Winter #2: Red Scare / 冬＃２：赤狩り

Hungarians have a strong affinity for the color red. The one spice in all of eastern Europe is crimson Hungarian paprika. Hungarians can boast a strong Marxist philosophical tradition, from Lukács to Mészáros. And now, in the wake of the end of actually existing socialism and with the rise of free market liberalization, red sludge.
 父の生まれ育ちハンガリーが赤と深い関係持ってる。赤いパプリカは東欧中１つだけのスパイスである。ルカーチなどの優れたマークス主義学者の出身である。８９年の共産圏の国はそれぞれ自由市場に入ってから最近の災害の赤泥流もある。

It's probably too soon to make light about the red sludge, the name of which implies a slow-moving mass. The footage of which, however, makes it clear that it was much much more terrifying. And also really similar in appearance to gulyás (goulash, for you non-magyars).
たぶんちょっと冗談に早すぎるかもしれないが、この本当に大変な赤泥流の撮影を見て。。。えっ、ちょっとハンガリー料理の有名なグーヤシスープと似てるじゃないかっと（わるいけど）思った。

Now that there is a chill in the air, it's finally soup season for reals. So I thought I'd make up a paprika pot. And as a traveling companion... what more fitting than to create a red-green alliance?
東京は本当に冬に近い天候になったばかりので、本当のスープ季節じゃん。だからこそ今日のパプリカスープ。でも赤緑連合でいかがですか？

I ran into this amiable fellow one night in Shibuya.
ある夜、このかわい子ちゃんとであって。。。

Ah, romanesco from Hokkaido! あっ！北海道産のロマンエスコ！

Exactly how a green should be. Resilient, open to complexity, complimentary to red. And a little weird.
こんなような緑が好き。強い。複雑。変。

Oh yeah, and photogenic. Doesn't hurt to be photogenic.

So, I assigned the greens to the toaster oven. Olive oil, butter, parmesan cheese, slivered almonds accompanied them.
緑はトースターオーベンに。オリーブオイルとバーターとチーズとアーモンドと。

Then, I turned my attention to the Red. それで、赤に戻りました。

There are two keys to Hungarian stews, from gulyás to paprikás: make the onions sweat, and don't burn the paprika. First, I set about making the onions sweat.
ハンガリーのパプリカ料理を作るなら、２つのルールがある：第一、タマネギが「汗をかける」までソーテこと。それから、パプリカを焦げないことだ。まず、タマネギを。。。

Dice those onions. Your tears are nothing in the face of the struggle ahead. So dice them.
タマネギをきる。涙が出ても、きるしかない。

Then saute them over low heat for a long time. I mean like thirty minutes minimum. Get out your reading, and stand over your slowly sizzling pot. Theory and action, people. Fight on two fronts.
それでせめてせめて３０分ぐらいをかけてソーテする。がまんだよ。がまん。

After a while, the onions start to look like this:
しばらくタマネギはこの感じになる：

Don't even dream that you are done. Your long march has not yet reached its destination. Make those onions sweat. They will become milky and caramelized, and something different completely. A transformation! But it takes time. Oh, and I like to also add a little lard, too.

まだまだだよ。まだまだ。でもこのところに私は豚バラも入れる。

This is what I mean. These are sweated onions.

こんな感じになるまで、がまんを！

Now: to adhere to the second rule, remove the onions from heat and add the paprika. I don't measure but I always use more than I think I need. Make these sweated onions good and red. Stir in the paprika so it adhere to the oils. Then, you can return to heat (still careful with the paprika until some liquid has been added) and add what you wish. Gulyás is traditionally beef-based (the word itself indicates a Hungarian cowboy, so...), but anything will do. This time I went with chicken and winter vegetables.

それで、第二目のルール：パプリカを焦げないように、なべを火からとって、パプリカ（思うより多め！）を入れて、油に溶かすまで混ぜて、また火に戻す。これで好きなもの（今回は鳥肉、人参などで）と少しだけお水も入れて。。。

And simmer.

