, is most commonly made from kombu kelp and shavings of what?

Kombu's glutamates and katsuobushi's inosinate combine into a synergy of umami.

The smoked, fermented, rock-hard fish shaved into bonito flakes is made from which species?

Skipjack tuna fillets are smoked for weeks and cured with mould, and smoke residues above EU limits have kept many of these flakes off European shelves.

While studying kombu broth, the Tokyo chemist Kikunae Ikeda identified and named which taste?

Umami was Ikeda's name for the savoury taste of glutamate, and he patented a seasoning made from it that went on sale as Ajinomoto.

Which slimy, smelly breakfast food is made from soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis?

Natto was made by wrapping boiled soybeans in rice straw, whose own bacteria did the fermenting, until a lab-grown starter let factories skip the straw in the Taishō era.

Genuine Kobe beef must come from the Tajima strain of Japanese Black cattle raised in which prefecture?

The animals must also be heifers or steers and be processed at one of five approved slaughterhouses.

Matcha gets its bright green colour from what?

Shade-growing the tea plants makes the leaves build extra chlorophyll and about twice sencha's amino acids, which is why good matcha tastes mellow.

With a bowl of tea, the monk Eisai treated a shogun for what?

A hangover had laid shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo low, so Eisai brought tea as medicine, along with his book praising tea's health benefits.

Despite being called rice wine, sake is made by a process more like brewing what?

Beer is the closer cousin, since both need grain starch turned into sugar, but sake converts and ferments in the same tank at once, reaching about 20% alcohol.

Before brewing, sake rice is polished to remove what?

The bran comes away with the germ and outer layers, whose fats and proteins give sake off-flavours, so the top grades mill away the most.

Kagoshima's signature shōchū is distilled mainly from what?

Sweet potatoes thrive in Kagoshima's fast-draining shirasu soil, which suits rice poorly, so the crop became the base of the local spirit.

Most 'wasabi' served outside Japan is actually a mix of horseradish, mustard, starch and what?

Real wasabi is a difficult, water-hungry crop, so growers cannot meet demand and it stays expensive.

Soy sauce, the salty fermented condiment, first developed in which country?

China is where soy sauce began, descended from jiang, pastes first made by salting meat and fish before vegetarian versions took over.

On the midsummer Day of the Ox, what do Japanese people traditionally eat to beat the heat?

Eel, unagi, is said to suit an old belief that foods starting with 'u' are good to eat on the Day of the Ox.

Mochi is made by pounding what?

Glutinous rice has almost no amylose, only amylopectin, the sticky kind of starch, which is why pounded mochi turns so stretchy.

Onigiri are traditionally filled with salted salmon or what pickled fruit?

Umeboshi's salt and citric acid help stop food spoiling, which made them the classic filling for rice balls carried as travel and battlefield food.

Soba noodles are made from which flour?

Buckwheat noodles snap easily, so soba eaten on New Year's Eve is said to cut away the past year's hardships.

Fried chicken from which chain has become a Christmas tradition in Japan?

KFC's chicken, in one telling, first stood in for a Christmas turkey, and its 'Kentucky for Christmas' ads made the meal a national custom.

Okonomiyaki, the savoury griddle pancake, has two main regional styles from Kansai and which city?

Hiroshima's style layers batter, cabbage, pork and noodles instead of mixing them, and griddle pancakes like it spread after WWII, when rice was scarce.

Takoyaki, the ball-shaped Osaka snack cooked in a moulded pan, is filled with what?

Octopus came from Akashi's egg-rich snack, which the Osaka vendor Tomekichi Endo combined with the beef-filled radio-yaki to create takoyaki in 1935.

Yakitori literally means what?

Grilled bird is the literal meaning, yet the name is often stretched to cover skewers of pork, beef offal and vegetables too.

Tonkatsu, curry rice and korokke are classics of which Western-inspired Japanese cuisine?

Yōshoku grew after the Meiji government promoted eating meat to build bigger bodies, ending a long avoidance of red meat.

Curry, now virtually a national dish of Japan, was introduced in the Meiji era by whom?

It first appeared in Japanese cookbooks in 1872, probably via the Royal Navy and its curry powder.

Shabu-shabu takes its name from what?

The swishing sound of stirring the pot is the usual story, though Osaka's Suehiro, whose owner coined the name in 1952, credits maids rinsing hand towels.

Sukiyaki simmers thin beef at the table in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar and what?

Mirin goes into the premixed warishita that Kantō cooks pour in, while Kansai cooks season the pan with sugar and soy sauce.

