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Intangible Cultural Heritage of California

 

Apparently, washoku (Japanese cuisine) has been inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The first thing that comes to mind for Americans who heard this news must be the California roll.

 

Being Japanese, I have mixed feelings about California rolls. They are not so bad; they actually taste good. But, from time to time we encounter cooked sushi rice mixed thoroughly into sticky lumps and dispassionately molded. That tastes bad. This happens when the cook has no love for the rice. If it’s cooked by East Asians (including Japanese) who swear loyalty to rice, it tastes very nice. But this isn’t washoku. It’s not Japanese cooking. It’s called a Californian dish, but strictly speaking, we should call it a Nikkei Japanese-American dish.

 

It’s been such a long time since I left Japan that I’m no longer Japanese, but as far as my feelings are concerned, I’m a Nikkei. But then I feel sorry for those genuine Nikkei people who immigrated long before me, who experienced a hard time in internment camps during the war, and who have forgotten Japanese… As a compromise, then, let me call myself a Shin-Nikkei – like Shin-Godzilla.

 

The new Nikkei speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent. She can express herself much more freely in Japanese than in English. She is always enthusiastic about freshly cooked rice. She wants to pour soy sauce on anything. However, she has forgotten the rest: the fetters of human bonds, consideration for others, sensing the mood or expectations, and being tightly bound by rules and regulations. She will never return to Japan. Very similar to this existence is the California roll.

 

The basic recipe for the California roll involves rolling crabmeat (or crab stick), mixed with mayonnaise, and some avocado. Some are wrapped in a sheet of nori; others aren’t; some have fish roe or agedama (tiny tempura balls) dusted outside the roll… And there are all sorts of variations (including some weird ones).

 

There’s the Philadelphia roll with cream cheese. And the shrimp tempura roll. The spider roll has a deep-fried softshell crab. The rainbow roll is wrapped in seven shades of sashimiSliced avocado around rice is called a caterpillar roll. A whole broiled eel placed on top of rice with a thick sweet sauce (tsume) is called a dragon roll, which is so voluminous and sweet, like cinnamon rolls and chocolate brownies.

 

In a Japanese eatery called a sushi bar, I order a dragon roll with no tsume. I eat it with wasabi and soy sauce instead. I am a tsū (connoisseur) as I order in Japanese. I can feel American customers around me listening. And this tsū picks up one slice of the roll, dips both ends of it in the soy sauce and eats it. This is the Californian style. The Americans around me feel reassured to know that I eat it this way.

 

The dragon roll with juicy eel, avocado, mayonnaise crab, soy sauce, wasabi and rice. It’s not a matter of whether it tastes good or bad (actually it does taste fantastically good), but deeper down, it accords with the fundamentals of my own life. I feel as if I were eating myself.

 

Many a year has passed since I came to California. I haven’t forgotten Japanese or rice but I have forgotten the rest.

 

Who am I?

 

I am a California roll.

 

 

Oysters and Scotch

 

We are on the Isle of Islay now.

 

There is nothing on this small island, but barley grows well, there’s good spring water, and there’s wilderness with plenty of peat. So scotch whisky production is flourishing. As a matter of fact, my husband, who lives with me in California (and is, by the way, nearly thirty years older than I am), is a London-born Englishman and long-time whisky-lover – nothing but single malt from the Isle of Islay. That’s why we travelled all the way to this island, where white-walled scotch distilleries tower everywhere.

 

Before we came, a Japanese friend who had visited the Isle of Islay gave me a hint: “I had oysters natural with drops of single malt whisky on the Isle of Islay. They were really good.” I wasn’t quite convinced, however – oysters with scotch…

 

To my great surprise, I found it on the restaurant menu of the small hotel where we stayed in Bowmore. My husband, who loves both oysters natural and scotch, insisted that the dish would be a double insult: the whisky would spoil the taste of the oysters, and vice versa. There was no way to persuade him, so I ordered this dish just for myself.

 

Truthfully speaking, I cannot drink whisky. When I was eighteen, I once drank far too much whisky and Coke. Ever since then, neither my mouth nor my throat can take it. Nevertheless, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

When the dish was served, it was oysters and scotch all right. That was it. No lemon. No sauce for the oysters.

 

Gently separating an oyster from its shell with a knife, I poured whisky over it and downed it in one. A shock. A moment of nausea. But it was all right, I could drink it. And lo!

