A Brief Introduction to East Asian Cuisines

The most internationally popular cuisines of East Asia come from China, Japan, and Korea. While these cuisines have a few basic similarities, in this article we will take a look at their respectively exclusive characteristics that set them apart.

It may be worth noting before we delve into these delicious descriptions that the provincial cuisines within every country are often as different from each other as the different countries’ general foods are from each other. That is to say that each nation has a wide spectrum of dishes that may not necessarily fit into a categorical table. With this in mind, remember as you read the following that there are always exceptions, and dishes that seem inconsistent with their countries’ cooking code do most certainly exist.

A few similarities worth noting are that all three nations share rice as a staple food, eat with chopsticks, and take tea at mealtime.

China

Since China is the largest and most populated country in East Asia, it stands to reason that there is more variety in Chinese cuisine than in the other East Asian countries. Being the oldest empire, China’s influence on Japan and Korea in dress, language, and cuisine is more than apparent.

Chinese food is characteristically very spicy, and makes frequent use of noodles. Rice, however, is the staple food. Tofu and vegetables are used often, and many fragrant oriental spices come into play. Poultry, fish, and seafood are the main meats. Typically meats will be cooked with the legs and head, the latter being considered a delicacy in poultry and fish.

A Buddhist minority enjoys a strictly vegetarian diet, while an Islamic minority keeps to cooking with kosher meats. Both minorities have produced their own beautiful contributions to Chinese cuisine. There are also some delicacies that are not so famous abroad, such as jellyfish, cat, rat, ants in liquor, and chicken hearts. I wish to try some of these, and the others I pray I never have to get within a meter of.

Popular Chinese dishes:

• Peking Duck: Whole roasted plump ducks coated with sweet syrup and served in slices with vegetables and steamed white pancakes made of wheat flour. Peking duck is massively popular in restaurants, and can safely be called Peking’s (Beijing’s) signature dish.

• Sichuan hot-pot: This is a Chinese fondue in which thin slices of meat, vegetables, and seafood are dipped briefly into a boiling pot of soup, dipped into one of several fragrant and spicy sauces, and eaten. It is said that this dish originated in Mongolia.

• Jiaozi: A dumpling of pork or shrimp and vegetables, commonly minced mushrooms and Chinese cabbage, wrapped in thin dough and boiled, steamed or fried. These are eaten dipped in a sweet and sour soy-sauce with fragrant sesame oil.

• Mapo-doufu: Literally “pock faced grandma”, mapo doufu is a hot dish of tofu blocks and minced beef cooked in a spicy fermented-bean sauce.

• Ramen: Although Japanese ramen is generally more famous, ramen did originate in China. Ramen is Chinese noodles cooked in chicken or pork broth with vegetables.

Chinese deserts include mango pudding, egg custard tarts, almond jelly, and sesame rice balls.

Japan

Japanese cooking is characterized by a focus on using only the freshest vegetables in season, and processing or cooking them as little as possible to preserve their integrity. Japanese food uses little oil, if any, and meats are used just as a garnish. Instead, the island people of Japan rely on tofu and seafood for protein. Iron-rich seaweeds are also widely consumed in many forms.

Of course, we are speaking of traditional cuisine. Contemporary Asians frequently eat bread, eggs, pastas, and other Western foods almost as frequently as do their Western counterparts. Still, a secret to Japanese people’s longevity lies in their simple, low caloric food. Japanese food can also be called the blandest of East Asian cuisines.

Japanese food is flavored by soy sauce (a dark brown sauce made of fermented soy beans, used in various forms throughout Asia), miso (fermented soybean paste), dashi (fish and kelp stocks), and rice wines and vinegars. Chili peppers, used liberally in most the rest of Asia, are hardly used in traditional Japanese cooking, and other spices are used sparingly as well. Traditional spices for a bite in food are limited to the notoriously pungent green wasabi and karashi, which is a hot mustard.
Popular Japanese dishes:

• Sashimi: Slices of raw seafood served with soy sauce. This includes salmon, tuna, yellowtail, squid, scallop, shrimp, crab, and even sea urchin.

