One key thing I noticed about Japan was the variety of foods, not only within Japanese cuisine, but it also had a lot of variety based on the region or depending on what season it was. Just as quickly as the seasons would change, so would the food options. In this section I will discuss the special foods that appeared during festivals (matsuris), the foods that are special to certain regions of the country and the foods that come and go with the seasons. MatsuriFirst I will talk about the various kinds of foods that were commonly sold during masturis. The ones that would be at every festival or holiday celebration would be something similar to a baked potato/mashed potatoes, skewers like yakitori, okonomiyaki, cotton candy, squid, and syrup or chocolate covered fruits. Throughout my entire year abroad, every time I would attend a festival of some kind, without fail, these foods would always be on sale and from multiple different vendors as well. This could be seen as similar to America with foods like popcorn or hot dogs for example. Regional FoodsThe next group of special foods in Japan would be mainly based on region. For example, if an area was known for their apples, you would see apple-based items and apple-themed merchandise at every gift souvenir shop in that area. In Japanese culture, it is also a common thing to get these items as omiyage, or souvenirs from travelling. In fact, most souvenir gifts from travelling would mainly consist of food items with some theme of the area or incorporating the ingredient they are well known for. Throughout my travel experience in Japan, I noticed this trend with takoyaki in Osaka, mochi in Kyoto, and the eggs boiled in the sulfur pits in Hakone for a few examples. Seasonal FoodsThe other group of special foods that had a prominent distinction in Japan were seasonal foods. I may have touched on this in another post, but I will again discuss it here. I would mainly be exposed to new seasonal foods at conbinis as they would continuously rotate products. For instance, for a while you would mainly see chestnut based items, and then after that you would see pumpkin themed items. Aside from harvesting seasons for certain fruits and vegetables, during the colder seasons such as late fall and winter, more hot food items would be available and even vending machines would begin selling canned soup. This pattern of swapping out products based on the seasons never changed during my entire year in Japan. With that in mind, something I learned the hard way was if you want to try something that looks like its a seasonal item, get it when you can because next week it might be gone! And then you'll have to wait for it to come around again next year.
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AuthorI am Kyle Sablan and I studied abroad at Yokohama National University (YNU) during the 2016-2017 academic year. This blog was created as one of the requirements for receiving the Gilman Scholarship. The purpose of this blog is to share my personal experience with everybody and encourage interest in studying abroad. Archives
April 2018
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