Weight Watching
Despite the laughing scepticism of the of the Travel Volunteer Project Office, we came to Japan sincerely believing that by simply following a Japanese diet, we’d be able to lose a bit of weight. Even withtheir doubt, we’re reasonably hopeful (for the record, my starting weight was a shameful 82.5kg).
Earlier in the year, we were fortunate to stay a few weeks in America. It was a great trip, but again and again, we’d leave the dinner table feeling like we’d just eaten Jabba The Hut. Deep fried in cheese. With ice cream. Any pleasure there was from it, lasted about the time it took for the greasy morsels to splash down in our bellies, before we began to feel slimy, lethargic and guilty.
Now we’re in Japan, things could hardly be more different. The rarity of white bread and dairy probably helps, as does the fact that at almost every meal so far, we’ve been treated to a wide range of tiny dishes, like Japanese tapas (Japas?). Eating a handful of these seems to leave us feeling very full at the time, but then hungry for more a few hours later. The ups and downs, rather than the gassy bloated sensation, have left us feeling, well, healthy.
Much of what we’re eating is guesswork, but in a way, it’s better like that. Eating mystery dishes gives us the chance to try things without any preconceptions. It might be sea snail, fermented squid or sea urchin, but without actually knowing that*, we can at least give it a go. It’s also been worth trying to ignore what something looks like and just try it – in truth many of the worst things have looked totally innocuous.
Best of all, when we do find something we don’t like, there’s no shame in just leaving it. And, if we manage to discretely transport it back from our mouths to whence it came, then all the better. If the same thing happened in the West, you’d be expected to manfully struggle on with whatever gloop was in front of you; or order something else altogether.
But for every one thing we’ve found that we didn’t love/made us gag, there have been eight or nine delicious surprises. Take today in Toyama for example. Having already had a breakfast of fruit and rice and soup and tea and half a dozen unknown treats, Mieko-san took us to Ikedaya Yasubei for lunch. While a lot of the other meals we’ve had haven’t had to advertise themselves as being particularly nutritious, here the restaurant literally sat on top of an old apothecary. All kinds of herbal remedies were available downstairs (Toyama has a long history with pharmaceuticals) while upstairs the belief in the natural world was carried through to the menu. Seven courses rolled out in front of us: tofu paste with salad (Katy’s favourite); grated mountain potato with walnuts and pumpkin (weird, but apparently good for stamina); shrimp hotpot with saffron (great, “warms you up”); ancient rice with mountain vegetables (fantastic “good for the blood”) and so on. None a bit of it was processed.
We washed it down with green tea and water, feeling virtuous indeed.
*One thing about Westerners - and I’m making an enormous and probably inaccurate generalisation here – is that we don’t like our food to still look like an animal when it arrives on the plate. Eyes are a problem for us. We prefer not to know how it looked when it was alive – and we especially don’t want to know how it died.
Our time in Toyama was made possible by:
The lovely Ms Mieko Takeguchi, who taught us more Japanese than we could remember and some important rules on etiquette.
The Hotel Kurobe, which hangs over the Kurobe Gorge and has staff who make up for their lack of English with raw Japanese enthusiasm.
And the wonderful Niemonya ryokan, where we tried our first ever onsen, and where we got a complimentary beer simply for being Scottish.
