Kyoto's "Kyoto cuisine," Osaka's skewers, and Kobe's sake and beef represent the style and taste of Japanese food: refined, delicate, and natural. Kinki was once Japan's most economically developed region, and it was also the place where Japan's consumer culture was most developed. To this day, Kyoto's cuisine, Osaka's snacks, and Kobe's sake and beef are still famous throughout Japan.
Kyoto cuisine
The Japanese call Kyoto cuisine simply "Kyoto cuisine". There are many Kyoto, Kaiseki, and Kaiseki restaurants all over Japan, and most of them trace their origins back to Kyoto. No matter how small the restaurant is, it will have a miniature garden, bamboo and paper lanterns, and a lightly made-up lady boss. I have eaten Kyoto cuisine many times, not in Kyoto, but at banquets in other cities and hotels in tourist destinations. At the higher class banquets, there were geisha performances, and the geisha performed nagashi and shamisen, the words of which I didn't understand, and the others didn't seem to be very interested in either. However, after the performance, when the geishas sang and drank with everyone, the gentlemen were very happy. I roared into the microphone a "September 9 brewing new wine good wine out of our hands ......," causing two young geisha straight to me, "Brother, what song you sing, write out the lyrics, teach us, next time to accompany you together! I'll sing it with you next time." In fact, "Kyoto cuisine" can be roughly understood as Japanese cuisine that inherits the traditions of the previous generation. In the Heian period, the Japanese court developed the "entertainment meal", i.e., a banquet for socializing. In the Kamakura period, "Seishin-ryori," or fasting meals, were created. In the Muromachi period, many styles of cuisine emerged, formalizing the "Honzen Cuisine," which was the court banquet style of cuisine. During the Azuchi-Momoyama period, Chirikyu, the famous tea sage, invented the tea ceremony and created the basic format of "kaiseki cuisine" before drinking tea. In order to combat cold and hunger, Zen monks would place hot stones in their arms, called "kaiseki," and the simple meal served in the tea room functioned like a kaiseki, hence the name "kaiseki cuisine. The simple meals served at the tea house functioned like kaiseki, hence the name "kaiseki cuisine". "Kaiseki cuisine is simple and basically consists of three dishes, sashimi, hot and cold, served in a single portion per person. It is said that later generations of Japanese cuisine have inherited more of the Kaiseki style.
The new generation of creative kaiseki, the continuation of the spirit of the original cooking, but broke the traditional kaiseki style is too elaborate, first of all, in the order of dishes, the traditional kaiseki must have seven points of appetizers (seven kinds of complicated work of small dishes), bowl of sheng (handmade dishes with soup), sashimi, Yang thing (fried), boiled things, burned things and food (rice or soup), in the past, you have to be according to the order of dishes, the new school of kaiseki cuisine The new kaiseki cuisine adheres to the order of cold dishes and then hot dishes, and does not insist on what kind of dishes are served first, allowing the chef to be more flexible in mixing and matching the dishes.
During the Edo period, Nagasaki saw the emergence of "Chokoro cuisine". Chokurai means "tablecloth," which means that the food was served on a table with a tablecloth. After the middle of the Edo period, the development of industry and commerce brought about a boom in the restaurant industry, and restaurants organized kaiseki and honzen dishes suitable for banquets into the form of "kaiseki cuisine". Today, kaiseki cuisine consists of a soup, sashimi, grilled products, and stew. There are also various combinations of five, seven, and nine courses. Among them, Kyoto kaiseki cuisine is the most representative, and many Japanese hotels use Kyoto kaiseki cuisine for their Japanese-style banquets. Kaiseki cuisine is not only about cooking, but also about the container, arrangement, and color combination. Not only the use of bamboo, wood, pottery, porcelain, lacquer and other containers, but also the use of plant flowers, leaves and other materials to accentuate the natural colors of the cuisine, coupled with soft lighting and elegant environment, it is really interesting.