 

It was cold and not cold. Cold was the juice from the chilled oyster and uncold was the scotch. The oyster was salty, and the whisky was bitter. The oyster smelled of the sea, and the whisky smelled of the earth. The oyster tasted sweet – and the scotch was also sweet somehow. As the two flavors and sweetnesses blended together, an electric current seemed to run through the oyster and some metallic sound seemed to resound in the scotch. The oyster glided smoothly down my throat, the scotch became transparent – the oyster so young and raw, the aged scotch swiftly rejuvenated by the miraculous mineral power of the oyster…

 

I tasted all these things in a moment. It was as though I had jumped from the Isle of Islay into the rough waves of the Atlantic and reached an unknown island of tastes.

 

The young man at the hotel told me, pointing to a corner of the restaurant:

 

“Fifteen years ago, a Japanese guest came and sat there. He was enjoying oysters and scotch separately, then said ‘What if I put them together?’ He opened an oyster shell, put some drops of scotch into it, and tasted it. It was wonderful. That’s why we included it on our menu and other restaurants followed suit. It’s particularly popular among Japanese tourists. We get many Japanese visitors in Bowmore. Scotch and oysters. Perhaps there’s something in this combination that resonates with the Japanese.”

 

The hotel is in a handy location and its restaurant has a good reputation. It’s not expensive, but its rooms are small with poor facilities, and it doesn’t face the sea. So we were regretting that we didn’t book somewhere with a better view. But it was an excellent choice after all. The scotch that came with the oysters was a twelve-year Bowmore.

 

 

Pilgrimage to the Curry Mile

 

My husband and I went to Manchester not for a soccer match or anything but simply because our friend lived nearby. It was more convenient to return to the US directly from Manchester rather than to go via London. So we planned to stay in Manchester for one night and fly out on the following day.

 

When people heard that we were going to Manchester, they all said, “Visit the Curry Mile.” Apparently, it is a street packed with Indian restaurants.

 

As I already mentioned, my husband has no interest in soccer, but he is passionate about Indian food; even though he isn’t ethnically Indian, he grew up in London, and the Indian food that he has eaten since his student days has become his “soul food.”

 

There is an Indian dish called vindaloo. It is marinated meat, fried in mustard oil and then braised. Its most prominent characteristic is that it is fiery hot. The mustard oil enhances the heat.

 

My husband loves this vindaloo and orders it everywhere. However, he has never been satisfied.

 

When you order vindaloo at an Indian restaurant in California, they ask you if you want it, “Mild, medium, or hot?”

 

This triggers my husband’s rage.

 

“This is ridiculous. Vindaloo is hot; there’s no such thing as mild vindaloo!” I try to calm him down and we order, eat, and leave the restaurant, but he is still fuming. Several months later, we visit another Indian restaurant – and the same thing happens.

 

Vindaloo is like the test that was used to uncover secret believers of Christianity centuries ago in Japan, whereby people were made to tread on a plate with a Christian symbol. Just as secret believers of Christianity were punished upon failing to complete this test, every restaurant we visited failed my husband’s “vindaloo authenticity test,” and was crucified by him in public.

 

It gets worse. According to my husband, “Would you believe that in the US, mustard oil is apparently not permitted for edible use!” His rage continues: “In other words, when cooking vindaloos in the US, mustard oil, the very ingredient that is indispensable for cooking a vindaloo, is not used. Worse, since the vindaloo isn’t spicy, they just add some chili sauce. It’s a fake! What a sham! How dare they treat Indian culinary culture like this!”

 

His complaints are so endless that I cannot eat Indian food in peace.   

 

In any case, we did make our pilgrimage to the Curry Mile. We were on a quest to find authentic vindaloo – my husband’s first authentic vindaloo in decades, and my first authentic vindaloo ever.

 

In Manchester, we got lost. We wandered around, turning corners here and there, and just as we began noticing more Indian faces, suddenly there we were, in the Curry Mile. Glowing neon lights, fluttering banners, and an endless line of Indian restaurants – it was totally different from the surrounding English streets.

 

We rushed into a restaurant and hastily ordered a vindaloo. Nobody asked us about hotness. It was indeed an authentic vindaloo, with true mustard oil.

 

My husband was very happy, and when he told the waiter that, “In California, they ask you how hot you want it,” the waiter found it very funny. The two Brits (one Indian, the other Jewish) laughed together, as if to sneer at the barbarity of American culture.

 

My husband has long been picky when it comes to vindaloos, but this has only gotten worse with age. I thought he was just being stubborn, obstinate, bigoted, and narrow-minded – but this vindaloo taught me that perhaps that wasn’t entirely the case.