The 1961 Kyu Sakamoto hit 'Ue o Muite Arukō' was retitled 'Sukiyaki' abroad. Why?

The words have nothing to do with the hot pot; it topped the US charts in 1963.

Fugu is dangerous because its organs contain which poison?

Tetrodotoxin is concentrated in the liver, long prized as the tastiest part, so restaurants may not serve it, yet some diners seek it out illicitly.

In Japan, who may cut the poisonous organs out of fugu sold to the public?

Licensed chefs get their permit from a prefecture, and a licence earned in one prefecture is often not valid in another.

Makunouchi, the classic bento of rice with several small dishes, is usually traced to meals eaten where?

At the theatre between acts is the usual story, since makunouchi means 'between acts', though other theories link the name to sumo or a shop.

Osechi, the traditional New Year foods, are served in stacked lacquer boxes called what?

Jūbako weren't always part of the feast: many osechi dishes were once served on trays as formal honzen food before moving into these tiered boxes.

Sheet nori, credited to Asakusa in Edo-period Tokyo, borrowed its drying technique from which craft?

Paper-making supplied the method of drying chopped seaweed on frames; centuries earlier nori was valuable enough to be paid as tax under the Taihō Code.

Edamame are what?

Immature soybeans in the pod were often sold still on the branch, which is said to be why edamame means 'branch beans'.

Momofuku Ando launched the world's first instant noodles in 1958 under what brand name?

Chikin Ramen noodles were flash-fried in hot oil, which dried them so they kept for a long time yet softened in minutes in boiling water.

In the US, what did Momofuku Ando see people put his instant noodles in?

Disposable cups stood in for bowls, and Ando went on to sell instant noodles in their own foam cup with a lid, launched as Cup Noodles in 1971.

Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant noodles, was born in which place?

Taiwan, then under Japanese rule, was his birthplace, and he regained Japanese citizenship only in 1966, eight years after launching instant noodles.

Pocky, first sold by Glico in 1966, is named after what?

The sound of the stick snapping gave Pocky its name, which replaced Chocotec, the name the snack was first sold under.

How is traditional ramune soda opened?

Pushing in a marble breaks the seal, since the soda's gas pressure holds that glass marble tight against a rubber ring at the mouth.

Anpan, the sweet roll filled with red bean paste, was created in 1875 by Yasubei Kimura, formerly what?

Emperor Meiji took a liking to it after being served anpan during cherry-blossom viewing.

Taiyaki is a filled cake baked in the shape of which fish?

Sea bream, a lucky fish in Japan, is the shape Naniwaya's founder is said to have chosen when his round imagawayaki cakes weren't selling.

Dorayaki, the red-bean pancake sandwich beloved of the cartoon cat Doraemon, is named after what?

A gong's shape explains the name, though one story says the first cakes were actually cooked on a heated gong.

Melonpan is usually said to be named after a melon because of what?

Its criss-cross crust is usually said to resemble a muskmelon's netted rind, and a classic melonpan contains no melon at all.

Kit Kats are a Japanese good-luck gift before exams because the name sounds like what?

You will surely win, kitto katsu, echoes the name, and Nestlé even teamed up with Japan Post so people could mail Kit Kats with messages of encouragement.

Sticking chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice is rude in Japan because it recalls what?

Funeral rites are the link, and passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks is taboo too, because mourners pass cremated bones that way.

Tokyo's famous Tsukiji fish market closed in October 2018 and moved where?

Toyosu took over the wholesale fish trade, while Tsukiji's outer market of shops and restaurants stayed open.

Jiro Ono of Jiro Dreams of Sushi fame founded Sukiyabashi Jiro in which Tokyo district?

Ginza's Sukiyabashi Jiro held three Michelin stars until 2019, when the guide dropped it because ordinary diners could no longer book a table.

Which two rival companies founded Japan's whisky industry?

Suntory and Nikka share a founding figure: Masataka Taketsuru, who studied in Glasgow, ran Suntory's Yamazaki distillery, then left to start Nikka.

The kanji for kaiseki, the multi-course haute cuisine, literally mean what?

Breast-pocket stone is said to recall Zen monks tucking warmed stones into their robes to stave off hunger, suiting the light meal served before tea.

Yakiniku Day falls on 29 August because of what?

A pun on the numbers 8-2-9, read ya-ki-niku, gave the date, and the restaurants it celebrates were pioneered by Korean residents of Japan soon after WWII.

Omurice, fried rice under an omelette, gets its name from what kind of word?

Omu comes from the French omelette and raisu from the English rice; it is a staple of children's set meals.