Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Tetsu Kariya

Quote by Tetsu Kariya

“The word gochisō not only means "feast," but also... ... "to run" or "rush." The host rushes around to gather the ingredients, get them ready, and then cook the food. The vegetables and chicken were homegrown... ... and you must have sought out the halfbeak and quail yourself. Miyasato sensei expended a lot of time and effort to treat us to this meal. The dishes we had are all common ones so that we'd easily be able to compare them with versions we've eaten before. For the wakame and green onion with miso, you pulled the onions out of your own vegetable patch, and you also used fresh wakame and homemade miso. And that's why it tasted so much better than usual. The care you've put into getting all these dishes ready... ... is what made this a real gochisō.”

Quote by Tetsu Kariya

Book:Japanese Cuisine
Create image

Work

Japanese Cuisine

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Tetsu Kariya

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Tetsu Kariya. more

You May Also Like

“Kombu is a species of edible kelp (Laminaria japonica) that thrives in long streamers about a palm's-width wide that can reach up to thirty feet in length. Along with katsuobushi, it is the other main ingredient for making dashi. Kombu contains a high level of the amino acid glutamate, which is the source of the "fifth taste", umami, and a precursor to the flavor enhancer MSG. Japan consumes about 50,000tons of kombu a year--- about half wild, and half farmed--- most of it harvested off the coast of the northern island, Hokkaidō.”

Japanese FoodUmamiFood ScienceKelp
Book:Japanese Cuisine
Create image

“Out comes everything: piles of blistered shishito peppers, golden fried sandwiches of taro root stuffed with minced pork, bowls of dashi-braised daikon, a tower of yakitori, including my favorite, tsukune, a charcoal-kissed chicken meatball rich with fat and cartilage, meant to be dipped in raw egg yolk. My chopsticks cannot move fast enough.”

Japanese FoodOsakaYakitori
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
Create image

“I placed the first piece of sushi in my mouth. HIGH HOLY HEAVEN! It was like a dance of flavors and textures- salty, rich, sweet, chewy yet silken- all at once. "This is maybe the best thing I've ever eaten," I said after swallowing. To be fair, food that good did deserve rules for eating. Each flavor ping caused epic delirium to my taste buds. Ramen was okay. Sushi was the bomb.”

FlavorsSushiJapanese Food
Book:My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life
Create image

“We passed an array of stalls selling Belgian chocolates, German sweets, and then French pastries. "The yogashi are the Western-style confections like cakes and pastries. Some of the biggest names from all over the world have stalls here, like Ladurée from France and Wittamer from Belgium. I love going to the depachika for treats. It can be like a cheat weekend trip to Paris or Brussels." "What do the Ex-Brats have when they eat here?" "Hard to say because the Ex-Brats rotation changes all the time. I'm the only girl in our class who has been at ICS-Tokyo for more than five years. People are always moving away. Of the current crew, I never take Ntombi or Jhanvi here. They're always on a diet. So lame. When Arabella was here, we'd come to eat in the Din Tai Fung restaurant one level down. They make these dumplings with purple yams or sweet red bean paste that are just sick they're so delicious." Yams sounded great. I found a food stall I liked and picked out a grilled yam and some fried tempura for lunch. I didn't need Imogen to help me translate. I just pointed at the items I wanted, the counter worker smiled and packaged everything, then showed me a calculator with the amount I owed. I placed my Amex card on the tray the worker handed me, relieved to have had my morning 7-Eleven experience so I was able to observe the proper paying etiquette in front of Imogen. She bought an egg salad sandwich, which was packaged so beautifully you'd think it was jewelry from Tiffany's. It was in a cardboard box that had a flower print on its sides and was wrapped in tight, clear plastic at the top so you could see the sandwich inside. The sandwich had the crusts removed and was cut into two square pieces standing upright in the box, with pieces of perfectly cut fruit arrayed on the side.”

SweetsJapanese FoodEuropeanYamsPackagedDepachika
Book:My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life
Create image

“Of all the countries Fairchild had visited, Japan struck him as the most advanced on matters of horticulture. He learned about Japanese miniature gardens, the art of Japanese papermaking, and the superior qualities of Japanese fruits and vegetables that didn't grow anywhere else in the world. Wealthy people introduced him to foods of affluence, like raw fish, seaweed, and a bean cheese they called tofu. He thought it impossible to eat with two narrow sticks held in one hand, but after a few tries, he got the feel for it. It was in Japan that Fairchild picked up a yellow plum known as a loquat and an asparagus-like vegetable called udo. And a so-called puckerless persimmon that turned sweet in sake wine casks. One of the most unrecognized discoveries of Fairchild, a man drawn to edible fruits and vegetables, was zoysia grass, a rich green lawn specimen attractive for the thickness of its blades and its slow growth, which meant it required infrequent cutting. And then there was wasabi, a plant growing along streambeds in the mountains near Osaka. It had edible leaves, but wasabi's stronger quality was its bitter root's uncanny ability to burn one's nose. Wasabi only lasted in America until farmers realized that its close relative the horseradish root grew faster and larger and was more pungent than the delicate wasabi (which tends to stay pungent only fifteen minutes after it's cut). Small American farms still grow Fairchild's wasabi, but most of the accompaniment to modern sushi is in fact horseradish---mashed, colored, and called something it's not.”

JapanJapanese FoodJapanese CultureHorticultureWasabiHorseradish
Book:The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
Create image

“So for the first course, we have flounder sashimi served with green onions and momiji oroshi, or daikon radish with chili pepper." The fish was delicate and subtle, with a nice, firm texture. What followed after this opening course was an onslaught of fantastic nigiri, small balls of pressed sushi rice with various toppings, served two at a time so I could fully appreciate each perfect morsel. Sea bream was followed by sweet shrimp, tamago, yellowtail, salmon, soy sauce-braised octopus, crab, grilled eel, and the final two pieces were otoro, or tuna belly. The richest, fattest, most melt-in-your-mouth pieces of tuna I'd ever had.”

SeafoodSushiJapanese FoodRice Balls
Book:Arsenic and Adobo
Create image