Travel Book Review ~ Untangling My Chopsticks by Victoria Abbott Riccardi

Untangling My Chopsticks - A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto by Victoria Abbott Riccardi. First published 2003 by Penguin. ISBN 0670041599. We often have a copy of this book in stock, click here to see if we have one now.

My partner Alison and I both read Untangling My Chopsticks as research for our last to trip to Japan, the primary purpose of which was to eat ourselves stupid (see our food blog if interested). The book is an account of the American author's year spent in Kyoto, the main purpose of which was to study Keiseki cuisine.

I must admit that for the first few pages we were sceptical about this book, we thought this was going to be another "spoilt whiney middleclass American person seeks their mojo overseas" kind of book, a foodie's version of Eat Pray Love. But we very quickly got to like the author who, just like us, is obsessed with Japanese food and culture. She moved to Japan on her own steam with limited funds, moved into a boarding house, later living with some locals, took Japanese lessons, taught English and undertook lessons from tea masters. In the book she shares her day to day life in Kyoto and, most importantly, gives a fascinating rundown on keisiki cuisine. 

The author has an easy writing style and she has certainly done her homework.  It's a light and upbeat yet intelligent read. I liked it. My partner loved it. Recommended to anybody interested in Kyoto and Japanese food.

As with all my reviews, I could blab on endlessly about the how good the book is, and you would have no reason to believe me because I would really like to sell a copy to you; so I select a favourite passage or two from the book and leave it up to you.

Arriving in Kyoto and that magicl feeling of a first meal in a new country

I celebrated my arrival in Kyoto with a dinner of grilled eel, a sublime delicacy in Japan. In the water the fish resembles a ferocious jagged-toothed snake. But when sizzled over hot charcoal it looks like a fillet of sole that has spent the winter in Palm Beach. The skin turns crisp and smoky and the fatty white flesh, basted with a sweet soy syrup, becomes deeply tanned and as succulent as foie gras.

The restaurant was located in a cheery yellow mall beneath Kyoto Station, home to the southern bus terminal, north-south subway line, and Japan Railroad Tokaido Main, one of the four major bullet train routes. Being coatless and having underestimated how cold it gets in Kyoto in early November after the sun goes down, I had ducked into the mall in search of warmth and something to eat. 

The restaurant lay at the end of a long corridor lined with inexpensive clothing emporiums, elegant Japanese sweet shops, and trinket stores selling sandalwood fans, pottery tea bowls, and I Love Kyoto key chains. Like all the other eateries in the area, the eel restaurant displayed life-like plastic models of the items on its menu in a brightly lit picture window. I chose a small wooden table for two in the back of the restaurant and sat down in the chair facing the kitchen. I was the only diner. The chef, sporting a clean pressed white cotton band around his forehead, came over to my table. He was apparently also the waiter. 

“Are you kmrmshtka?” asked the chef.

 “Hmmm?” My eyebrows shot up. 

“What would you nsmsplka?” I giggled nervously, then bit my lower lip. He gestured to the window and started walking. I followed him outside. “Unagiijxwbrp?” he asked. I began to tell him I wanted the tray holding the single, not double, fillet of grilled eel with rice, soup, and pickles, but he interrupted.

“No English,” he said with a frown, shaking his head. I tapped my finger several times against the glass in front of the dinner I wanted, hoping he might make the connection.

 “Ah, ah,” he exclaimed, pointing at the glass, “Unagixpxwz.” I squinted and leaned toward the window to read the plastic plaque marked with the meal’s price in yen, then slowly wrote the price on my palm with my index finger and tapped the window again.

“Hai, hai,“ he beamed, nodding vigorously. “Kirin?”  Now, that I understood.

“Yes,” I said loudly, as if increasing the volume might lead to an increased understanding.

 “Ladzkmttaka?” He opened his hands as if holding an invisible fire hydrant from top to bottom. 

“Yes! “ I boomed, not having the foggiest idea of what he had just asked.

The double-size beer arrived quickly, along with a glass. It wasn’t one of those huge Henry the VIII steins like we get back home, but instead a teensy tumbler, similar to what budget hotels in America use for juice glasses at their complimentary breakfast buffets. I filled the glass and took a sip. The amber liquid tasted bitter and refreshing. 

After about ten minutes, dinner came to the table, looking identical to its plastic counterpart. Unfortunately, the eel’s texture was similar too. But the accompanying steamed rice, pressed into the shape of a chrysanthemum, had a clean, delicate sweetness unlike any rice I had ever tasted. The tray also held a plastic bowl of miso soup, clear in parts and cloudy in others. I stirred the mixture with the tip of my chopsticks then picked up the bowl and sipped the savory liquid enriched with diced tofu and emerald wisps of wakame seaweed. 

