Untangling My Chopsticks (11 page)

Many women in Kyoto still don kimonos, but usually only for special occasions, such as a concert, a special luncheon, or a tea ceremony. They wear these silken robes pulled tightly around the neck and belted so as to hang just above the ankles, unlike the geisha, who let their kimonos swirl about their feet and dip open in the back to reveal whitened shoulders marked with a sensual prong of unpainted flesh.

Across from a new green-and-red Fuji film store sat a small restaurant in a decrepit old building offering dusty plastic models of tempura-topped rice bowls and fat rice-stuffed omelets
belted with ketchup. The eatery appeared more distressing than appealing, at least on the surface.

The Japanese believe that beauty can reside in things that are rustic, withered, faded, simple, imperfect, or incomplete. This aesthetic concept applies to people, as well as things, and stems from the words
wabi
and
sabi.
The spirit of wabi tends to be inward and subjective and often refers to a path or way of life, while sabi generally pertains to material objects, art, literature, and external events. A monk living in self-imposed isolation in the woods, for example, embodies wabi because he coexists with nature in a state that is physically impoverished but rich in spirit. The restaurant with its dusty models had a sabi quality because, by being housed in a crumbling wooden building next to a modern business, it evoked the corroded elegance of another era, like an antique kimono in a closet of designer wear.

The cooking school at Mushanokoji embodied a sense of sabi. Unlike the meticulously maintained tearooms clustered around it, the school stood in shabby disarray. Yet, this worn-out classroom served as the humble stage upon which occurred the most revered form of Japanese cooking—tea kaiseki.

“Are you Stephen, by any chance?” I asked, turning to the only Western man in the hall outside the classroom. It was just before 1:00, and I was still out of breath, having sprinted for the past five minutes to avoid being late for our first tea kaiseki class.

“Yup,” he said, modestly laughing. I introduced myself, thinking how different he looked from the reedy academic with horn-rimmed glasses I had imagined on the phone.

Stephen clearly wasn't subsisting on sushi. He had a well
upholstered frame and dark beady eyes set into a soft fleshy face, like two raisins pressed into a dinner roll. He had brushed his straight brown hair forward so that it created a sort of V in front that pointed directly to his long nose, flattened at the tip as if someone had filed it off. A navy-blue sweater covered his Buddha belly, which he had tucked comfortably into a pair of faded blue pants, belted so high I could see the cuffs of his white athletic socks worn under his Birkenstock sandals. His most characteristic feature was his smile; a perfect orange-section grin that had earned him the self-described nickname “the happy one.”

At precisely 1:00, Stephen and I filed into the classroom, along with a cluster of middle-aged Japanese women and one Japanese gentleman, who turned out to be a restaurant chef. A worn baby-blue plastic curtain, looking more appropriate for a shower than a cooking school, hung across the back of the room. Pine cabinets, some with their doors hanging off their hinges, flanked both sides of the room, while dusty metal blinds blocked out the sunlight from the rippled glass windows. Stacks of cardboard boxes, sun-bleached papers, and miscellaneous crockery covered the remaining shelf space.

A long black counter with a built-in metal sink and large gas burner for cooking demonstrations ran across the front of the classroom. Behind it hung a forest-green chalkboard. In front of the chalkboard stood our teacher, Ms. Sen Sumiko.

“
Konnichiwa
(good afternoon),” she trilled in a voice uncannily similar to Julia Child's. Although much shorter than our American icon, she had the same I-love-to-eat look that she had eased into a black shirt and stretchy black turtleneck. She had pulled her raven hair into a loose bun and dabbed pink lipstick on her full lips, which pursed into a pretty pout.

As she continued to talk, her words sailed past me like curve
balls. I labored to catch at least one familiar ingredient or cooking term, but they flew off into the distance, leaving me marooned at my desk with a blank notebook.

“Always wet your cutting board to soften the surface so it won't dull the knives,” Stephen leaned over and whispered. He was sitting next to me and had been madly scribbling along with the other students. Japanese Julia babbled on. I uncapped my pen.

“A stomach four-fifths full knows no doctors,” Stephen said. I wrote that down.

“The food served at a tea kaiseki should be just enough to satisfy hunger, but not so much as to spoil your appetite for the tea.” Stephen tapped his pen on my notebook. “That's very important.”