 

 

Minced Squirrel and Rabbit Meat in Soup

 

I live in California but I’ve never been without Japanese manga. My current favorite is Golden Kamuy. I feel like explaining it by calling it a manga about Ainu cooking, but that’s probably not right; it’s a historical-action shōnen manga.

 

Golden Kamuy is set in the Meiji era. An ex-soldier who survived the fierce battle of 203 Hill of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) and an Ainu girl are travelling. This main narrative is interesting, but the scenes where they hunt, dress, and eat animals fascinate me. They catch all sorts of animals and eat them, as if to taste the entire spectrum of Ainu food. These eating scenes are so enjoyable and convincing – it’s as though the eating contains truths about life and death.

 

I would love to eat squirrel or rabbit chitatap. This is a dish made by skinning a small animal before taking a knife and pounding it whole, blood and bones included. Apparently it’s supposed to be eaten raw, but in this manga, the protagonists eat it in steaming soup (ohaw in the Ainu language). It’s set in the snowy Hokkaido of the Meiji era, without a convenience store in sight. Just reading about this dish warms my body.

 

I couldn’t help but go to a supermarket near my house and buy some minced chicken. It’s boneless and, as it’s a spring chicken, very soft. So I mixed tinned water chestnuts (they are sold in the Asian food corner of the market) and fresh corn to get the crunchiness of crushed bones and added an egg for texture and depth. Instead of a Siberian onion, I chopped spring onions, scooped the mixture into a boiling pan, and simmered it.

 

I served it to my husband, saying that it was something like an Ainu dish that I’d found in a book. He liked it very much, and was rather moved about this “first Ainu dish” that he had ever had. Ever since then, chitatap ohaw (or rather, chicken dumpling soup) has been a regular item on our family menu.

 

Incidentally, before I started reading Golden Kamuy, I edited the Collected Poems of Ishigaki Rin (published as a volume by Iwanami Bunko). Ishigaki was a great poet of post-war Japanese gendaishi poetry. Among her early works is a powerful poem titled “The Pan, the Pot, the Burning Fire in Front of Me.” It begins:

 

For a long time

 

these things have always been placed

 

in front of us women:

 

and continues:

 

sometimes red carrots,


sometimes black seaweed,


sometimes pounded fish

 

What could this “pounded fish” mean? I just couldn’t understand, so I asked another renowned poet Ishimure Michiko, who knows a lot about traditional cooking. The eighty-nine-year-old Ms Ishimure, who is seven years younger than Ishigaki Rin, responded to my question: “It might be minced fish tsumire dumplings”.

 

Tsumire – it comes from the word tsumi-ire, that is, scooping up balls of dumpling mixture and putting them into a boiling pot one after the other, as my mother used to say.

 

My mother, who was a little younger than Ishigaki-san, and a little older than Ishimure-san, used to cook dumpling soup. She used sardines and horse mackerel. I hated blue-skinned oily fish; I still hate it. Whenever she cooked this dish, I had difficulty eating it and my mother scolded me… Now when I cook my pseudo-chitatap ohaw with chicken tsumire, I imagine what it would have been like, if my mother had cooked squirrel or rabbit dumplings instead. How fun my childhood would have been – and what an appetite I would have had!

カリフォルニアの無形文化遺産

 

和食がユネスコの無形文化遺産に登録だそうだ。ほほうと思っているアメリカの人々はまず最初に、そうか、じゃアレが無形文化遺産かと、カリフォルニアロールを思い浮かべるにちがいない。

 

日本人としては微妙な思いだ。まずいものではない。むしろウマい。実は、ときどき、すし飯がこねまわされてぺたぺたにくっついて、型で無感情に成形されたものに出会う。それはまずい。作る人に、ご飯への愛がないとそうなる。しかし、ご飯に忠誠を誓う東アジア人(含日本人)が作ったものなら、とてもウマい。でもそれは和食じゃない。日本料理でもない。カリフォルニア料理とも呼ばれるが、正確には、日系料理と呼ぶべきなのだ。

 

あたしは国を離れてずいぶん経つから、なんだかこの頃は日本人とも言えなくなり、気持ち的には日系人。でもそれでは、もっと古くから移民して、戦時中は収容所で苦労して、日本語も忘れてしまって……というホントの日系人たちに申し訳ない。少しゆずって新日系人としておこう。

 

