Contemporary Food Habits

 

Each race in the world has their habit of eating food. Same goes to Japanese and Japan country. Historically, Japanese cuisine has been popular and known to have healthy qualities due to the large consumption of fish and vegetables portions.  Moreover, rice which is rich of carbohydrate nutrient is an essential food in Japan is eaten at almost every meal. We get to know Japanese be living up to their cooking goals of adhere to the freshness of the food and divert from processed ingredients or any artificial menus. That is why eating raw fish and vegetables would be an ideal representation of the Japanese’s food culture.

Besides, Japanese did not use many spices and seasoning in their daily meals and were also not into oily foods.  Even their most commonly used seasonings are soy sauce, miso (soy bean paste), rice vinegar, sake (alcoholic beverage used like wine in food dishes) and wasabi. By completing this task, we get to know somehow eating habits in Japan was influenced by geographical location. The geographical location of Japan plays a big part in what foods are consumed by Japanese. For example, since it is surrounded by water, so it would make sense that fish is a main element in Japanese cuisine.

Generally, Japanese meals consist of a main food combined with soup, main dish and a few sides. Main food usually consists of steamed rice or soba, ramen or udon noodles and would be accompanied with soup dish. Soup dish typically a miso soup made with seaweed, shellfish or tofu and vegetables in a fermented soybean stock. Next, their main dish included fish, seafood, tofu or natto with optional small amounts of meat, poultry, or eggs meanwhile their side dish consists of vegetables (raw, steamed, boiled, sautéed, grilled or pickled), wild plants, seaweed and raw or pickled fruit.

As for the meal times, it was such as common time as other Asia countries. For breakfast, Japanese would have their meals at around six to seven in the morning while lunch would be held at twelve until one in the afternoon. Then, Japanese would have their dinner at around six till eight o’clock in the evening. As we already knew, community in Japan is considered as cultured people and being late during their meal times if you are an invited guest is kind of inappropriate and less-mannered. Besides, meal times in the country are considered as important times for family gathering.