Everybody Eats!

A Culinary Tour of Ancient and Modern Japan

A Cuisine to Love:

Learning from ancient and modern Japan

I’ve treasured Russ Rudzinski’s Japanese Country Cookbook that I obtained from some forgotten bookstore in Kansas City during my early 20s. It’s long out of print but there are many copies available from used booksellers. It’s a work of art as much as a cookbook. One reviewer wrote, “I, too, have the Mingei Ya cook book. I bought it at the restaurant after dining there just after my 21st birthday (it was my first legal drink).

“The place was fantastic. One truly felt that as if you were dining at a Japanese country inn. Tatami mat floors, no chairs and remove your shoes at the entrance. Kimono-clad waitresses served you and their English was so bad that ordering was often accomplished by pointing at menu items. You want a fork and knife? No such things existed at Mingei Ya. The food was sublime. It was one of the best dining experiences I have had in my life. And the book has been used ever since.”

A review of four recipes from the book: https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/food/2017/10/11/japanese-recipes-yield-flavorful-dishes/18330453007/

About chicken mizutaki from Craig Claiborne in the NYT 1981:

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/25/garden/q-a-106757.html

Another book about Japan that I keep close at hand is Just Enough by Azby Brown. It describes, in many illustrations and writings, the simple wisdom of late Edo-period Japan, when people lived in close harmony with nature. Sustainability was built into all they did. You used the resources available to you on your homestead, with very little added from outside.There was no such thing as waste. Even the "night soil" was carefully collected and used on the crops.

We can learn so much about food and sustenance from Japan through the ages. How about the World War II era in the United States, when many Japanese people were confined to internment camps? The book Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! By Gil Asakawa covers this in a lighthearted way. Leave it to the Japanese to make do and adapt to adverse and changing situations. He writes that they even made tasty dishes from such wartime rations as corned beef hash, Vienna sausages, and Spam. In fact, even today, Spam appears on the menu at upscale Japanese restaurants.

Asakawa writes that interred Japanese people even grew soybeans to make their own tofu, miso, and soy sauce.

Reflecting on A Revolution in Eating

I've spent the better part of a year reading the book A Revolution in Eating by James McWilliams. This 387-page work not only chronicles the methods of surviving, sustaining, growing and thriving in the early years of Colonial America and the West Indies, but it also shows the strategies of the different regions in creating their agriculture and economies.

First Contact

As (mostly) British immigrants arrived in the New England colonies, they were helped by Native Americans to survive the first cold winters. Before they could plant crops and raise livestock, the colonists were at a loss as to how to elude starvation. But the Native Americans showed them how to hunt, forage, and fish. Many of the British knew how to hunt but thought of it as sport only. Hunger pangs convinced them to think and act otherwise. In addition to foraging for greens, roots, nuts, and berries, the Native Americans showed the newcomers how to reap a harvest from the seas and waterways during all seasons of the year.

Kindness and Trade

McWilliams quotes the journal of Gabriel Archer, who journeyed up the James River in 1607. Archer recounts how a small group of Native Americans followed their boats for about six miles carrying baskets of dried oysters, mulberries, nuts, fruit, corn, beans, and mulberries. They traded these to the travelers in exchange for metal objects, beads, and cloth. Forty miles later down the river, Archer's party "found our kind Comrades againe" and were well supplied.

Still later, the party embarked to watch a Native American man planting corn, beans, peas, "tobacco, pompions, gourds" and more. A feast with the chief Powhatan featured roast venison, a land turtle, and cakes made from the tuber "tuckahoe" (pictured at right), which was somewhat like cassava. Everywhere, food could be had. The skies teemed with geese, duck, and other game birds, and fat turkeys roamed. In the waterways, there were abundant fish populations such as herring and shad, and shellfish such as mussels, crabs, and lobsters.