口をひらけば、日本語なまりになまり切った英語が出る。日本語の方がずっと自由に自分を出せる。炊きたてご飯はいつも食べたい。どんなものにもしょうゆをかけたい。でも、後は忘れた。しがらみも、遠慮することも、空気を読むことも、規則でがんじがらめになることも。日本にはもう帰らない。この存在にそっくりなのが、カリフォルニアロールなのである。

 

基本のカリフォルニアロールは、蟹肉か蟹かまをマヨネーズで和えてアボカドとともに巻く。海苔の巻いてあるの、巻いてないの、魚卵をまぶしてあるの、揚げ玉をまぶしてあるの……。そしてそこから派生したロールの世界は百花繚乱、魑魅魍魎

 

クリームチーズ入りのフィラデルフィアロール。エビ天入りのシュリンプテンプラロール。唐揚げソフトシェルクラブ入りのスパイダーロール。七色のさしみで巻いたレインボーロール。アボカドのスライスで巻いたキャタピラ(ルビ・けむし)ロール。上にどおんと一匹、うなぎの蒲焼きをのせて、甘ったるいツメをかけ回したドラゴンロール。ものすごいボリュームであり、ツメの甘さはシナモンロールやチョコレートブラウニーを連想させるのである。

 

スシバーと呼ばれる日本食屋で、あたしは「ツメなしで」とドラゴンロールを注文する。わさびとしょうゆで食べる。そもそも日本語で注文してるところが「通」である。周囲のアメリカ人どもが、耳目をそばだてるのを感じ取る。そして「通」は、ロールの一切れの両面をべったりとしょうゆに浸して食べる。それがカリフォルニア流なのだ。周囲のアメリカ人どもが、ああやっぱりと安心する。

 

ドラゴンロールと名づけられた、とろっとろのうなぎにアボカドに蟹マヨにしょうゆにわさびにご飯。ウマいまずいというより(いや、むちゃくちゃウマいのだが)、もっと何か、深く、深く、自分自身の生き様に、本質に、ぶちあたる。自分を食べてるような気がする。

 

カリフォルニアに渡って来て幾星霜、日本語もご飯も忘れないが、後は忘れた。

 

あたしは誰だ。

 

あたしは、カリフォルニアロールである。

 

 

牡蠣とスコッチ

 

今は、スコットランドのアイラ島にいる。

 

ここは何にもない小島だが、大麦がよく穫れて、よい水が湧き、泥炭をたっぷり含んだ荒れ野がある。それで、スコッチウイスキーの製造がさかんである。実は、うちの夫、今、カリフォルニアでいっしょに暮らしている夫だが、これがロンドン生まれのイギリス人で、ついでに言うとあたしより30歳近く年上で、アイラ産のシングルモルトしか飲まないという年季の入ったスコッチ好き。それではるばるやって来たところ、島じゅういたるところに白壁のスコッチ蒸留所がそそり立っている。

 

来る前に、アイラ島に行ったことのある日本人の友人が囁いた。「アイラ島で生牡蠣にシングルモルトを滴らせて食べた。ものすごくうまかった」と。眉唾で聞いていたのである。牡蠣にスコッチなんて。

 

ところが、泊まったボウモアという町の小さなホテルのレストランのメニューに、なんと、それがあった。スコッチ好きで生牡蠣好きの夫が、そんな邪道なことをしてみろ、生牡蠣の味をスコッチが殺し、スコッチの味を生牡蠣が殺してしまうと頑固なことを言ってきかないので、あたしの分だけ注文してみた。

 

実は、あたしはウイスキーが飲めない。十八のとき、ウイスキーコークをがぶ飲みして酷い目に遭った。それ以来、口も喉も受けつけなくなっている。しかし虎穴に入らずんばなんとかだ。

 

運ばれてきたのをみれば、たしかに牡蠣で、たしかにスコッチ。それだけで、レモンも牡蠣用のソースも何にもない。

 

ナイフでそっと、殻から身をはがして、そこにスコッチを流し込んだ。そして全体を勢いよくずるりとすすり込んだ。一瞬、げっと思ったが、大丈夫、飲み込めた。そしたらなんと……!

