A few weeks ago, ‘curry’ popped up on my YellowDig feed. I had just released a blogpost about Massaman curry , and that prompted a question about terminology. One student wanted to know whether we should even use the word ‘curry’. The question came from a good place: an interview by cookbook author Priya Krishna. Krishna thinks that we should ditch the term curry altogether. Here’s what she says: Curry was a word that was popularized as a way to make blanket assumptions about

お久しぶり 。When Professor Brown heard that I was going to make sakura mochi (Sakura Rice Cakes) for Girls’ Day on March 3, she asked me if I’d be up for giving you all an entry on this traditional Japanese spring treat. Mochi, of course, have already made it into the US mainstream in some form, but today I’ll walk you through a couple of options that are more old school than, say, Trader Joe’s mochi ice cream. Mochi, as you already probably know, have a long history in Japan. H

Picture it now A Japanese lunch appears on a red lacquer tray. Your eyes first espy the cold tofu garnished with wasabi. Then they shift to the stewed vegetables called oden , and then the potato salad flanked by daikon. A few moments later, your brain registers the main attraction. It’s the tempura: a few slices of crispy eggplant, kabocha, and lotus root covered in batter. You grab your chopsticks and decide to start there, while the food is still hot. Picking up a slice o

おはよう！Professor Brown has invited me to step in and take you to Japan for a quick tutorial on the food associated with the Japanese holiday of Setsubun 節分 (literally the seasonal divide, but as a holiday, the change from winter to spring). Below, I’ll give you a brief background and then walk you through how to make your own ehōmaki 恵方巻 (lucky direction roll), a traditional dish for Setsubun that is supposed to have originated in Osaka in roughly the 19th century. Now, as some

The question is a real one. It was something that the Japanese government actually considered only a few years ago. In 2006, the Japanese government decided it had to act. The number of Japanese restaurants overseas had swelled, reaching in the tens of thousands. Some officials were thrilled (what a great opportunity, they thought, to exercise "soft" power). Others were alarmed. On their travels abroad, Japanese officials discovered that the "Japanese" food often looked and t

If you’re like me, you're probably not going out much these days. So let’s fantasize about the places we might travel if we were suddenly free to move about. Imagine that money’s no object. Say we are flying out business class, to a densely-populated Japanese city for a meal. What would you have? Many of you would go for sushi (that’s a different blog, and we can return to Tokyo next week). Others would scarf down a nice piece of steak. Some kobe beef 神戸ビーフ? Or perhaps yakin

You don’t need to see it, because you can guess the plot. Ramen Girl (2008) is a cross between Karate Kid (1984), Tampopo (1985), Lost in Translation (2003), and your standard rom com. The story goes as follows. American girl (the late Brittany Murphy ) meets boy and trails him to Japan. Boy dumps girl. Girl drowns her sorrows in a bowl of ramen. Then she finds herself. She apprentices with a tough Japanese ramen chef, discovers the beauty of traditional Japanese culture,

A virtual mochi food lab for my students.