とろとろ煮える。

Nothing like a stew to steam up an apartment on a winter's eve. Well, actually, I guess there are other, equally fascinating ways to steam up an apartment on a winter's eve. But...

この部屋のスチーム暖房はスープ。

Still in my top five.

とろとろ。。。

And the red-green coalition?

それで。。。赤緑連合は。。。

Temporary as it was (I ate it right up), it was also...tasty.

おいしかった！ごちそうさまでした！

Winter #1: Drunken French Toast / 冬＃１：酔っぱらったフレンチトースト

The days keep getting shorter and shorter. In this land of the rising sun, the setting sun knows no daylight savings.
毎日の日暮れが早い季節に入りました。

But in this season of darkness, there is light, and you don't even have to wake up at six a.m. to catch it. It is the light offered by the simple things in life: simple sugars, and simple starches. And you may as well sleep in, since it's best served for brunch.
それでもこの闇の季節に光が見える：お砂糖とお酒に作られた光だ。

Japan has some delicious bread. True, it resembles the cake more than your standard rye. But even if it doesn't really fill you up or otherwise behave like "real food," it make real mean french toast.
日本のケーキのようなパンはおいしい。ちゃんとした食事にならないけど、せめてフレンチトーストに適当だと思う。

Japan also has great apples. Crisp, a little tart, and nothing like any mealy Red Delicious you may have had the misfortune to stumble upon.
日本のリンゴもおいしー。

Ah: these lovely little spheres, glistening and bright. These particular apples were ones I'd dragged all the way back from the Japanese Alps.
きれいね。このリンゴは日本のアルプスから持ち帰りにしたもので。。。

Also from the Japanese Alps, I had some leftover Japanese cognac-style brandy. Japanese bread, apples -- even beer -- may be wonderful. Japanese brandy is to be considered a last-resort beverage. It is okay, I guess, to sip it from a paper cup in the bath up in the freezing mountain air, but once I got back to civilization I couldn't really bear to take it straight.
軽井沢産ブラデーも持ち帰りで。まっ。日本で作られたパンもリンゴも（ビールも勿論けど）うまいけど。。。日本産のブランデーは。。。まだです。

The only thing to do, of course was to core the apples.
ですからリンゴの芯を抜いて。。。

After my messy job of coring these apples, I began to understand why people invest in apple corers.
何となくできたけど。。。

And then I soaked them in the brandy. After all, it may be morning, but I felt half-soaked in alcohol myself. I let them marinate until just sniffing the apples induced tipsiness.
ブランデーにいれた。香りだけで酔うまで入れた。

In the meantime, I grabbed hold of my day-old bread. The slices were so thick, that there were only three to a loaf.
それで、パンを。。

Soaked in egg and milk, I began to fry them up in butter, as I also got the apples going in another pan. Out of curiosity, I added black pepper to the apples.
パンと卵と牛乳に入れて、焼いた。リンゴもコショウいれて、バターで焼いた。

I barely burned off the brandy on the apples, and just one bite chased away the winter blues.
お酒の香りが残ったリンゴ。一口だけで冬のブルーズを忘れる。。。

 

Add walnuts, maple syrup.

くるみとメープルシロップで完了。

Life is quite simple. And in a world that expects us not to hibernate, at least we can do the next best thing and lean on sugars to render us semi-comatose all winter long. To those of us raised post-religion, this is the mass opiate.

人生ってシンプルじゃないですか。ま、酔ったらそんな感じがすれけど。

Oh, and I'll take my opiate with an egg on the side, please.

