[I Will No Longer Hide My Onigiri] ~Identity Was Born from Food~ 3

Part 3: Food Circumstances in the UK

What is the National Dish?

To begin with, the UK and Japan have different cooking styles. In Japan, most things are cooked by placing a pot or frying pan on a tabletop heat source called a HOB. In contrast, in the UK, cooking is often completed entirely inside an oven.
The appearance of food on a plate is generally brownish, and for some reason, the side vegetables are overboiled and faded in color. I could understand if it were a stew where the flavors had soaked in, but 30 years ago I wondered why vegetables boiled only in salt would turn such a color... but things have improved over time, and the shock has lessened considerably.
Even so, I feel that the 'colorfulness' that Japanese people enjoy by savoring the seasons and eating with their eyes is lacking.

In the early 2000s, when I heard that 'curry' was the national dish because it was what British people liked most, I thought it was the same as 'curry rice' being at the top of the list of home-cooked meals that Japanese people like. The background of the UK's colonial rule of India is strong, but I was surprised by its status as a national dish.
It seems this didn't come from a national referendum, but rather from the then-Prime Minister saying, 'Chicken Tikka Masala is a British national dish.' Chicken tikka is chicken marinated in yogurt and spices and baked in an oven (a tandoor oven in India). It is a curry made by mixing that with a masala sauce using tomatoes, onions, garlic, heavy cream, and spices. It turns out that the British invention was making the spiciness mild with the richness of heavy cream.

When I asked AI what the current national dish of the UK is, it replied: Fish & Chips (44%), Roast dinner (38%), and Full-English breakfast (23%).
These results are close to what I expected.
If we are talking only about children, I think their favorite meal is pizza without exception.
In Japan, for children's birthday parties and the like, including the participation of mom friends, I used to go all out as if it were a place to show off my skills. Since coming here, I learned early on that if I were to serve something that the children's friends wouldn't even look at, frozen pizza is a safer bet.

I want to ask, what exactly is British cuisine?

To begin with, I think the British are a people who are not very particular about eating. I feel like I read somewhere that in the UK, being obsessed with eating is considered unrefined or lacking in class. Is it the feeling that noble people should not worry about what they eat and can live on nothing but mist?
Conversely, Japanese people have an insatiable passion for food. This is something I only realized after coming to the UK.
When two or more of us Japanese gather, we end up talking about nothing but food. No matter how unrefined that may be, I think it is proof that Japanese people are Japanese.
There was a British person who said, 'Where Japanese people gather, there is always a feast.' That is because the motivation is that you want to eat delicious things with people you can share them with.
I believe this is the same among local Japanese people all over the world, not just here.

The Existence of SUSHI

I will say it again, in the UK, the expenditure on eating out does not match the level of satisfaction.
If it were Japan, even if you didn't eat out at a restaurant, you could just get something at a convenience store or supermarket.
It seems simple. In Japan, there are enough choices to worry about what to eat.

In British supermarkets, they basically do not provide hot food. Depending on the store, there are hot counters with pies, whole roast chickens, and chunks of roasted or fried meat, but they are far from 'piping hot.' The equivalent of a Japanese onigiri is a sandwich, but they are lined up on chilled shelves and are unnecessarily cold.
It has been a quarter of a century since SUSHI (assortments of bite-sized thin rolls) appeared in the sandwich sections of some supermarkets. In the early 2000s, the cold, hardened sushi rice was inedible. I think the UK is a country that is extremely fearful of food poisoning from rice. For about 20 years, they distributed it based only on food hygiene standards without really knowing much about sushi.
Finally, even at large supermarkets that sell at low prices, sushi assortments and boxed lunches labeled BENTO have started to be sold. The quality of the sushi rice and the storage methods have improved to the point where I end up buying them when I have been away from home for a few days and miss rice. I am very relieved about that.