Accounts like this opened my mind to the fact that a wealth of biodiversity existed at the time of the coming of the colonists. By supplying food during winters and shortages as well as teaching the settlers how to sustain themselves in the New World, Native Americans often made the difference in whether settlements succeeded or failed.

Accepting New Foods

The book's early chapters divide the Colonies into regions and explain the distinctive cultures and practices that emerged. In New England, settlers worked hard to transplant British practices, planting wheat and orchards, raising traditional British cattle and sheep. But they also found it necessary and were eager to accept certain foods of Native Americans, primarily corn and game animals.

Fishing operations in the Chesapeake Bay region. Credit: Smithsonian

In the West Indies, the economy grew up around the cultivation of sugar cane, with large plantations established by the immigrants. These plantations were labor-intensive, leading to the enslavement and importation of many people from the Western part of Africa. These workers were often given plots of land to farm for their own use, so they planted crops from their homeland and developed a cuisine that grew from the one they had left behind.

The other two regions of Colonial America, Chesapeake Bay and the Mid-Atlantic, were hybrids of the two extremes of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Tobacco became the sugarcane of the Chesapeake, and although many other crops could be grown, their use was neglected in favor of the lucrative leaves. The Mid-Atlantic region took the same path with rice.

The book has been exhaustively researched with a 20-page bibliography. I'll probably be referring to this book for the rest of my life, so I'm glad I purchased it!

Cornelius Galle: Hunting Geese with Pumpkins

When Blood is Blue

Royals and other people of privilege were said to have "blue blood." Where did this terminology come from? Some say that when they were pinched, their skin turned blueish. Or that, with their pale complexions, their veins looked blue.

But for us ordinary folk, healthy blood is red. No matter what the skin color is, our blood is red because it is iron-based. All human blood contains hemoglobin, an iron-based substance that binds to oxygen and carries that life-giving gas from the lungs to all the cells of our bodies.

Sometimes, very rarely, there is less hemoglobin in the blood when the condition of methaemoglobinaemia occurs. This can be genetic or acquired (by ingesting a toxin). The "blue people of Kentucky" suffered from this condition. They appeared blue, especially when angry, cold, or stressed. "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" is a fictional story of one of the blue people, by Kim Michele Richardson. It chronicles the story of a woman named Cussy Mary, who was named after the French village of Cussy where her grandfather was born. He was modeled on Martin Fugate, a French immigrant who inadvertently married a woman who also carried the recessive gene for methaemoglobinaemia. Four of their seven children had blue-tinged skin.

The condition can be ameliorated with a tablet or injection. And sometimes it goes away on its own. But having a blue appearance can have its drawbacks, as the book tells in the story of Cussy and her family. She was a courageous woman, riding over the rugged mountainous countryside on her donkey, bringing books to the isolated people.

We owe much to another blue-blooded creature, the horseshoe crab. It has a copper-based circulatory system, rather than iron. A remarkable property in its blood causes clotting in the presence of bacterial toxins. Because of this, anything that has to be sterile is usually tested in horseshoe crab blood before it is used on humans. Vaccines, implants, needles, prostheses. . . we must thank the horseshoe crab for the use of these life-saving technologies.

The animal doesn't need to be killed to harvest its blood. It can be returned to the ocean to resume living its life. But studies have shown that the crabs lay fewer eggs after being bled and are less active. If the animals are harvested roughly, that can also cause stress. In some states, crabs are not required to be rehomed. They are used for bait or simply discarded. Since they are essentially a small amount of flesh surrounded by a hard shell, they aren't often eaten. But, considering how valuable they are to humans, they deserve a better life. Fortunately a synthetic version of horseshoe crab blood has been developed. Now, if the medical industry would only adopt it more.

and more about the bleeding of horseshoe crabs here:
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/10/1180761446/coastal-biomedical-labs-are-bleeding-more-horseshoe-crabs-with-little-accountabi

Caution! There is a photo of horseshoe crabs being bled in this story that may be upsetting.