 

冷たくて、冷たくなかった。冷たかったのは冷蔵されてあった牡蠣の体液で、冷たくなかったのはスコッチだ。牡蠣は塩っぱくて、スコッチはほろ苦かった。牡蠣は海臭く、スコッチは土臭かった。牡蠣は甘く、そしたらスコッチもなんだか甘く、二つの臭さと二つの甘さが融合したら、牡蠣には微弱な電流が流れたようで、スコッチには金属音がカンカンと響いたようで、牡蠣はつるりとろりと喉を通り、スコッチは透き通り、牡蠣は若くて生々しく、老いたスコッチは牡蠣のミネラルなミラクル力でぐんぐん若さを取り戻す……。

 

てなことを一瞬のうちにあたしは味わった。アイラ島から大西洋の荒波に飛び込んで未知の味覚島にたどりついたかと思ったくらいだ。

 

ホテルのお兄さんがこんな話をしてくれた。

 

「十五年前に日本人がひとり来て、そこに座って(とレストランの片隅を指さして)牡蠣とスコッチを別々に味わいながら、これにスコッチをかけてみたらどうだろうと言って、牡蠣の殻を割ってスコッチを滴らせて試してみた。それがすばらしかった。それでうちもメニューに載せるようになったし、よそでも出すようになった。とくに日本人が好きなようだ。この町にはよく日本人が来る。スコッチと牡蠣。この組み合わせが、日本人を刺激するんじゃないか」と。

 

そのホテルは、レストランの評判がよくて便利なところにあるだけで、わりと安いが、部屋も狭く、設備は悪く、海にも面してなく、もっと景色のいいとこを取ればよかったと後悔していたのだが、いや、いいところに泊まったものだ。牡蠣に添えられてきたのは、ボウモアの十二年物。

 

 

カレーマイル参り

 

夫とあたしがマンチェスターに行ったのは、サッカー見学とかの意図はまったくなく、たまたま立ち寄った友人の家がマンチェスターの近くにあったからで、そこからロンドンに戻るより、マンチェスター空港から一気にアメリカに帰った方が便利だったからだ。それでマンチェスターに一泊して、次の日に空港に行ってという予定を立てた。

 

ところがマンチェスターと聞くと、人々が「カレーマイルに行け」と口々に言う。聞けば、なんと、インド料理屋が集合する通りのことだと言う。

 

夫は、くり返すがサッカーには何の興味もなく、しかしインド料理には目がなかった。ロンドン育ちの夫にとって、たとえ自分はインド系でなくとも、インド料理は、学生の頃から食べつづけてきた「魂の食べ物」(ルビ:ソウルフード)なのであった。

 

ヴィンダルーというインド料理がある。マリネした肉をマスタードオイルで炒めて煮込んだ料理だ。火のように辛いのが何よりの特徴であるという。マスタードオイルで辛味が際立つ。

 

夫はこのヴィンダルーが好きで、どこでもそれを注文する。ところが、満足したためしがない。

 

カリフォルニアのインド料理屋でヴィンダルーを注文すると、辛さを聞かれる。「マイルド? 中くらい? ホット?」と。

 

そこから夫の憤慨がはじまる。

 

「そんなばかな話があるか、ヴィンダルーは辛いものだ、マイルドなヴィンダルーなんかあってたまるか」と夫は憤慨する。なだめて注文をつづけ、食べて食べ終わって店を出るが、夫の憤慨はおさまらない。また数ヶ月して、別の店で同じことをくり返す。

 

ヴィンダルー、踏み絵のようなものだ。そしてどこの店も踏み絵が踏めず、非ヴィンダルー性が露見して、磔獄門なのであった。

 

その上夫がどこかで聞いてきたことには、「アメリカでは、なんと、マスタードオイルが食用に許可されていないそうだ」と。「つまりアメリカのヴィンダルーとは、ヴィンダルーに欠かせないマスタードオイルを使わず、辛くもなく、必要に応じてチリソースを加えるだけの偽物だ、なんたることだ、インドの食文化を何と心得る」と夫はさらに憤慨するのである。

 

うるさくて、インド料理が食べられない。

 

ともあれ、このたび決行したカレーマイル参り。目的は、夫にとっては何十年ぶりかの、あたしにとっては初めて出会うはずの、ほんとのヴィンダルー探しだった。

 

マンチェスターの町で、実は道に迷った。うろうろとあっちに曲がりこっちに曲がりしているうちに、なんだか道行く人にインド人の割合が多くなってきたなと思ったら、いきなり、カレーマイルに出た。周辺のただのイギリスの町らしさから打って変わって、原色のネオンがきらめき、旗がはためき、見渡すかぎりはるばると、インド料理屋がうち並んでいたのである。

 

