On the Coffee Table: The Joy of Rice

Title: Oishinbo: A la Carte - 
- Volume 5: Vegetables
- Volume 6: The Joy of Rice
Writer: Tetsu Kariya
Artist: Akira Hanasaki

via Paper Chimes

I have always loved rice.  Growing up with parents who had spent most of their young adult lives in Asia, I suppose it's not surprising that the starch of choice at the dinner table was frequently steamed white rice.  From an early age, I could never get enough, soy sauce my favorite dressing, though I've learned to appreciate other options over time.  We got a fantastic rice cooker as a wedding present and it is one of the most frequently used appliances in our kitchen.

Rice is the heart of Japanese cuisine, period.  The olfactory connection between my love of the food and my love of the place is very powerful indeed.  As such, Volume 6 of the Oishinbo: A la Carte series was a very easy sell.  (I have previously reviewed installments of this long-running food manga both here and here.)  The stories in this collection explore the broad impact of rice on Japanese society: economic, cultural, historical, environmental, etc.

The most mouth-watering tale for me is the three-issue long Rice Ball Match, in which onigiri are explored.  I think of onigiri as train food.  I'd usually grab one or two at the station convenience store before a long train ride.  The salmon ones were my favorite.  I didn't care so much for the other popular option, umeboshi (pickled plum).  My Wife read this book first and was inspired to try onigiri.  Fortunately, there's a relatively new restaurant in Burlington, called Bento, that specializes in Japanese comfort foods: onigiri, miso soup, bento boxes and so forth.  It's not quite what I remember from Japan but it's not half-bad for northwest Vermont.

via Amazon

Last summer, I read Volume 5 - Vegetables.  I wasn't as impressed by that one which is why I didn't blog about it.  Part of the problem was personal taste.  I'll eat vegetables but they're not usually the inspiring part of a meal for me.  Also, the protagonist's rival and father played a more prominent role in that collection and that aspect of the story grows tiresome for me.  I am, however, very excited to read Volume 7 - Izakaya: Pub Food.  While the thing I miss most about Japan is the trains, second place would definitely go to the bars and the food is an essential aspect of that culture.

On the Coffee Table: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi

Title: Oishinbo: A la Carte - Volume 4: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi
Writer: Tetsu Kariya
Artist: Akira Hanasaki

Image via VIZ MANGA

Early on in my Japan adventure, my supervisor took me out for dinner in Tokyo.  "You know how they say there are about 40 different words for snow in Inuit?" he asked. "The arctic gets so much snow that one word to cover all of the different kinds of snow is inadequate.  It's the same with Japanese and fish.  We eat a lot of it.  That's why we have so many more different words for fish than English does."

Had I been in a more argumentative mood, I might have pointed out that England is also an insular, seafaring nation with great piscatorial appetites.  I kept a diplomatic silence because 1) he was an awfully nice guy, 2) he was feeding me and 3) the whiskey sours had me very merry indeed.  He could have told me he was the Emperor and I'd have nodded politely.

Over time, of course, I would learn that he was absolutely right.  It's not just the matter of words for different species.  All modern languages have that, I imagine.  Japanese has at least five separate words just for tuna, representing different parts of the animal.  Fish names vary by region, by stage of life, by preparation, and on and on.  Seafood is truly a way of life for the entire nation and the language reflects that.

Volume 4 of the Oishinbo: A la Carte series focuses on this central aspect of Japanese cuisine.  Many Japanese believe that any fish worth eating is best eaten raw so most of the book is devoted to sushi and sashimi.  However, grilling and frying techniques are also explored.  To the creators' credit, they do not shy away from concerns about parasites in raw fish.

As I wrote in my review of the first three volumes, the overarching story of the series is not particularly interesting.  It's the food that keeps me coming back for more.  Descriptions of dishes like grilled salmon skin and shinko sushi genuinely make me salivate.  Oishinbo especially piques my curiosity about regional cuisines, something I certainly did not explore adequately while I was there.  Perhaps someday.  Books will have to do for now.  They're a lot cheaper than plane tickets!

On the Coffee Table: Oishinbo

Title: Oishinbo: A la Carte -
- Volume 1: Japanese Cuisine
- Volume 2: Sake
- Volume 3: Ramen & Gyoza
Writer: Tetsu Kariya
Artist: Akira Hanasaki

Image via Amazon

Oishinbo is a long-running cooking manga, first published in 1983, with 109 issues and counting. The English translation has been compiled in a themed, greatest hits format.  Each collection focuses on a particular area of Japanese cuisine without regard to the overarching story.

Image via Amazon

Yamaoka is a food journalist placed in charge of the Ultimate Menu project for Tozai News.  Kurita is his partner on the project who eventually becomes his wife.  Yamaoka's nemisis is Kaibara who is also, rather inconveniently, his father and culinary mentor.  Father-son relations are strained, to put it mildly, and the conflict is the main vehicle by which cooking philosophies are explored.

Image via Manga Worth Reading

Frequent visitors to The Squid already know the significance of Japan in my life.  I've spent five years of my life in the Tokyo-Yokohama area - two as an adult and three as a child.  My time teaching English in Japan was undoubtedly the formative experience of my young adulthood.  Nothing pulls at the nostalgic heartstrings for me like thoughts of Japanese food.  I certainly couldn't afford much in the way of fine dining while I was there but memories of even the daily staples are transporting.  As such, these three volumes frequently left me both wistful and salivating.

Oishinbo pre-dates and undoubtedly influenced another manga series we've enjoyed: The Drops of God (reviews here, here, here and here).  Story parallels are obvious: a male-female culinary puzzle-solving duo, significant Daddy issues and so forth.  There are also similar patterns in the visual presentation.  Most of the story is in a fairly cartoonish style.  Close-up images of the food, on the other hand, are more realistic and richly detailed.  Similar contrasts are used for the wine bottles in Drops of God.

While the discussions of food and drink are wonderfully engaging, the broader story isn't worth too much.  Character development is minimal and plot lines formulaic.  Occasionally, the series tries rather clumsily to tackle serious issues such as alcoholism and cultural insensitivity.  In terms of story, Drops of God is the superior manga.  However, any food geek will find plenty to love.  Cuisine is a wonderful window into the soul of a culture and Oishinbo reveals much in terms of the Japanese view of themselves and their place in global society.