There are times when I am sad enough to cry

Although it is said that selective breeding is one cause, I somehow always feel the harmful effects of wheat consumption. I also had a period of about a year and a half where I stuck to a gluten-free diet to improve my physical condition. If it were Japan, I could have just chosen rice, but how harsh was a gluten-free life in a country of wheat?
In the middle of a large supermarket, surrounded by overflowing food, there was nothing I wanted to eat and nothing I could eat without cooking.
It is not something I can say out loud, but I have cried tears because I was just so sad. I tried my best to restrain myself because crying in a supermarket is too childish, but every cell in my body was wailing.
I wonder if it is something to be praised as a human being to cry saying 'there is nothing to eat' in front of an abundance of food.
However, I missed Japan. Setting aside food culture and ideology, I envied the people in Japan just for being in a country of rice. If you look at the food labels, you would be shocked at how many additives are used in the UK to produce the same texture without using wheat.

Even looking around Europe, I feel that the UK has the lowest passion for eating. Although the UK is blessed with natural resources like the sea, delicious seafood is exported to France, Spain, and elsewhere. It is just that they have more passion for wanting seafood.

The fact that there are few types of fish that ordinary people can buy has not improved much even after 25 years. In Japan, the storage and distribution of fish are protected with one's life from the moment they are caught until they are lined up in stores. In such a Japan, even fish bought at a supermarket smells good while being cooked.
Compared to that, in the UK, the definition of 'fresh' is different. I think that even fishermen in the UK seem to value their 'Cup of tea' time more than the freshness of the fish they catch.
I buy fish at a store. It smells when I open the package. Even if I manage to cook it in a way that makes it somewhat edible, the inside of the house ends up smelling. There have even been times when the fish brought to the table at a restaurant smelled fishy.

Living in a beautiful seaside town, I wonder where the fresh fish is, and my sadness continues today...

A Life of Ingenuity

It is not just in the UK; in rural towns overseas, it is often difficult to get what you want. Even so, if you want to eat it yourself, you have to keep ingredients on hand that wouldn't normally be there.
In my home, that would be miso, mirin, and anko (sweet red bean paste).
Even if I order them from London, they are expensive, come in small quantities, and don't suit my taste, so I have no choice but to make them myself.
My fellow Japanese locals miss Japanese food just as much as I do. One Japanese friend of mine started making koji from the spores and even elevated it into a product. Thanks to this friend who became a koji maker, I can say that the lives of our Japanese community have become significantly richer.
Needless to say, the taste of homemade miso is excellent, and the mirin I make with vodka, glutinous rice, and koji is indescribably delicious to drink as well. Although it actually costs more to make it myself, it is truly priceless when used in cooking.
Despite being a dairy-farming country, the beef is often tough, but with the magic of shio-koji (salt koji), it becomes quite delicious. I can only call koji a gift from heaven.

I am speechless at the current soaring price of rice in Japan, but Japanese rice imported from Japan has always been expensive. I can buy medium-grain rice from the US or China, but at some point, I became unable to bear the fact that even if the texture is the same, it has absolutely no rice aroma when cooking.
I eat rice almost every day, and to support this consumption, I buy 25kg of brown rice from Italy. Every time I cook rice, I use a rice milling machine to turn it into germinated rice. Thanks to this, I think I am getting much more Vitamin B complex than people in Japan who eat white rice as their staple food. It goes without saying that it's killing two birds with one stone, as I use the bran for nukazuke (rice bran pickles).
For my favorite onigiri, germinated rice is just right. There is also brown rice onigiri, but for me, onigiri is more comforting and delicious when it is closer to white rice. If I ever became unable to mill the rice I have at home, I might be a bit lost.

If, by any chance, an organization that oppresses civilians were to come and confiscate my household goods, I even fantasize about protecting my 'rice milling machine' with my life. It has become that essential, and I believe that in the UK, my home's rice is the most delicious.

If you cannot buy what you need at a reasonable price, the flexibility to substitute with other foods is absolutely necessary. If you ask what I do about the umeboshi (pickled plum) for onigiri, I make a substitute by pickling plums or apricots in salt, even though they aren't real ume.
There is a vegetable called rhubarb that is boiled with sugar and used in pies and crumbles. It has been shared information among Japanese people living overseas for a long time that if you use this acidity and boil it with salt, it becomes something that can be mistaken for plum meat.

This is how I have learned to survive in the UK.
I am still alive and kicking today.

To be continued in part 4...