われわれは一軒のレストランに飛び込んで、息せき切ってヴィンダルーを注文した。そしてそれは、まさしく、「どの辛さにしますか」とは聞かれない正しいヴィンダルーであり、マスタードオイル完全使用の真のヴィンダルーであった。

 

夫もたいへん満足して、ウエイター相手に「カリフォルニアじゃ辛さを聞かれるのだ」と言うと、ウエイターはさも可笑しそうに笑った。アメリカ文化の野蛮さを嘲笑うように、イギリス人が(彼はインド系で、夫はユダヤ系だが)二人で、顔を見合わせて笑った。

 

夫は昔からヴィンダルーにはうるさかったが、この頃老いてますますうるさくなった。偏屈になり因業になり頑迷になり固陋になったと思っていたが、それだけではなかったのだと思い知ったヴィンダルーだった。

 

 

リスやウサギのつみれ汁

 

カリフォルニア住まいといえども、日本の漫画を切らしたことがない。今の愛読書は、『ゴールデンカムイ』である。アイヌ料理の漫画、と人に説明したくなるが、たぶん違う、歴史活劇の少年漫画だ。

 

時は明治。二〇三高地の激戦を生き延びた元兵士とアイヌの少女が旅をしている。その本筋もおもしろいが、二人が旅をしながら動物を狩り、解体して肉を食う。アイヌの味を味わいつくさんばかりにいろんな動物を獲って食うところが、実にウマそうで、食べてるうちに生きる死ぬるの真理にヒョイと届きそうで、たまらない。

 

ぜひとも食べてみたいのが、リスやウサギの「チタタプ」。小動物の皮をはいで全身を、刃物で、血も骨も叩きつぶす。ほんとは生で食べるそうだが、作中では鍋物みたいな汁(アイヌ語でオハウという)にしてハフハフ言いながら食べている。明治時代の雪の北海道、辺りにはコンビニなんかないのである。読むだけでホカホカと身に沁みてくる。

 

我慢できなくなって、あたしは近所のスーパーで鶏ひき肉を買ってきた。骨は入ってない上に若鶏だから、いやが上にも柔らかい。それで缶詰のシログワイ(ウォーター・チェスナットと呼ばれて、アジア食品売場に置いてある)と生のトウモロコシを混ぜ込んで、骨片みたいなコリコリシャキシャキ感を出し、卵を入れてねっとり感とコクを出し、行者ニンニクのかわりにネギを刻み入れ、煮立った鍋に片端からすくい入れてくつくつと煮た。

 

そして、これはまあ、本で読み覚えたアイヌ料理みたいなものだと言いつつ夫に供したところ、ウマしウマしと夫は喜び、「アイヌ料理は初めて食べる」と感動し、それからチタタプのオハウ、というか鶏のつみれ汁は、我が家の定番料理になったというわけだ。

 

ところでこの間、まだこの漫画を読む前だったが、わたしは「石垣りん詩集」を編んだ(岩波文庫から出ている)。石垣りんは戦後の現代詩の偉大な詩人で、初期の頃の作品に「私の前にある鍋とお釜と燃える火と」というスゴイ詩がある。

 

「それはながい間

 

私たち女のまえに

 

いつも置かれてあったもの」

 

と始まってこんなふうに続く

 

「ある時はそれが赤いにんじんだったり

 

くろい昆布だったり

 

たたきつぶされた魚だったり」

 

たたきつぶされた魚って何だろう。わからなくて、昔の料理のことをよく知っている石牟礼道子さんに聞いてみた。すると今年八十九歳、石垣りんより七歳若い石牟礼さんから「魚のつみれじゃないでしょうか」という答えが返ってきたのである。

 

つみれ。その場でつまみ入れていくからつみ入れと言うのだ、と母が言ってたのを思い出した。

 

石垣さんより少し若くて石牟礼さんより少し年上のあたしの母も、つみれ汁をよく作った。鰯や鯵で作った。あたしは青魚が大嫌いだったし、今も大嫌いである。毎度ほんとに食が進まなくて、叱られながら食べたっけと思い出した。今、鶏のつみれのチタタプのオハウもどきを作るたびに、あのとき母が作ったのがリスやウサギのつみれ汁なら、あたしの子ども時代はどんなに楽しく食が進んだことだろうと考えている。

Translator's Note

Itō Hiromi’s (a.k.a. Hiromi Itō’s) publishing career began in the late 1970s, and encompasses numerous books, including collections of poetry, essays, and fiction. She has also received a number of major literary prizes. Itō lived in California for more than two decades from 1997 onwards, though she frequently travelled across the Pacific to look after her parents in Kumamoto, on the southern island of Kyushu. She has been based in Kumamoto since 2018 and currently teaches at Waseda University in Tokyo as a Professor of Literature. Hiromi has travelled extensively to give lectures and poetry readings at international poetry festivals and conferences in America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.

