WEEK 38
I can neither speak nor read Japanese, but I feel at home in Japan, especially in Tokyo. For the mountain mouse that I am, this is curious. Yet it comes down to the fact that even with the sensory overload and intense humanity that define Tokyo on one hand, the city is equally defined by pockets of perfect stillness.
It takes no more than 20 steps from a double-wide, traffic-laden thoroughfare with wall-to-wall skyscrapers to lose oneself in neighborhoods of winding streets – a wonderland of human-sized spaces where people actually live.
It is the Japanese cultural fixation on specialization that I find most endearing. Remarkably, this is evident in Tokyo’s eclectic zoning where, along streets barely wide enough for a car that fan out in all directions, you find door after door of establishments obsessed with one thing: a miniscule restaurant decorated with elaborate woodwork offering only soba noodles sits next door to a clothing store set in a refurbished indoor swimming pool which itself is down the street from a basement-level owl cafe (yes they are alive), all co-existing with zen-like single family concrete homes. Somehow it all works.
This week I am in Tokyo once again, my sixth or seventh trip. While I plan to spend ample time geeking out over food and design and architecture in all the places I love to re-visit, I am on the lookout for first-time experiences. And so I find myself alone on a 40-minute subway ride to Asakusa to learn how to cook Shojin Ryori – traditional Buddhist cuisine.
I desperately wanted to learn how to make tofu from a tofu master in a tofu shop at dawn but came up empty handed, even with locals on the case. On the contrary, I found an abundance of classes focused on sushi, tempura, okonomiyaki, udon and soba. All delicious food of course, but a bit too obvious. Then, near the end of my search exhaustion, I uncovered one class teaching Shojin on the one afternoon I was free – with the added bonus of being in a new-to-me neighborhood.
Asakusa is considered by many to be the heart of old Tokyo, sitting to the northeast on the banks of the Sumida River. My Japanese colleagues kept referring to Asakusa as downtown, which I found puzzling. In a city of 14 million people with numerous business districts how could this be downtown? But their point was historic. This is part of the original city center dating to the Edo era.
One of the most visited spots in Tokyo happens to be in Asakusa – Sensoji Temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in the city and a perfect starting point for my adventure. Sadly, much of this neighborhood (including the original temple built more than 1,000 years ago) had been destroyed during World War II, which explains the brightly painted reconstruction.
I exited the subway and walked right through Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) – the first of two gates leading to the temple — and became immediately invisible in a swarm of thousands of Japanese. Quite a surprise for 3:00pm on a Wednesday! I wandered the grounds, along with many men and women in traditional attire, did a little bow in the temple, and tried to soak up a bit of Buddhist virtue before my class.
With map in hand, I found the Chagohan cooking school in a quiet area of Asakusa a few blocks from the temple. I’d call this more suburb than downtown, with single lane streets and bikes galore, none of them locked.
Masa – the owner, chef and instructor – opened the door and addressed me as Jayme-san. I entered the lovely shop and met his wife Junko along with my one classmate, Veronique from Bordeaux. I found the space delightful. Masa and Junko had set up stations with individual cooktops, and had all of our ingredients for multiple courses prepped and waiting on small metal trays.
Masa began by explaining (in English) that Shojin Ryori (ryori = cuisine) is the art of cooking simple dishes. Its literal meaning is devotion food – a way to respect Buddhist principles, the most important of which is ahimsa, compassion for all beings. Given this, we would be cooking a strictly vegan menu – even our dashi (broth) would get its umami from a base of shiitake mushroom and not the traditional fish (bonito).
Masa also explained that in Shojin cooking there are minimal seasonings, and in some temples, there are strict rules even about which vegetables can be used depending on the season. Other elements of the cuisine form part of a monk’s practice. For example, making dengaku miso (sesame paste), which we did, can involve hours of repetitive grinding in a mortar and pestle. Perhaps most fascinating, Masa taught us that Shojin never uses ginger or garlic – he called them “energizing” – as they may interfere with the calm of a monk’s practice. (I would have happily taken a ginger-only class, so this was a bit of a disappointment.)
We donned our aprons, and over the next two and a half hours, under Masa’s tutelage, Veronique and I each created this beautiful collection of dishes:
We first tackled a steamed-rice “sushi” (in quotes because the rice did not have vinegar) layered with asparagus and topped with tamago modoki (mock egg) and edible flowers. We used a cypress-wood mold to create and cut the sushi – greatly simplifying what I imagine is a lifetime of learning to conquer rice that sticks to everything.
The mock egg (which you can see atop the rice in the photo) was a fascinating (and long) process of sautéing chopped tofu in rice oil, mirin and soy sauce along with gardenia water made yellow by soaking a dried gardenia bud. We kept adding gardenia water to the tofu, and boiling it off, until the tofu resembled scrambled eggs. Oh those vegan monks, so clever!
Daigaku imo, our candied sweet potato, was the standout and frankly could substitute for fries any day. My favorite part of this dish was the plating. Masa gave me long chopsticks to delicately build a small mountain of sweet potato in my bowl, before sprinkling it with black sesame seeds.
We then sautéed vegetable “steaks” including shiitake, daikon, baby corn and more sweet potato. The highlight was learning how to precisely cut the top of the mushroom to reveal a star.
Last up, the kushiage – skewered and deep-fried vegetables. We learned how to prep the okra with tiny knife-work along the tops to make them more aesthetically pleasing. The need for this extra work went over my head given that the whole thing was then dusted with flour and panko crumbs and deep fried. Coincidentally, I had eaten with local friends at a kushiage-only restaurant the night before, and here I was learning how to gingerly slice and fan out Japanese eggplant along a thin wood skewer.
I loved the whole experience and credit Masa for being a warm and engaging teacher, and for making a strong cultural connection. The food, however, left me wanting. It looked phenomenal and colorful, and the dense flavor of the sesame miso was divine with the sautéed vegetables. I made a point to eat slowly and find in the different preparations the natural flavors of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. But most of the bites lacked character to my palate.
Then again, putting it all in perspective, if I were a monk living in a monastery, I’m quite sure eating this meal would be the highlight of my day.
I finally got to Japan — in the blog, that is! I loved your last line — and the pictures are fantastic!