Food Culture

A simple foreign phrase book? Che pizza! Speak the World: Italian teaches you the language and so much more. Margherita Berti, the talented linguist behind the wildly popular Italian Matters (5M+ followers!), shares her love for the language, culture, and history of Italy. In bocca al lupo!...

Although now sushi is a gourmet cuisine, it was first mainly eaten at food stands and considered as a simple fast food.

The fundamental components of Japanese meals are rice, soup, and side dishes, with the soup providing both water and salt.

Among the many types of egg cuisines, tamagoyaki is said to be one of Japan's unique household dishes. It is also known as atsuyaki tamago.

Rice has been an important part of the lives of Japanese people since ancient times.

Chawanmushi is a dish made by mixing various ingredients along with a beaten egg and dashi stock in a small bowl.

Umeboshi are a type of pickle made from ume (plums) fruits that are dried in the sun after being salted and soaked in ume vinegar.

As well as okonomiyaki and takoyaki, there is another type of well-known "flour-based food" called monjayaki.

Tsukemono is a kind of food, mostly vegetables, that has been pickled in salt, rice bran, miso, or something else.

Sweet foods, such as Japanese and Western confectionaries, are known as kanmi (sweets).

Tsukudani is a dish that boils foods like seafood, seaweed, or vegetables in a salty-sweet seasoning made from ingredients such as sugar, soy sauce, and mirin.

Omurice is one of the most well-known "Western foods" born in Japan between the Meiji and Taisho periods.

Takoyaki is a specialty of Osaka that is just as famous as okonomiyaki.

Natto is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans.

It is said that donburimono—rice served in a dish with its side dish placed on top—was created in the Edo period and originated with unadon, rice topped with eel.

In Japan, "croquette" refers to a food that is made by mixing boiled and crushed potatoes with minced meat, covering it in bread crumbs, and frying it until the outside is crispy.

Yakisoba is a noodle dish created by frying steamed Chinese noodles with meat and vegetables.

Like soba noodles, udon noodles are a well known type of Japanese noodles. Made from flour, they are distinctively thick and white.

Pork cutlet is made by coating a thick slice of pork in flour, beaten egg, and breadcrumbs, and then deep frying it.

Currently, okonomiyaki can be broadly divided into Kansai and Hiroshima styles.