Translated here are four short pieces selected from her collection of essays Umashi (Delicious!, 2018). As the title shows, the theme is food, but these are by no means ordinary gourmet essays or food travelogues. With her poet’s sensitivity and observation as well as her tireless curiosity for human lives and cultures, Itō captures intriguing, often contradictory, and sometimes even ambiguous moments of truths in various places.  

 

Intangible Cultural Heritage of California

 

This is a light-hearted, yet poignant, observation of several Nikkei (Japanese-American) dishes, including the California roll and its variations such as the dragon roll, caterpillar roll, and Philadelphia roll.  The essay begins by noting the addition of washoku (Japanese cuisine) to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The title of the essay refers to this inclusion with irony and humor, as the essay is not about traditional Japanese cuisine but about hybrid dishes in California, where Itō lived for more than two decades. The essay deals with the gap between what would be considered authentic or traditional Japanese dishes in Japan, and what is regarded as Japanese cuisine in California. While the author expresses her “mixed feelings” about the California roll, her aim is by no means to reject or criticize its inauthenticity; rather, the main point is the comic-pathetic recognition of her own identification as a new Japanese-American, or Shin-Nikkei. The essay also presents observations of how a Nikkei consumer of California and other rolls might be viewed by non-Nikkei Americans in a humorous way. The effect of this is to provide multiple viewpoints and distance from the subjects of the neo-Japanese-American and iconic food. Such detachment is what is so important in creating humor.

In translating this piece, we had to deal with some key terms such as tsume (a thick, sweet, soy-based sauce) and tsū (connoisseur). These terms supposedly represent “authentic” traditional Japanese food, as well as other elements of traditional Japanese culture. Their use highlights the border crossing and hybrid features of Nikkei food in California.

 

Minced Squirrel and Rabbit Meat in Soup

 

Golden Kamuy is a popular manga that follows the story of a war veteran and a young girl. The girl is a member of the indigenous Ainu people, who were the original inhabitants of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and the manga features a number of indigenous Ainu dishes, made using traditional ingredients. Inspired by Golden Kamuy, and the poem “The Pan, the Pot, the Burning Fire in Front of Me” by Ishigaki Rin,[1] Itō decides to cook the indigenous Ainu dishes chitatap (meat or fish pounded with bones) and ohaw (soup). Instead of squirrel or rabbit meat, however, she has to use chicken and other ingredients that are easily available in California.

This therefore exemplifies another kind of border crossing, as well as a gentle subversion of “authenticity,” “originality,” and political correctness. The Ainu-inspired dish that Itō, or more precisely, her persona, cooks, is multiple times removed from the authentic dish – partly because it is inspired by the dish as represented through the medium of another narrative (the manga), and also because of the great gap between the freezing Hokkaido of the early twentieth century and the warm southern California of the early twenty-first century. Similar to the case of the California rolls, the humor in this essay also involves the reception of a supposedly “indigenous” dish by someone from another culture. In this case, that recipient is Itō’s husband, who is moved by the “first Ainu dish” he has ever tasted, which subsequently becomes a regular item on their family menu.

From other essays in the volume, we know that Itō’s partner comes from a Jewish-English background (his persona is based on artist Harold Cohen, 1928-2016) and tends to be very particular about food, drink, and everything else. It is therefore funny that this hybrid dish with compromised ingredients has been accepted into the family as an “Ainu dish.” This is contrasted with other essays such as the one discussed below, which, despite involving various degrees of border crossing and modification, also stresses the husband’s insistence on culinary authenticity.

 

Pilgrimage to the Curry Mile

 

Itō visits this famous street in Manchester with her husband who, as a former Londoner, is a curry connoisseur. Her husband rages against the inauthenticity of vindaloo curry in the United States. According to him, travesties like “mild vindaloo,” or vindaloo that is not made using mustard oil are insults to Indian culinary culture.

His rage, though it may be difficult to handle in real life, creates humor in the text. Furthermore, the unforgivable inauthenticity of the American “vindaloo” becomes a source of shared amusement for the husband and the waiter in a restaurant in Manchester’s Curry Mile. Itō’s husband is pleased that his vindaloo is unquestionably hot and made with mustard oil, and he – a Jewish Brit – shares a laugh with the waiter – an Indian Brit – at the “barbarity of American culture.”

