Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Victoria Abbott Riccardi

Quote by Victoria Abbott Riccardi

“Like families all over Japan, that morning we tucked into a special New Year's breakfast soup called ozoni. Although recipes vary from region to region, they all contain mochi because the pounded rice dumplings symbolize the breaking of "bread" with the New Year's deity Toshigami-sama. The rest of the ingredients in the soup, aside from the dashi base, vary according to what is fresh and regionally available. So around Hiroshima, for example, cooks add oysters, prawns, and saltwater eel caught from the nearby Inland Sea to their ozoni, while natives of Tokyo toss in nubbins of chicken, sliced fish cake, and spinach-like greens. For those living in Kyoto, the ozoni always includes lots of sweet white miso.”

Quote by Victoria Abbott Riccardi

Book:Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
Create image

Work

Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Victoria Abbott Riccardi

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Victoria Abbott Riccardi. more

You May Also Like

“We began with two buttery sweet edamame and one sugar syrup-soaked shrimp in a crunchy soft shell. A lightly simmered baby octopus practically melted in our mouths, while a tiny cup of clear, lemony soup provided cooling refreshment. The soup held three slices of okra and several slippery cool strands of junsai (water shield), a luxury food that grows in ponds and marshes throughout Asia, Australia, West Africa, and North America. In the late spring the tiny plant develops leafy shoots surrounded by a gelatinous sheath that floats on the water's surface, enabling the Japanese to scoop it up by hand from small boats. The edamame, okra, and water shield represented items from the mountains, while the shrimp and octopus exemplified the ocean. I could tell John was intrigued and amused by this artistic (perhaps puny?) array of exotica. Two pearly pieces of sea bream, several fat triangles of tuna, and sweet shelled raw baby shrimp composed the sashimi course, which arrived on a pale turquoise dish about the size of a bread plate. It was the raw fish portion of the meal, similar to the mukozuke in a tea kaiseki. To counter the beefy richness of the tuna, we wrapped the triangles in pungent shiso leaves , then dunked them in soy. After the sashimi, the waitress brought out the mushimono (steamed dish). In a coal-black ceramic bowl sat an ivory potato dumpling suspended in a clear wiggly broth of dashi thickened with kudzu starch, freckled with glistening orange salmon roe. The steamed dumplings, reminiscent of a white peach, was all at once velvety, sweet, starchy, and feathery and had a center "pit" of ground chicken. The whole dish, served warm and with a little wooden spoon, embodied the young, tender softness of spring.”

SpringSoupSymbolicSeafoodSurf And TurfJapanese Cuisine
Book:Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
Create image

“The soup was delicious in the way that very simple things can be. There was no seasoning except for salt: a house like this could never afford pepper. But the olive oil in which Velia had fried the onions and garlic, and drizzled over the finished soup, was peppery enough: spiky and throat-catching, it prickled my mouth, balancing the bitter chicory and the bland crusts of bread. And there was dry cheese to grate into it, good salty pecorino with an earthy whiff of the cave where it had been aged. I savored it for a long time, because I had never tasted it before- I'd never tasted any of these things. The oil was different from our Tuscan oil; thicker, somehow, and more flowery; and the cheese tasted the way the air smelled outside in the valley.”

IngredientsItalianSoupOlive Oil
Book:Appetite
Create image

“It's no overstatement to say how good a soup is hinges entirely on the quality of the soup stock it uses. What on earth is this?! A flavor this rich and savory is a sign of high-quality stock! Where did you get this, kid?! I know there isn't a scrap of kelp or bonito or anything you could make stock from our kitchen!" "Oh, that? I just happened to have some on hand." "You made soup stock from cuttlefish jerky?!" "Dried foods like jerky are filled to bursting with savory flavor. Just soak them in hot water and use a little bit of salt to even out the flavor... and you'll have a stock that can be a solid base for any rich and flavorful soup!”

SoupSouma YukihiraDried Fish
Book:Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 2
Create image

“My freezer was always filled with things for emergencies, things like pot roast, beef bourguignon, lobster Newburg, creamed chicken, and meat or chicken or seafood was completely covered when it was frozen. That’s important. I kept frozen aspics and, of course, those lovely homemade soups that I cooked in great quantities and froze in separate containers. Apart from the soups, which simmer for hours, things should always be a little under-cooked because they’ll cook a bit more in the thawing and warming-up process.”

CookingSoupFreezerLifehack
Book:My Way of Life
Create image

“Do you remember your first sip of beer? Terrible! How could anyone like that stuff? But beer, you reflect, is an acquired taste; one gradually trains oneself—or just comes—to enjoy that flavor. What flavor? The flavor of that first sip? No one could like that flavor! Beer tastes different to the experienced beer drinker. Then beer isn't an acquired tast; one doesn't learn to like that first taste; one gradually comes to experience a different, and likable, taste. Had the first sip tasted that way, you would have liked beer wholeheartedly from the beginning!”

BeerPhenomenologyTaste Buds
Author:Douglas Hofstadter
Create image