In a shallow dish sat a small block of bean curd splashed with soy sauce and topped with pinkish curls of dried bonito that looked like pencil shavings. I cut into the silky white cube and tried to balance the craggy chunk on the slender pieces of wood. It tumbled off. After trying again, success was rewarded with the sweet taste of milky custard mingled with dark soy and smoky fish flakes. There were pickles too, crisp neon yellow half-moons of sweet daikon radish and crunchy slices of eggplant. Although I had not expected culinary brilliance from a mall restaurant, dinner was exceeding expectations. The ingredients were plain, but exceptional in their purity and freshness. 

As I moved around my tray—sipping, plucking, and crunching—I thought of all I had seen that day. Exotic images flashed to mind, including the painted orange gates of Yasaka Shrine, shaped like giant croquet wickets. There were the streetlights, heralding “uh-oh” for north-south foot traffic and “wheesh-wheesh” for east west. Ginkgo trees fluttered banana-yellow leaves shaped like tiny fans against the turquoise sky. Red and white vending machines, clustered near subway stations, glowed brightly with offerings of beer, batteries, and cans of hot sweet milk tea. In a tiny noodle shop near Tea Bowl Lane, where pottery shops flanked both sides of the street, I joined mothers, children, and old men to slurp thick starchy udon noodles from a bowl of savory fish broth. At Kiyomizu-dera (Clear Water Temple), a massive wooden structure looming over the city against a backdrop of vermilion maples, I stepped inside the main hall to see the female Buddha of Mercy and Compassion. Fabricated from gold, she stood on a pedestal waving her “thousand arms” in a dark room with slippery wooden floors and smoky air pungent with the musky sweet smell of incense. Afterward I drank cold clear water from an aluminum ladle at the Sound-of-Feathers Waterfall below the temple with a crowd of boisterous schoolchildren, then sampled a green tea butter cookie at a gift shop in the mall beneath Kyoto Station. Even the beer with dinner tasted new to me, cleaner crisper, and less fizzy than what I was used to back home. It had been a day of pure exhilaration, an unexpected adrenaline rush in anticipation of the exciting, unpredictable, hopeful promise of Kyoto—my new home.

On The Origins of the Japanese Tea Ceremony...

The focus of my trip to Kyoto was the study of tea Kaiseki. I first learned about this esoteric cuisine from the reference librarian at the Japan Society in New York. One summer afternoon on my lunch break from the ad agency, I had stopped by the reference desk to ask about cooking opportunities in Kyoto. The Japanese woman behind the desk mentioned chakaiseki (tea kaiseki), a highly ritualized cuisine that accompanies the formal tea ceremony.

Tea first came to Japan in the sixth century by way of Japanese Buddhist monks, scholars, warriorss, and merchants who travelled to China and brought back tea pressed into bricks. It was not until 1191, during the Song dynasty, that the Japanese Buddhist priest, Eisai (also known as Yosai) carried home from China fine quality tea seeds and the method for making matcha (powdered green tea). The tea seeds were cultivated on the grounds of several temples and later in such areas as the Uji district just south of Kyoto.

Following the Chinese traditional method, Japanese Zen monks would steam, dry, then grind the tiny green tea leaves into a find powder and whip it with a bamboo whisk in boiling water to create a thick medicinal drink to stimulate the senses during long periods of meditation.

Over time, many of the monks became tea masters and started whipping green tea for the imperial court. By the early fourteenth century tea drinking had become a social event and the powdered green tea, which was quite costly, became a standard item on the imperial court's list of imported luxuries. Lavish tea gatherings featuring rare tea-making untensils from China, such as tea caddies, scoops, and tea bowls, regularly took place in the pavilions of the aristocracy.

When guests attend a formal tea ceremony they usually receive a kaiseki meal to prepare their stomachs for the tea, which can be quite caustic. The meal resembles a French dgustation in that there are a set series of tiny exquisite dishes that change with the seasons. After these delicacies, the tea master serves each guest a bowl of thick tea, followed by a bowl of thin tea. Because the bowl of thick tea is usually shared, it encourages the guests to bond with one another and their host in a somewhat spiritual manner, almost like taking communion.

