Week 1: Japan, Denmark, Germany, Spain

Akemashite omedetou! (Happy New Year everybody!) 
I'm getting off to a good start for my goal of making global cuisines. For the new year we had about 12 people over for food, games, and celebration. It was awesome. So to kick things off, I wanted to include some foods traditionally eaten for the New Year around the world. I wanted to take pictures of how things turned out and my culinary adventures, but I didn't get around to it so you'll have to take my word for it.

I was reading about Lucky Foods for the New Year and wanted to cover all the bases and have foods from a variety of cultures. As I did my research, I decided that Japan seems to have the profound new year food traditions. I started at the Wikipedia entry for Osechi. From this and other websites, it seemed that soba noodles are a must. I used the following recipe for toshi-koshi soba and followed some of the links on this excellent web site to learn more about how to make authentic Japanese food. I decided to also prepare zoni (just swapped soba for mochi), kuri kinton, and as many items from the Wikipedia list of Osechi that I could come by.

I put my shopping list together and Ocean Mart  (previously Super China) was the first place I went.

This store was huge and I couldn't read any of the labels on anything. I was also busy trying to get some Christmas shopping done and only had a half hour to spend there. The prices were rock bottom and the selection was enormous. I'll definitely have to drop in again in the future

I still had a lot of ingredients to find so I went to the Japan Sage Market.

This place was great and the service was good. Misako even gave me tips on how to prepare the recipies I was making. I was able to finish the rest of my shopping at the downtown Smith's Marketplace and head home to start cooking.

Everything worked out just perfectly. I got the house all cleaned up and was cooking by 4:00. I had my soba noodles and dashi (kelp and fish flakes) stock going and all my vegetables chopped. By the time guest started showing up, my house smelled heavily of fish. Many thanks go out to Laurel Takashima in my neighborhood for giving us some rice and red beans, and some fancy mochi balls. Everyone sort of chipped in to get the food on. Once everyone had arrived I thought it would be best to serve the soup al la carte and I had two small pots going to mix up each person an individual bowl of soup the way they wanted it. Everyone was mmming and yumming and I was really pleased. I finally tried some toshi-koshi soba and it was fabulous. We played some games (including the traditional Dr. Mario) and then set off fireworks at midnight. The final menu was as follows:

Denmark

• Toasted Kale with cinnamon and sugar(I totally burned it) -  Tradition is that eating greens is symbolic of money and will bring you good fortune

Japan

• Toshi-Koshi Soba - Buckwheat noodles in a fish stock with fish, onions, carrots, spinach, shitake mushrooms, and and egg for good luck - traditionally one must not leave any soba uneaten before the new year or it will be bad luck.

• Zoni - Same as the Toshi-Koshi Soba only with chicken instead of fish and mochi (rice balls) instead of soba
• Dadai - Japanese bitter orange (we ate tangerines instead)
• Datemaki - Fishy rolled omlette - I really ruined this recipe so I don't know if it is good or not - represent many future auspicious days

• Kamaboko - Fish paste roll
• Kuro-mame - sweet black soy beans - representative of good health
• Ebi - grilled prawns
• Tazukuri - Dried anchovies in soy - represent a good harvest - these were pretty tasty (they cost me $15) even with the heads.
• Mochi - sticky rice paste balls with filling
• Kuri Kinton - mashed sweet potatoes with spices and nuts

Germany

• Pork Bratworst - pork representing fattness and abundance
• Sauerkraut
• Beans - representing coins or wealth

Spain

• Grapes - one eats a grape at each stroke of midnight to bring good luck for the coming months of the year.