Photo of horseshoe crab courtesy of PBS.

Comfort Food for Winter Nights

The special days of winter stretch out like a string of lustrous black pearls: the winter solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, New Year, Lunar New Year.... To balance out any indulging in holiday sugarplums, I try to have a comforting and nutritious soup always on hand. Sometimes this comes together like an old-fashioned potager. Leftover vegetables are sauteed in the bottom of a large pot, bits of meat or protein are added, then lots of broth and flavorings.

This soup from Nico's Tiny Kitchen follows the potager formula, combining three of my favorite ingredients: potatoes, beans, and leeks. All of these keep well through the winter. I was surprised at how juicy and fragrant the leeks were since they had been in my fridge's produce drawer for two months (I bought them at the last farmer's market of the season in early October). I added garlic to the leeks and, with the garnish of chives, this could actually be called a three-onion soup. Or, more poetically, it could be titled Three Lilies Soup, since all the alliums are members of the Lily family.

The procedure to wash leeks begins with slicing them lengthwise and fanning out the leaves, then swishing them in water to remove all traces of sand. The tender white and light green parts are used and the tough greens are put in the compost.

Leeks have many antioxidents, minerals, and vitamins. They are beneficial for heart and circulatory system health. The fiber in leeks makes them low in calories. They are so nutritious that they're often recommended for a pregnancy diet. Perhaps that's why Rapunzel's mother craved the leeks from her neighbor's garden, leading to the child's imprisionment in a tower, according to a Grimm brothers' tale. But the word Rapunzel actually refers to other types of alliums.

Leeks and garlic, chopped and ready for sautéing.

Marvelous Milkweed

It's not a weed, but milkweeds (Asclepias) are blooming now, often with bright pink blooms that attract pollinators like butterflies, moths and hummingbirds. They are also nutritious when the parts are harvested at the right time, but if harvested too late, nausea can occur. Milkweed seeds contain cardenolides and the ground-up seeds are sometimes used as a pesticide that kills harmful nematodes and armyworms.

The little parachutes that milkweed uses to carry the seeds far and wide are useful too. During World War II children gathered milkweed pods for the military to use to make life jackets, since floss from the Javanese kapok tree was unavailable. While the floss repels water, it also absorbs oil, so it is now used in oil-spill clean-up kits instead of chemicals. We're seeing insulated winter garments, comforters and pillows made with the floss. The seeds have beneficial qualities when pressed for their oil, rich in antioxidants, fatty acids, and Vitamin E.

Ode to a McDonald's Hamburger

I was at loose ends between appointments one day and decided to have a fast-food hamburger. I couldn't find a Wendy's nearby (it's the only fast food place I've been to in years) so I stopped in at a McDonald's and went up to the counter. The young lady standing there seemed slightly alarmed and led me over to a kiosk, which is where you're supposed to place your order. She walked me through the choices and suggested I order a water with my hamburger. The kiosk took my credit card and shortly a paper sack and plastic cup appeared on the counter.

The dining area was sparkling clean, quiet, and nearly empty. I enjoyed my hamburger--the pickle is my favorite part. I always wished it could be bigger. The bun is my least favorite, but this bun seemed to be smaller and less doughy than hamburgers of yore.

The meat had a certain taste, a certain umami. I wondered if maybe it had been cooked in a sauce. It wasn't salty or sweet or greasy or oily. It was a full taste, although it didn't have a strong scent. I was pretty impressed. Leaving the place, I drove to my next appointment and marveled at the richness of the light streaming in my car windows. I heard clearly the bird song and the swoosh of the leaves overhead. There was a certain smell in the air. The smell followed me around and lingered for several days.

What was in this hamburger anyway? Using the McDonald's web site, I found that the burger provides about one-third of the typical adult's protein needs and only 12 percent of carbs and 16 percent of fats. Reading the fine print, I learned that half of the fat was saturated and, wait, what's this? There was also half a gram of trans fat. Hadn't that been banned from food several years ago?