トラベルボランティア・プロジェクトメンバーには笑われたけれど、私達は日本に来て日本の健康的な食事をしていれば痩せられるに違いない!と心から信じている。彼らには“おいしいものばかり食べて絶対太るよ!”と言われたけれど、未だにそう信じて願っている。(ちなみに今の体重は82.5kg)
今年の初め、私達はアメリカに数週間滞在する機会があった。滞在自体は素晴らしいものだったけれど、夕食の量はすさまじく、某映画に出てくる巨大な怪物を食べているのかと思うようなチーズと油たっぷりのメニュー、巨大なアイスクリームなど、全ての食事の喜びはこれらなくしては成り立たないかのような内容。無気力になり、そして罪悪感を覚える程に脂たっぷりの食事を胃に流し込む毎日だった。
今日本にいる私達を取り巻く状況は全く違う。パンと牛乳の生活から離れ、毎回数々の小皿料理、まるで日本版タパスのような多彩なお料理を堪能している。もちろんお腹いっぱいになるのだけれど、胃のもたれはなく、数時間後にはきちんとお腹がすくという、なんとも快適で健康的な日々を送っている。
が、今毎食口にしているものはほとんど当てずっぽう。というか正直何を食べているかは全く分からない。想像もつかない品々に挑戦していく毎日。それは巻貝だったり、イカ焼きだったり、ウニだったり・・・なんだか分からないものがいっぱい出てくるけど取りあえず試してみる。中には・・・と思ってしまう見た目のものもあるけれど、勇気を出して挑戦する価値十分の逸品ばかり。
ただやっぱり中にはどうしても苦手なものも・・・。でもそこは無理をせず残させてもらう。ただどうしても食べられないものに出会ってしまうのは、8-9品に一回だけで、それらの8-9品のおいしさは最高レベルだ!
例えば今日、富山での出来事。ご飯とお味噌汁、フルーツにお茶、そして10以上の説明できない、でもおいしい品々の朝食を食べたにお関わらず、ランチはガイドの美恵子さんに連れられて池田屋安兵衛商店で薬膳料理に挑戦。今までいろいろなおいしく健康的な食事を頂いてきたが、ここは昔ながらの薬局の上にあるレストラン。いろいろな薬草・調合品が階下にあり(富山は昔から医薬品の製造・販売で有名)、それらを使った健康食品メニューが食べられるのがこのレストランになる。7品のコースはお豆腐のサラダ(ケイティーのお気に入り!)、山芋・栗とかぼちゃをおろしたもの(スタミナがつくらしい)、エビのお鍋(体が温まる)と玄米と山菜のご飯(血液により)などなど。すっかり健康になった気がする。
富山県の滞在でお世話になった皆様
ガイドをして下さった竹口美恵子さん。私達が覚えきれない程多くの日本語を教えてくれ、そして日本を楽しむために大切なマナーを教えてくれました。ありがとうございました。
初日にお世話になったのは宇奈月温泉の『ホテル黒部』さん。英語が通じないことを感じないぐらい、温かく快適なおもてなしをいただきました。ありがとうございました。
2日目は魚津の『元祖 仁衛門家』さんにお世話になりました。人生初の温泉体験をさせていただき心から感謝しております。ありがとうございました。
7 Comments
jacqui
September 16, 2011you WILL lose weight not all the food in japan is uber healthy (wait until you get to things like okonomiyaki, which i’m sure they will be having you try lol), but it’s all the WALKING you will be doing that will help you out with weight loss
enjoying the blog so far! wish there were more photos though! i love photos, and i was so excited hearing that you guys were photographers! more pics please, if you could! your descriptive writing is amazing so far though. really happy you guys won it
Eric
September 16, 2011J&K,
#pillows : Bearings in pillows ensure a heavy, heavy sleep
Two more possible (and potentially more serious) explanation:
1) Japanese do not use feathers in pillows… (it’s too humid here and it would go mouldy…)
2) Bearings help avoiding perspiration
Anyway, consider yourself lucky this time: some Ryokans have “rice-straw filled pillows” & they’re very hard!
Good night though!
Eric
aidan
September 16, 2011Japas -laffers you are a genius
Op
Joe Lafferty
September 16, 2011Jamie-San and Katie-San, I am extremely jealous. How I would love to eat healthily rather than buy pills as supplements for the the goodness I am missing out on with my normal diet. Reference Eric’s comment about the humidity – how are you coping with it?
Ami
September 16, 2011Oh woow…. this plate sure looks interesting …
Beth Hird
September 19, 2011yum yum
wish I were there with you
we could drink sake and celebrate your new adventure!
congrats!
xxx
Yosh
March 5, 2012A rarity of white bread and dairy? Really? Did you go to the grocery store or see all of the sandwiches in cafes?