お酒と卵さえあれば、冬でもおいしい人生で幸せ。

ごちそうさまでして！

Autumn #16: Spaghetti Tacos?!?!? / 秋＃１６：アメリカ料理の波に乗る

Trendspotter The New York Times alerted the over-thirteen demographic to a new trend in October of this year: Spaghetti tacos. You may wonder about the wisdom of heeding both the Times and the whims of 'tweens. But it kind of sounds like fun. Right? Riiiight?
最近ニューヨークタイムズまで注目されたトレンドで、タコスにパスタ。子供のテレビ番組で冗談作られたス パゲッテイ入りタコスがアメリカの子たちに大人気！えええええっ？


The news reached me just as I was becoming fascinated with another child-geared food trend. After researching Kewpie mayonnaise for this experiment, I was haunted by Kewpie's advertisements for tarako pasta sauce. When it comes to advertising, I'm as impressionable as any child.
こ のニュースを読んだ時に、もう一つの子ども向き食トレンドに夢中だった。たらこパスタ！ 


It is probably a sign of my advancing age that I'm so fascinated by these childish whims. In any case, that is the outline of the backstory of what brought me to try my hand at tarako spaghetti tacos.
今晩のメニューの背景はこれで、チェル的なスパゲッテイ入りタコスを試してみよう！


Tarako is one of the many kinds of fish roe that greets the casual consumer at Japanese supermarkets. It is the roe of salted walleye pollack, to be specific (who named this fish?!?!??!). Once I was perusing my local market's roe selection, however, I was drawn instead to tobikko. Tobikko is the roe of flying fish, and it sure did look spry!
スーパーにいったら、たらこよりとびっこの方はおいしそうだった。それで、とびっこパスタタコス！

Lovely little bubbles of fishy saltiness.

おいしそうなとびっこ泡。

I set about making this cream sauce to pair with the tobikko, and drench my spaghetti in. I substituted hakusai for celery, sake for white wine, and shiso for dill, to make it a little more local.
とびっこに合わせるクリームソースを作り始まった。

A little less local is my undying devotion to avocados. I decided to crisp some up with batter usually used for making Japanese fried chicken. To the batter, I added some julienned shiso leaf.
アボカドから揚げも入れたらおいしーかなーと思って、しそと準備した。

These crisped up to look like this:

揚げたら：

The sauce started to simmer:

ソースは沸けば

And simmered:

沸くほど

And it was finally ready to be blended up and run through the sieve.

濃くておいしくなる！

In the meantime, pasta's boiling, and I'm rolling out fresh tortillas with a shochu bottle.

それで、タコスに使トルティーヤを作っている。

Rotating two pans and one pot of boiling water, watching that my toaster oven avocado don't burn... Childish as the inspiration may have been, this meal's preparation is certainly not for kids.
子ども向きの食べ物だが、パスタ、トルティーヤ、アボカド。。。今の台所に子どもは禁止！

Okay: Add tobikko to the cream. Sear some scallops, and get prepared to assemble the tacos.

クリームにといっこ。ホタテを焼いて、準備ができた。

 First: the tortilla.

まずはトルティーヤ。

Then, crispy avocado.

それで、アボカド唐揚げ。

Tobikko cream linguine.

With a garnish of sliced cucumber, topped with seared scallops...

キュウリ、ホタテ. . .

And, what the heck: more tobikko!

. . . ともっともっととびっこ！

And then, finally...

やっと、子どものように手でタコスをつかんで . . .

I let my inner child destroy the taco.

食う！

I read about it, but had to try it for myself. Happily, I report that my idiosyncratic and fishy version was a success.
成功！

Even without tortillas, the pasta with tobikko cream sauce stands up very well on its own.

トルティーヤがなっくても、とびっこクリームパスタでもおいしいね。

Ah, the joys of indulging in a little culinary innocence. The cream and carbs may shave years off of my life, but the taste sensations just added that much more wisdom to my tongue.

