Long ago when I was an exchange student in Japan I had made it a goal to learn how to cook Japanese food.<\/p>\n
My first trip to a Japanese supermarket was a true learning experience for me. The size of the seafood section was 3 times as large as ones in supermarkets in the US but the meat section was half the size and four times more expensive. The produce section was filled with things I had never seen before. I had studied Japanese for three years at my home university before even arriving in Japan but never had I come across the kanji that were used to label various items on sale.<\/p>\n
This was before the advent of the smartphone but not so long ago that I didn\u2019t have access to an electronic dictionary. I made it a mission to decipher all of the names of things I would potentially be eating. So every few days I would go to the supermarket with a new recipe written in Japanese and my electronic dictionary to find the ingredients for the next meal I\u2019d try cooking.<\/p>\n
Though useful, my electronic dictionary wasn\u2019t always perfect. It often translated fish and vegetables using scientific or obscure names. I remember finding \u201ckonnyaku\u201d being translated as \u201cdevil\u2019s tongue\u201d and \u201cshiso\u201d as \u201cperilla frutescens\u201d. However, my kanji reading skills and ability to talk about food took a huge leap forward and without these experiences I would have never had the opportunity gain this knowledge. I also got to eat some amazing dishes that I still make today.<\/p>\n
Miguel<\/p>\n
\u3053\u3061\u3089\u304b\u3089\u97f3\u58f0\u3082\u805e\u3051\u307e\u3059\uff01<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u30b9\u30ed\u30fcver.
\n