Snacks in Osaka
Snacks in Osaka are one of the best in Japan. In addition to takoyaki (octopus balls), yakitori (skewered meat) and yakitori (grilled chicken) are the most famous. There is a watchtower called Tontenkaku near Tenkyoji Temple in Osaka, and near the watchtower there is an old street called "Shojo Yokocho", where there are many beef kebab stores. There are many yakitori restaurants with the name "so-and-so hormone", but no one can tell you what part of the hormone is. No one can tell. In any case, there are many parts, including the waist, face, ears, tongue, windpipe, chin, first stomach, second stomach, third stomach, fourth stomach, the combination of the third and fourth stomachs, heart, lungs, cardiovascular system, diaphragm, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, cecum, liver, tendons, and tail, which are all named individually, and have a different texture and flavor. However, these names are only often eaten in Osaka people know, outsiders can only look at the recipe mess point, eat half a day only know that the texture is different, but do not know what part of the food is eaten.
As for grilled chicken skewers, there are basically two types: those flavored with a heavily sweetened gravy and those seasoned with salt and a few spices. Kanto people prefer the former, Osaka people the latter. Because the latter is light in flavor, it requires high quality chicken and grilling techniques, and you can also taste the original flavor of the chicken.
Kobe Beef and Sake
The Nada area near Kobe is the home of sake. Together with the neighboring city of Nishinomiya, it is known as "Nadagogo", Japan's number one sake region. The sake produced here accounts for about 30% of all the sake produced in Japan. Because of the abundance of raw material, "Yamada-nishiki" (rice for sake), the skills of Tamba's craftsmen, the cold winds blowing down from Mt. Rokko, and Miyamizu (Miyagi water), which is high quality underground water, and the convenience of transportation, the area became one of the most popular places for sake production after the middle of the Edo period. As a result, the sake brewing industry flourished in this area from the middle of the Edo period onward. There are still more than 50 breweries in the area, and most of the famous brand-name breweries are located in Nadagogo. Examples include Kiku-Masamune, Hakutsuru, and Nihonmori. In addition, there are many sake museums and archives in Kobe. For example, there is the Kiku-Masamune Brewery Memorial Museum and the Kobe Sake Shinkan in Higashi-Tan Ward. When you visit a brewery, you can taste the sake for free, and if you drink a round of sake, you will get drunk if you have a small capacity. Sake is classified as inferior to blended sake, superior to naturally brewed sake, and the highest grade is called "Daiginjo. Sake is very fine and you can drink a lot of it without getting a headache.
Kobe Beef is the highest brand of beef in Japan, and its fame began when Kobe opened its harbor. Foreigners brought the habit of eating beef and the evaluation of beef. Good Kobe beef, not only to choose pure blood black but horse cattle, but also through a special fattening process, drinking water, feed, additives, growing environment should pay attention to. The best beef is called "Frost", which requires red meat and fat to be intertwined like frost, and the pattern is as beautiful as natural marble, so that you can eat it without stuffing your teeth or feeling fat, and it melts in your mouth. Such a steak costs several thousand yen a guest.
Other Cuisines
To see if a party knows how to eat, look at their daily meals. Kansai's ramen, especially udon, is very flavorful. In terms of daily ramen, Kanto soup noodles are generally dark in color and salty, while Kansai soup noodles are light in color and bland in taste. Kansai people pay more attention to the natural flavor of ingredients, and the soup of Kansai ramen may look as light as water, but it tastes fresh and fragrant. While sushi made of sliced fish and rice balls originated in Tokyo during the Edo period, Kansai's "perch sushi" is much older, said to be more than 1,000 years old, probably around the same time as human beings have been growing rice. "Perch is the Chinese word for carp. In March, a type of carp from Lake Biwa is scaled and gutted, salted until late July, and washed and dried. It is then interlocked with freshly simmered rice in a container, fermented and eaten. It is usually eaten within half a year, and there is also a type of sushi in which new rice is put in every year and left for two or three years before it is eaten. This kind of sushi has a very strong odor, many Japanese people can not stand, love to eat as a treasure.