子どもに聞く必要あるね。ごちそうさま！

Autumn #15: Thanksgiving - Boiled, not Baked / 秋＃１５：アメリカの伝統、日本の材料

Thanksgiving! The gloriously secular celebration of eating! However suspicious its originating mythology may be, I have to admit that I can't suppress my enthusiasm for collective gluttony. And what else is Thanksgiving?
アメリカの感謝際！食いしん坊のとてもとても愛された感謝祭！

Last year, it was two ducks in place of a turkey. This year, lacking both turkeys and ovens, I decided that I'd take the opportunity to give thanks for the bounty of the shitamachi -- the "low city" -- in which I reside.
今年伝統的な七面鳥もオーベンもないチェルは下町の豊かさに感謝します！

Tokyo's shitamachi comprises the eastern neighborhoods of Ueno, Asakusa, Yanaka, and Tabata. It is here, according to Donald Richie, that "still retains what little is left of the feel of old Edo -- distinctly plebian, also fun-loving, less inhibited than those remains of areas where the military aristocracy, the shogunate, observed its rules of decorum." The most significant manifestation of this "fun-loving" shitamachi character is the street food. There are breaded and fried glories to be taken in hand, sweet bean paste of every imaginable configuration, and even -- if you are lucky -- the occasional "scotch egg": a hard-boiled egg ensconced in minced meat and fried. All this and more.
下町の魅力はいろいろですが、注目に値するのはその食い物。ミンチコロッケ、まんじゅうの勢ぞろい、たまにスコッチエグでも（揚げたったミンチに囲まれた卵！）。それに感謝します。

 

So I got a bone from a local butcher shop to start a mellow soup base for our hotpot Thanksgiving party of nine hungry people.

それで、近所の肉屋さんで買った豚の骨を鍋の汁に。

Broken open, of course, so the marrow can seep out.

骨髄が流れるために折った骨。

I blanched the bone, and put it in a pot to simmer with an apple and star anise.

骨をリンゴとスターアニスに煮た。

I let it go for eight hours or so, adding bits of vegetables along the way.

このままで８時間ぐらい。少しずつ野菜もいれた。

For example, I added some daikon -- a kind of radish, the name of which translates literally as "large root."

例えば、大根を。

This particular "big root" was about the size of my arm.

この大根は文字通り大きくて、腕の大きさぐらい。

The daikon is pretty benign as radishes go.

可愛いね。

So once the bones had simmered and simmered and simmered, I added a touch of soy sauce and sugar, and assembled the shitamachi bounty we'd use for our tableside hotpot thanksgiving feast.

骨が煮て煮て、その間下町の恵みを集まった。

Napa cabbage. Of dinosauric proportions.

白菜の爆弾.

Tentacles peeking out from a fishcake casing. This is getting very Jurassic.

ゲソにハロー。

To distract my arriving guests, I had prepared some crudites (And yes: I still like to pronounce them to rhyme with "Luddites." Croooo-deee-teh, la deee da).

お客さんがだんだん来るので少しだけ前菜も準備した。

Chili-miso and yuzukoshô dipping sauces... just to tide us over until...

野菜とチリみそソース、柚子こしょうマヨ。それで我慢できるかな。。。

Everybody in the pot!

ジャーン！

Alongside this hotpot, we also simmered a pot of this chicken broth, to which I had added ginger.

もう一つの鍋にこのチキンスープを使った。

 

Holy hotpot! Nothing secular about my feelings toward this food. Hotpot as a communal meal does have something of a primal urgency. We were stripped down to our natural state: just a tribe collecting around the fire, literally grunting into our food. Never mind that the fire was fueled by propane, or that our appetites were whetted not through vigorous cooperative hunting, but through the consumption of cans and cans of beer and malt liquor.

無宗教の感謝際だが、鍋に参った。

Plucking our dinner from the primordial ooze.

みんなが火に集まって、昔の人間のように。

First, a little from pork-bone pot.

まずは豚骨鍋から。。。

Then a little from chicken hotpot...

それでチキンも味見を。。。

And when the nine hungry pilgrims feared that they were at the end...

最後の最後の恐れがあっても。。。

 

Udon noodles descended into the broth like manna.

うどん。と。。。

For the pork-bone pot, rice and eggs soaked up the last of the broth real nice.

豚骨の鍋にご飯と卵を。

Just one last little detail really set this rite right...

この下町のごちそうさえあれは、他にいることないでしょうね。

Fried garlic shards. Happy thanksgiving!

一つだけが必要：揚げたニンニク。ごちそうさま！