• Sushi: vinegared rice with raw fish served with a sweet soy sauce and wasabi. Sushi is extremely popular abroad,

• Miso soup: Served with most every meal, miso soup is made with a soybean paste in dashi stock. Miso soup contains tofu and seaweed, and untraditionally, potatoes, onions, and carrots.

• Udon, Soba, and Somen: Udon is thick white noodles made with wheat enjoyed hot in a dashi broth, typically with chopped spring onions and frittered seafood. Somen is thin white noodles served icy cold in a dashi sauce in the summer months. Soba is grey buckwheat noodles enjoyed much like Udon.

• Mizutaki and Sukiyaki: Japanese styled hot pots enjoyed primarily in the winter months among friends. Mizutaki is vegetables, tofu. seafood, and meat simmered in a large communal earthenware pot, from which the choice pieces are picked with chopsticks and eaten from personal dipping bowls. Sukiyaki, which’s name was popularized in a song years ago, is meat and vegetables simmered in a sweet soy based soup, often enjoyed with raw egg.

• Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki: These are more modern, as they contain egg and wheat, but are old enough to be considered traditional by the oldest people in Japan. Okonomiyaki is a savory pancake filled with vegetables and seafood. Takoyaki is made with a flavored batter cooked skillfully in iron cast pans with round depressions for forming the ball shape. Takoyaki contains vegetables and octopus.

• Oden: Another winter favorite, Oden is made of tofu, boiled eggs, fishcakes, and a variety of foods simmered in a dashi stock. Oden is available at booths on the street or in cups from convenient stores.

Rare is the non-Japanese person in my acquaintance who has enjoyed natto. Natto is fermented slimy soybeans with soy sauce, and when stretched it produces countless thin spiderlike strands. Most Japanese foods, however, are relatively tame and easy for foreigners to enjoy without being excessively exotic.

The Japanese do not take dessert with meals, unless both the meal and dessert is foreign. However, Japanese confectionaries or Wagashi, are an integral part of the traditional tea ceremony, and Wagashi is always served with tea for houseguests.

Korea

Korean cuisine, like Chinese and Japanese, is based on rice, tofu, noodles, and vegetables. Korean food uses sesame oil and sesame seeds liberally, as well as red peppers and garlic. The Koreans use a spectrum of soybean based fermented pastes, typically red and hot. The Koreans eat more red meat than the Chinese and Japanese, and their meals are supplemented with numerous side dishes known as banchan.

Perhaps the most famous Korean banchan is kimchi. Kimchi is vegetables, generally Chinese cabbage or cucumbers, fermented with large quantities of red peppers and garlic. Korean kimchis are decidedly hotter than the mild varieties produced internationally for a mass market. A native Japanese, I visited my Korean grandparents earlier this year. My grandmother served a hot pungent kimchi that was at least twice as spicy as the Japanese renditions of kimchi I had been accustomed to.

Koreans eat with metal chopsticks unlike their Chinese and Japanese peers who prefer wooden chopsticks.
Popular Korean dishes:

• Bibimbap: warm rice with sesame flavored vegetables, meat, egg, and chili paste. Bibimbap is often served in the stone bowl in which it was prepared, and the rice is often crisp and slightly burnt on the edges. Enthusiasts often pour their tea into the finished bowl and scrape off the burnt rice to be enjoyed as a Korean risotto.

• Bulgogi: thin slices of beef marinated in a soy seasoning and grilled.

• Japchai: thick macaroni-like noodles of sweet potato starch served with steamed spinach, roasted meat, carrots, and a sweet sesame based sauce.

Controversial delicacies include raw jellyfish, live octopus, and dog meat, the latter of which supposedly fortifies male fertility.

Korean teas are fragrant and are made of roasted rice, corn, barley, persimmon, and ginseng. Many Korean deserts consist of soft rice based cakes filled with sweet bean paste, pumpkin paste, or honey and nuts. Again, though, desserts are not generally served with meals in Asia. Asian confectioneries and sweets are served with tea.