This emphasis on spirituality dates back to when Kyoto served as the imperial capital from 794 to 1868. Buddhism, imported from China, became an alternative to Shinto, Japan's indigenous religion based on deities ruling over all things natural, such as mountains, rivers, rocks, and animals, with the sun goddess Amaterasu being the most powerful. (To honour and preserve the goodwill of these deities, the Japanese still hold festivals throughout the year at various shrines, often accompanied by offerings of sake and special foods).

Numerous arts also flourished in Kyoto, such as ikebana (formal flower arranging), Kabuki theatre, and chanoyu, the Japanese term for the formal tea ceremony. Chanoyu literally means "tea's hot water" and became one of the most influential art forms in the history of Japan. It affected architecture, painting, calligraphy, and food. Kyoto was where it all started.

"One could almost say Kyoto is steeped in tea" said the librarian, with a soft giggle.

The tea ceremony began to take on a spiritual dimension under several tea masters, including Sen no Rikyu, universally heralded as the most important tea master who has ever lived. Having studied Zen for decades at various temples, Rikyu considered the tea ceremony a spiritual and artistic communion with nature that should embody harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, the essence of Zen Buddhism. Rikyu saw making tea in a ritually prescribed manner as a form of meditation through which one could explore and polish oneself. In fact, it became one of the ways to reach enlightenment.

But Rikyu's idea of a temple was much more humble than the ornate pavilions of the imperial court. He wanted the teahouse to blend in with nature and become more of a backdrop for the tea ceremony, so he helped design it's redesign. Over time, the teahouse became a simple hut set in a garden with mud and plaster walls, a thatched roof, a bamboo lattice ceiling, tatami floors, and small paper covered windows. It became a refuge in the city meant to echo a mountain retreat, where samurai from warring clans, lowly merchants, and even the emperor could come together on equal footing and focus on nothing more than the sensory tea water on the brazier, the seasonal flower arrangement in the alcove, and the smell of the particular incense chosen to represent the time of year.

This Brief Quote By the Author's Father Sticks in Our Mind - Reasons to Travel...

"The clock of life is wound just once," he said, turning to me. "If you want to go to Japan, now is the time."

Notes from class tea kaiseki class...

"The food served at a tea kaiseki shoudl be just enough to satisfy hunger, but not so much as to spoil your appetite for the tea." Stephen tapped his pen on my notebook. "That's very important."

I jotted down what I could, then supplemented my notes with Stephen's explanations in a nearby coffee shop after class. Basically, what I learned was this: it was Kyoto's temples that inspired the development of tea kaiseki. Based on early Indian Buddhist practice, Japanese monks were allowed only two meals a day, breakfast and lunch. However, since the monks often engaged in physical labour, such as scrubbing floors and raking leaves, they became quite hungry toward what would normally be dinnertime. To trick themselves into feeling full during evening meditations, they often tucked hot stones into the front fold of their kimonos, the pocket-like area that forms when the left side folds over right. These stones, which had been heated in piles of burning leaves and twigs and then wrapped in cloth, triggered the release of gastric juices when pressed against the stomach. This, in turn, brought about a sense of satiation. The monks called these stones yakuseki (literally, "medicine stone"), because yaku means "medicine" and seki means "stone".

Over time, the hot stones gave way to small dishes of simmered vegetarian foods prepared in a minimalist manner, a bit of steamed rice, miso soup, and some vegetables. This modest repast became known as yakeseki. The monks called it such because by considering this small meal "medicine", they were healing the "illness" of hunger and, thus, not opposing Buddha's teachings.

As the tea ceremony began to spread beyond the temples, the monks started conducting tea ceremonies at the imperial court to amuse the wealthy patrons who supported the temples. However, the aristocracy wanted more than a spartan temple meal to precede their whipped green tea (which at the time wasn't always the highlight of the gathering.) They wanted something more akin to the formal banquets they frequently enjoyed, called honzen ryori, meaning "main-tray cooking." Modelled after Chinese court cuisine, honzen ryori consisted of up to seven trays of food holding up to three soups and eleven side dishes, plus rice, pickles, and several ornamental dishes. (This multicourse feast still appears today at Japanese weddings, funerals and festivals).

In an effort to please the aristocracy, the monks began serving a variation of honzen ryori cuisine before the whipped green tea. Featuring elaborate ingredients fashioned into numerous courses served on rare dishes with many rounds of sake, the meal was called kaiseki because one of the many meanings of kai is "group" and seki can also mean "gathering place."

Untangling My Chopsticks - A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto by Victoria Abbott Riccardi. First published 2003 by Penguin. ISBN 0670041599. We often have a copy of this book in stock, click here to see if we have one now.