I jotted down what I could, then supplemented my notes with Stephen's explanations in a nearby coffee shop after class. Basically, what I learned was this: it was Kyoto's temples that inspired the development of tea kaiseki. Based on early Indian Buddhist practice, Japanese monks were allowed only two meals a day, breakfast and lunch. However, since the monks often engaged in physical labor, such as scrubbing floors and raking leaves, they became quite hungry toward what would normally be dinnertime. To trick themselves into feeling full during evening meditations, they often tucked hot stones into the front fold of their kimonos, the pocket-like area that forms when the left side folds over the right. These stones, which had been heated in piles of burning leaves and twigs and then wrapped in cloth, triggered the release of gastric juices when pressed against the stomach. This, in turn, brought about a sense of satiation. The monks called these stones
yakuseki
(literally, “medicine stone”), because
yaku
means “medicine” and
seki
means “stone.”

Over time, the hot stones gave way to small dishes of sim
ple vegetarian foods prepared in a minimalist manner, a bit of steamed rice, miso soup, and some vegetables. This modest repast became known as a yakuseki. The monks called it such because by considering this small meal “medicine,” they were healing the “illness” of hunger and, thus, not opposing Buddha's teachings.

As the tea ceremony began to spread beyond the temples, the monks started conducting tea ceremonies at the imperial court to amuse the wealthy patrons who supported the temples. However, the aristocracy wanted more than a spartan temple meal to precede their whipped green tea (which at the time wasn't always the highlight of the gathering). They wanted something more akin to the formal banquets they frequently enjoyed, called
honzen ryori,
meaning “main-tray cooking.” Modeled after Chinese court cuisine, honzen ryori consisted of up to seven trays of food holding up to three soups and eleven side dishes, plus rice, pickles, and several ornamental dishes. (This multicourse feast still appears today at Japanese weddings, funerals, and festivals.)

In an effort to please the aristocracy, the monks began serving a variation of honzen ryori cuisine before the whipped green tea. Featuring elaborate ingredients fashioned into numerous courses served on rare dishes with many rounds of sake, the meal was called a
kaiseki
because one of the many meanings of
kai
is “group” and
seki
can also mean “gathering place.”

“Now we're going to cook,” said Stephen, licking his lips. He often did that in a moment of anticipation before a good meal. His eyes also started blinking rapidly.

“You'll be my partner,” he announced, heaving his bulk out of the tiny wooden chair. I followed him over to one of the six cooking stations situated throughout the room. The housewives had divided into pairs; Mrs. Hisa partnered with the Japanese chef and took the cooking station behind us.

Our preparation space consisted of a waist-high stainless steel counter, which dropped down to a thigh-high metal shelf holding three gas burners. Wooden cutting boards and knives sat in the center of the counter surrounded by our ingredients. Pots and pans rested above our heads on a stainless steel shelf attached to two metal poles welded onto the counter.

Looking at my watch, I calculated we had ten dishes to make in an hour and a half. But since all our recipes were in Japanese, I was going to have to rely on Stephen for everything, including what we were going to cook.

“We're making New Year's foods,” said Stephen, strapping on an apron. “In tea, you have two New Years because you have the New Year's in November to celebrate the start of the new tea year and then you have the New Year's that comes after Christmas.” He reached for a wooden-handled pot and passed it to me, along with a bamboo steamer.

“We're making the post-Christmas type of New Year's foods. So the menu has lots of red and white ingredients for happiness and congratulations. You know, pretty foods,” he said, grinning. “Cheerful foods.” I tied on my apron.

“Okay, wipe down this piece of konbu,” he instructed, handing me a large piece of brown kelp speckled with white. “When you're done, measure out one cup of vinegar and half a cup of sugar. That's your marinade.” I busied myself with the seaweed, while Stephen pulled out flexible opaque salmon bones. After skinning the fish, he sliced it down the center seam, creating two pieces, which he cut into quarter-inch-thick slices. Then, like magic, he transformed a knob of ginger into a miniature golden haystack.

I handed him the slippery piece of kelp, which he squared off and placed on a bamboo sushi roller. Next, he laid several
slices of salmon across the shiny middle, sprinkled it with a few threads of ginger, and rolled it up like a nori roll. After sealing the cylinder in plastic wrap, he handed it to me.

