What Gaijin Eat: First Harvest Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients:
Satsuma-imo - sweet potatoes. Harvested from our local coop's first organic crop of the year. Fall is the natural season and, according to macrobiotic theory, the ideal time for human consumption as well. After months of eating summer "yin" vegetables, such as tomato, eggplant, green pepper, and okra, all high in potassium, our bodies are said to crave the more "yang" sweet potato, high innatrium . It's higher concentrations of Na are believed to help us handle the transition between summer heat and the cooler fall climate.
Otebo - Domestic, traceable white peas from the Tohoku region. Literally translated, the name means "spared hands", so named because unlike other beans, Otebo do not require the construction of a labor intensive lattice for the bean to grow on.
While this particular bean was first cultivated in Hokkaido during the Meji period, they belong the to Ingen-mame family, named for the monk, Ingen, who is said to have first introduced it from China circa 1654.
Natsu-mikan marmalade, making use of what most people would have simply thrown away - leftover peels of organic, chemical-free Japanese "summer oranges"; bruised and "matured" apples; and sugar candies (to make use of an overly-sweet sugary gift that would have otherwise gone uneaten).
Salt. 1% of the total weight of vegetables. Recommended by macrobiotic theory because the body's natural salinity level is .9% - which makes sense if studies that show that ancient sea-water - where life began - was 1% salinity, are accurate. Basically, macrobiotics is about keeping the balance, and as we all know, with a .9% bodily salinity level, osmosis makes drinking today's sea water (which averages 3.5% salinity) an unbalanced, to say the least, prospect.
Raisons (organic) - to sweeten the pie. In actuality, freshly harvested sweet potatoes are not that sweet. While the harvest period of sweet potatoes is from late August to December, the actual sweetness does not come out until the potatoes have been aged for a few months, allowing the carbohydrates to begin their conversion to glucose.
Crust - made from whole-wheat flour, sesame oil, salt, and water.
Despite the fine taste, the whole wheat flour was, according to Tomoe, a mistake - causing too much trouble with its lack of stretchability. Next time, she says, she will use all purpose flour with wheat-bran.
Without any data to back me up, I would venture that the single most often asked question of foreigners in Japan (gaijin), is "What do you eat?". Likewise, when I am back home in the US, one of the most asked questions regarding my lifestyle in Japan is "Do you eat a lot of sushi?"
Seeing as that eating may (in terms of health and survival) be the single most important activity that we, as animals on earth, engage in, and given that the old saying "You are what you eat" is literally (if notfiguratively ) true, it is only natural that food and eating habits occupies such an important position in daily conversation. Or maybe its just that, aside from pooping and peeing, eating is one of the only humanendevors that we can be sure we have in common with anyone we meet - and talking about poop tends not to create such a great first impression.
Despite my own loss of "creative" time in the kitchen, I can't really complain. For one thing, I can get great meals even when my time is occupied by other projects - a situation that, in the past, would have lead to a simple hummus-like concoction or a re-heated bowl of sustainability soup. What's more, with more time to explore her main interest, macrobiotic cooking, the variety of dishes she makes is increasing, and I am eating even healthier than ever before.
My own understanding of macrobiotics has left me impressed at the amazing variety and flavors that can be found with locally-grown, mostly seasonal, and animal friendly foods (we use no milk, no meat, no cheese or eggs - no senselessly treating of other living, feeling creatures as simple commodities). At the same time, I have to admit, I am underwhelmed at the lack of scientific rigor and almost religious ease withwhich proponents of macrobiotics tend to accept un-tested hypothesis as truth.
Yet, despite any doubts I have about the reason behind the beneficial effects of eating what Tomoe cooks, there is no doubt that it tastes great, its healthy, and its about as environmentally friendly as we can get. I honestly feel that I am in the best physical and mental health of my life, and I think a lot of it has to do with the food.
In the past I have made posts documenting what an average grocery run looks like for myself. I don't know if anyone else was interested, but these are some of my favorite posts to look back on - to see how my own consumption and eating habits have changed in the past few years. I never did, however, document a typical meal.
So, for my own future enjoyment, and to provide an answer to the age-old question: "What do gaijin eat?", I now present a brief look into one gaijin's daily eating habits.
What's more, I hope that taking the photos and writing about it will connect me a bit more to what I eat again - now that I am no longer spending time in the kitchen. Hopefully by documenting it I will learn a little more about what Tomoe has in mind when she treats me to such fabulous dishes. In addition, I have found that photographing the food somewhat makes up for my loss in kitchen-creativity while cooking.