 

Oysters and Scotch

 

Tensions around her husband’s insistence on the authenticity of food culture act as a source of humor in many other essays. In this essay, for example, Itō visits the Isle of Islay with her Scotch-loving husband. He only drinks single malt whisky from this island. Itō tries a special oyster dish recommended by her Japanese friend who visited this island: oysters natural with nothing but drops of whisky. Although her husband would never dream of eating oysters in such an inauthentic way, she finds it delicious and discovers that it was invented by a Japanese traveler.

Aoyama’s earlier projects on the theme of the “Cooking Man” and “Gastronomic Fiction” in modern Japanese literature (Aoyama 2003 & 2008) identify several characteristics of male food connoisseurs and commentators. These include the cooking man’s global wandering, his solitude, his preference for local ingredients cooked in authentic ways, and his insistence on masculine cooking by using the whole fish or a great lump of meat and eschewing measuring cups, spoons or finicky instructions. Another prominent characteristic is the “mansplaining,” so to speak, of male chefs, fathers, boyfriends, and other male figures, who preach to women about what to do and what not to do – what to appreciate and what to despise and so on.

In Itō’s texts, the husband persona does share a certain element of stubbornness in his search for the best and authentic cuisine. However, the first-person narrator makes his meticulousness a comic ingredient – a touch of seasoning, if you will – in her narrative. In the Oysters and Scotch episode, she goes ahead with tasting this inauthentic dish and discovers the story behind it.

In translating this piece, we spent some time mulling over the distinction between whisky/whiskey. Whiskey is the accepted spelling in the United States and Ireland, whereas most other countries use whisky. Had the essay discussed the drink simply as a type of alcoholic beverage, we would not have thought twice about spelling the word with an e. However, we were aware that for whisky/whiskey connoisseurs such as Hiromi’s partner, the whisky/whiskey distinction is important, with whiskey used to refer to whiskey originating in Ireland, and whisky used to refer to whisky from most other producers. We ultimately decided to use whisky, to emphasize the Scottish origins of this particular drink, and in order to pay tribute to Hiromi’s partner and his unyielding adherence to culinary authenticity.

 

Eating and Processing Itō’s Food

 

As an acclaimed poet, it comes as no surprise that Itō’s writing in these essays is rhythmical and lively. As translators, however, rendering such vibrant prose into English proved to be quite a challenge. Earlier we mentioned the need to deal with key terms such as tsume. The lack of an equivalent word or conception of this word in English meant that our translations sometimes had to offer lengthier explanations. We had to strike a balance between accurately describing the words in question, and maintaining the liveliness of Itō’s Japanese, which was particularly evident in humorous passages.

The ease with which Itō’s writing flows in her essays would lead readers like us to believe that writing these essays was also a smooth process. Yet surprisingly, in her afterword to Delicious!, the poet-essayist confesses that, to her surprise, writing food essays turned out to be quite difficult. Itō wonders if “food is something that pretends to be food but is perhaps something else,” and after some thought, she wonders if food could, in fact, be herself:

Food is something that is bred and killed, or grown and harvested, and processed in places far from where I am, distributed, delivered to me, put into my mouth, masticated (and in this process is considered delicious or terrible), passed through the esophagus, passed through the stomach, partly absorbed, and excreted as feces. That is food.

What a discovery that this food is myself. (Umashi, pp. 187-8)

With this in mind, we can further appreciate the simple but flavorful taste of the four pieces sampled here, and think about the food we eat and digest – as part of ourselves.

 

Text used for translation:

 

Itō Hiromi, Umashi, Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 2018.

 

 

References:

 

Tomoko Aoyama, “The Cooking Man in Modern Japanese Literature,” in Kam Louie and Morris Low, eds, Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice of Manhood in China and Japan, London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003, pp. 155-176.

_____, Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008.

_____, “Food, Humor, and Gender in Ishigaki Rin’s Poetry,” in Gitanjali G. Shahani, ed., Food and Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 303-318.

 

 

[1] For the quotation from Ishigaki’s poem, we used the translation by Hiroaki Sato, with “crushed” modified to read “pounded.” Sato’s translation is available at https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/pan-pot-burning-fire-i-have-front-me. For more information about Ishigaki, see Aoyama 2018.


Tomoko Aoyama
Mariko Kishi-Debski

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