More Googling showed that, while adding trans fats during processing was banned, a certain amount of trans fats are naturally made in the stomachs of ruminants. They show up in meat, butter and milk and have not proven to be harmful like the partially hydrogenated oils that have been banned. But still, to my sensitive system, the trans fat had a powerful effect. It seemed to awaken a hunger that had lain dormant and spurred intense cravings that haunted me for a couple of weeks. That one hamburger threatened to upend an eating cycle that I had flowed for more than two years. I'll not darken the door of McDonald's again for a long time if I can help it.

The Lifelong Impacts of Eating Disorders

What is one of the deadliest mental illnesses, especially to young people whose bodies are still developing? Many people would be surprised to learn that eating disorders can have lifelong impacts and high rates of morbidity and mortality. According to JAMA Psychiatry, "individuals with eating disorders have significantly elevated mortality rates, with the highest rates occurring in those with anorexia nervosa." More can be learned about the main types of eating disorders and their impacts here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1107207

States are stepping up to fight the rise in eating disorders that is yet another effect of the pandemic. In Colorado, legislation has been introduced to establish a statewide office of disordered eating prevention and to limit the availability of diet pills and better oversee medical practices related to weight reduction.

In Minnesota, state schools have been offering free breakfasts and lunches to students who qualify for them. But now, to reduce the stigma, the free meals are available to all students regardless of whether their families can afford to feed them or not. Is this going too far? I don't think so. It's clear that to be corralled into a group of needy people is traumatic for students who are already suffering. But there's another reason for my view: children of all strata of society suffer from food insecurity leading to disordered eating. It looks different on either end of the spectrum, typically. Families who are economically challenged substitute filling carbs, over-processed, cheap foods for nutritious whole fruits, vegetables, and proteins. But children in affluent families are often left to their own devices without knowledgeable guidance in choosing healthy foods. They are preyed on by deceptive advertising and harmful diet schemes and drugs.

Consider the beautiful actress and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn. She was born to an aristocratic family and lived on an estate. But this child of privilege and wealth suffered from so much food insecurity and malnutrition that she had a weak constitution during early adulthood and had to give up her dreams of becoming a ballerina. When she was nine years old, World War II broke out, causing her family's fortunes to collapse. The family was reduced to Hepburn, her mother, and a half-sibling when the Germans restricted food supplies to the Netherlands where they lived, and she remembered making flour out of tulip bulbs.

After the War, Hepburn suffered from anemia, jaundice and other maladies. Her experiences and the upheavals she witnessed affected her her whole life long. Described by The New York Times as "a young lady of extraordinary range of sensitive and moving expressions within such a frail and slender frame," she used her experiences to become not only a highly accomplished actress but also a compassionate and inspiring humanitarian.

Sadly, Hepburn didn't always recognize the beauty that the world did. In a 1959 interview, she said, "I hated myself at certain periods. I was too fat, or maybe too tall, or maybe just plain too ugly... you can say my definiteness stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and inferiority." These self-images are also a hallmark of eating disorders. Alongside model Twiggy, she is credited with making extreme slimness fashionable in the 1960s, leading to a new wave of illness and malnutrition among women. The most famous victim was Karen Carpenter, who tragically died at the age of 32 from anorexia nervosa. Her story is recounted in The Guardian.

Super-slender models and actors have faded from the spotlight but there are still plenty of young people at risk. Many who were isolated during the pandemic and were scarred by exposure to harmful views on social media are still working through the impacts. First-time attendance at the Denver-based Eating Disorder Foundation’s family support groups has spiked more than one thousand percent. A Harvard analysis suggests that nearly 10 percent of people will develop an eating disorder in their lifetime. If it doesn't strike us, it will affect someone we know, someone we love. It's something worth thinking about, because Everybody Eats.

More about Colorado's actions to prevent eating disorders here.