明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！Translation: “Happy New Year! I humbly ask to receive your favor this year as well!” Isn’t Japanese great? I hope you all had a fun New Years!
New Years’ celebrations are a main feature of Japanese culture. The sense of renewal, and the opportunities that come with it, can invigorate not only individuals but the whole workplace too. I wrote about an end of the year party a few weeks ago, and this week is the New Year corollary. Some offices go all out and have another party at a restaurant (especially if the end of year party got skipped for some reason), but some places keep it simple with a little lunch together on the first day back at work. My office has a tradition of ordering lunch from a certain longstanding restaurant in Nagasaki.
Just after noon on the our first day of work, 19 of these sets of ceramic bowls with lids were delivered to our office. The name of the restaurant is 吉宗, which is on the lid. It’s pronounced 「よっそう」 or “yossō”. This restaurant was established in 1866 right here in Nagasaki. The restaurant started with the set we ate, but has expanded its menu over it’s over 150-year history. You can read about that history here. It’s in Japanese only, but their website has an automatic translation feature that produces terrible English. Thank goodness robots still can’t do my job, haha.
So, what is this historic dish?
At first glance, does anyone have any ideas about what’s going on here?
On the left is 茶碗蒸し (chawanmushi) commonly translated as “steamed savory egg custard.” I’ve not had chawanmushi in America, so I don’t know if my American friends would have a point of reference on what it might be like. It’s like a gelatin that has a light egg flavor. Resting prominently on the surface are two pieces of kamaboko, or steamed fish paste, and below the surface is usually a bit of chicken, one shrimp, a mushroom, some konbu, and a big sweet bean. The bean is at the bottom usually, waiting for you like a tiny dessert inside your bowl.
On the right is 蒸し寿司 (mushi-zushi), or “steamed-sushi”. The reason it’s called sushi is that the rice is vinegared and then food is laid on top. The brown topping is eel, the pink is fish, and the yellow is egg. Some people mix it all up, and some people eat them separately, digging down into the bowl like Calvin with his peanut butter.
When the food arrived, we put down newspaper flyers to keep the tables clean, then laid down a set for everyone.
The Nagasaki Prefecture International Affairs Division enjoying their first lunch back from the holiday break. (Courtesy of Ms. Maeyama)
It’s a tradition in the International Affairs Division to get lunch from this restaurant every year. In other places in the Prefectural Government, and private businesses too, the ‘first lunch back at work’ tradition holds but of course the restaurant will be different. It’s nice to spend a little time with your coworkers and not have to talk about work. Our table discussions ranged from how to describe the pink fish topping to Chinese people, to why the IAD always orders from this same restaurant, to whether or not pineapple ought to be a topping on a burger. The answer is yes, of course, but that’s beside the point