“Cut this into bite-size pieces.” The sweet and tangy kelp yielded like a cooked lasagna noodle under the sharp knife, creating exotic coral-and-sienna pinwheels.

Next, we made delicate egg crepes to wrap around thick oily slices of mackerel that we had soaked in a bracing mix of dashi, sugar, and soy. This was followed by a small “salad” of lightly salted white fish “noodles” tossed with salmon roe and lemony yuzu.

As we buzzed around our stations, the room filled with the sweet briny aroma of dashi. Pans clattered. Seafood sizzled. And Japanese Julia walked around the room passing out morsels of advice.

But Stephen hardly needed any. He had been living in Kyoto for the past twelve years and studying tea kaiseki for the past eight. He clearly knew what he was doing. In fact, he was doing most of the work.

After I steamed four giant clams over a skillet of sake, Stephen ripped out the meat and hacked it into chunks. With cupped hands, he scooped up the chewy bits and threw them in a bowl. Then he stirred in spicy red-and-white radish wedges and a warm dressing of wasabi, sugar, and sweet white miso that I had stirred in a small saucepan over a low flame until it became thick and shiny. Following his directions, I spooned the golden clams back into their shells. Stephen garnished them with a pink-and-white “congratulatory” flower of spongy wheat gluten. “Precious,” he said, winking at me.

Next, we made sea urchin–egg balls, first blending creamy lobes of sea urchin with raw egg yolk and a little dashi. Stephen
cooked the mixture until it formed a stiff paste and then pressed it through a sieve. I plopped a golden dollop in a clean damp cloth and flattened it into a disc. In the center I put three crescents of lily bulb tenderized in salt water.

“Try one,” urged Stephen, handing me a wedge of lily bulb. It was mealy and sweet, kind of like a boiled cashew. Stephen brought together the four corners of the damp cloth and twisted it gently to create a bubble of eggy sea urchin paste stuffed with lily bulb. When unveiled, it looked like a Rainier cherry. I twisted out nineteen more balls, which we later arranged on fresh green leaves draped across black lacquer trays.

Next, we impaled several fat shrimp on two metal skewers, sending one rod through the head and the other through the tail. We grilled the grayish pink bodies until they became rosy on one side and then flipped them over until they turned opaque. Stephen painted golden egg yolk for prosperity over the juicy crustaceans and returned them to the grill until they smoldered and charred.

After the shrimp, we made “sandwiches” fashioned from crisp lotus root rounds and chewy plum leather. We sliced the lotus root into thin wheels and then blanched them before steeping them in a syrup of sugar, rice vinegar, salt, and water. The sandwiches tasted like sweet-pickled jicama topped with guava paste, odd on their own, but a fabulous tangy-sweet interlude in a multicourse tea kaiseki.

Toward the end of class, Stephen and I created apricot-and-radish-stuffed crabapples. We gently scooped out the fruit's flesh with tiny spoons, brushed the inside with lemon water to prevent browning, and then filled them with a sticky mix of chopped apricots that had soaked overnight in vinegar, sugar, soy, and the fiery juice of grated daikon radish squeezed through cheesecloth.

After that, we made miso-pickled lettuce spines wrapped with smoked salmon. We sliced off the curly green portion of several romaine lettuce leaves to reach the pale crisp rib, which we cut crosswise in half. After coating the watery spines with sweet white miso, we let them pickle for ten minutes. Then we wiped them clean and wrapped them with strips of smoked salmon, like rollmops. A nice cocktail hors d'oeuvre, I thought, looking at the pink-and-green bundles.

The climactic course was the
wanmori,
a bowl of choice ingredients surrounded by a first dashi, lightly seasoned and delicately garnished.
Wan
refers to the type of lacquer bowl in which the dish is served and
mori
is from the verb
moru,
meaning “to pile up.”When choosing the menu for a tea kaiseki the chef first settles upon the wanmori, then plans the rest of the menu around it. This is because the wanmori is considered a culmination of the chef 's talents, the quality of his broth combined with the freshness, flavor, color, aroma, texture, taste, and arrangement of the seasonal ingredients in the bowl.