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Dave Lowry
30th December 2004, 20:53
More than a month since there has been any real activity on this thread. And you call yourselves culinary gugansha. You should all be ashamed. I guess it is up to me.

How about another contest? First person to answer correctly wins a year’s membership in the Shiokara of the Month Club. (Watch out for that July package; it can be a little pungent.)
Almost the end of the year so our question will be about the end of the meal. Everyone knows a meal in Japan often concludes with the comment “Gochisosama-deshita.” Can anyone tell us the interesting etymology of this phrase?
Extra credit goes to anyone who can tell us the sumo-beya equivalent to this phrase.

Cordially,

Joshua Lerner
31st December 2004, 09:16
Mr. Lowry,

Chiso, which is always translated as "feast" or "entertainment" in modern Japanese dictionaries, is a classical Chinese compound that can mean to make your horse run faster. My tongue-in-cheek guess would be that it originally meant "Man, this was a feast worth whipping a horse to get to."

Extra credit - "gotsu an." And I most definitely did not use Google for that answer. Nope. Didn't use Google at all. Not a bit.

Even if I'm wrong about chiso, as I'm sure I am, I think I deserve at least *some* credit for creativity.

Josh

Dave Lowry
31st December 2004, 23:21
Mr. Lerner wins a month’s supply of shottsuru for getting part of the first answer and for snagging the tougher second one.
Given the busy holidays, let’s wait a while to see if anyone enters to further flesh out the answer he’s begun so well.
(By the way, Mr. Lerner, you went a little too deep in your etymology. The word we were looking for was “feast,” as you observe. Now how about the rest of the phrase?)
Any other contestants?

chizikunbo
1st January 2005, 00:22
"gochisosama deshita" literally means "it was a feast".

"sumo-beya" a stable or to open a stable?

Joshua Lerner
1st January 2005, 01:19
Originally posted by Dave Lowry
(By the way, Mr. Lerner, you went a little too deep in your etymology. The word we were looking for was “feast,” as you observe. Now how about the rest of the phrase?)
Any other contestants?

Ah, I thought the "go" and the "sama" were too obvious to mention ...

"Go" is an honorific, and "sama" usually is used as a more polite form of "-san" after someone's name. Though in this case, it probably is used in its alternate meaning of "situation". So the whole phrase, even more literally than chizikunbo's translation, would mean, "It was an honorable feast of a situation." Or, if you like beating a dead horse and going way too deep with your etymologies, "It was an honorable horse-whipping of a situation."

And speaking of "sama", my first trip to Japan was as a summer exchange student in high school. My Japanese was ok at the time, but apparently not as good as I thought it was. We were talking about Mt. Fuji one night, and I noticed that everyone was calling it "Fuji san". Thinking I would one-up the Japanese and show them how polite Americans could be, I referred to it as "Fuji-sama" at the next opportunity. It took me a while to figure out why they were laughing so hard.

Mr. Lowry, if you are going to be in Seattle anytime soon, I will be available to make a trip to Uwajimaya with you to collect on my shiokara. We can even eat at the Korean barbeque place whose staff you once praised on this forum.

Josh

Dave Lowry
3rd January 2005, 19:50
Not so fast, there, Mr. Lerner, although I must give you the prize on this one. Actually, the original way of writing “sama” was the same as the one you mentioned, a very polite form of address. Speculation is that the phrase originated as a way of thanking one’s lord (sama) for the, as you noted, “honourable feast” expressed in the past tense. (Perhaps that’s why the less formal “Gochiso-san” evolved later on.) That’s what I was looking for. But you were close enough.
So, ready to play in the more advanced round, where the stakes are higher and the questions more taxing?

Joshua Lerner
3rd January 2005, 20:49
Hmmmm...higher stakes...more taxing questions...chance of winning more salted fish guts...I'm game.

Dave Lowry
3rd January 2005, 21:24
Okay, since we're on the topic of comments made regarding eating...
You should know the phrase one uses in a sushi-ya when you wish the itamae to prepare a multi-course meal for you--along with its derivation. But that phrase is a modern one. What is the archaic version of this popular phrase?

J. A. Crippen
4th January 2005, 00:42
For those of us who aren't nearly so erudite in matters of Japanese cuisine, would you care to mention the modern phrase? At least do so before the thread is over...

Joshua Lerner
4th January 2005, 00:48
I'm assuming you are talking about the phrase "omakase shimasu", which is, sad to say, one of the only bits of sushi lore that I know, aside from how to eat nigirizushi like a real Edokko and the fact that shiso leaf is used in Chinese herbal medicine to treat seafood poisoning. I don't know what the archaic version is, so by way of saving face, I will divert attention away from my ignorance by claiming that you have asked a trick question. "Archaic", to me, means at least pre-Tokugawa, if not pre-Heian, and I imagine that although sushi of course existed in some form before the Tokugawa, sushiya (and itamae) didn't. I hope someone else here knows the real answer to the question. Where's Earl when you need him?

Bowing out,

Josh

J. A. Crippen
4th January 2005, 01:10
"omakase shimasu" literally means "I leave it to you", or such is my impression. I think I've heard that elsewhere, actually. Intriguing. I'll try that at my local sushiya next time.

However it would seem that using that phrase would be inauspicious for a bushi, since 'makasu' can mean both 'to entrust' or 'to defeat'. Hmm...

chizikunbo
7th January 2005, 17:35
okay a little late on this one I am :)

Earl Hartman
12th January 2005, 20:27
I ain't interested in playing games just to win a prize of fermented squid guts, if it's all the same to you. Shiokara is even more revolting than nattou, if such a thing is possible.

Besides, I only speak Japanese. Researching obscure and archaic etymology, while interesting, is not something I spent a lot of time doing. Hell, I don't even do it in English.

Fuji-sama? Damn, that's good. Even better than when I asked the waitress for a glass of cold water and couldn't figure out why she couldn't understand the phrase "samui O-mizu kudasai".

Also, I thought it was "gotts(u)an (de)su" in sumo-ese, depending on how formal you want to be. That part was way easier than the first part.

Earl Hartman
12th January 2005, 20:56
Oh, yeah: I only eat sushi, I don't study it. (I far prefer noodles, and I don't "do sushi" like people here seem to like to do.) So I have no idea what the answer to the second question is.

How does one eat sushi like a true Edokko? Does this involve something other than picking up the sushi and putting it in one's mouth?

I assume it is something more complicated than dipping the sushi in the shoyu fish-side down, as is only proper.

Is there some Edokko-ryu way to belch or suck your teeth which is different from what they do in Kansai?

Joshua Lerner
12th January 2005, 21:10
How To Be A True Edokko, Or Just Look Like One -

1) Use your thumb, index and middle fingers to take hold of the sushi. Your thumb and middle fingers hold the sides, and you reach over with the index finger and slide it under the rice side. Then turn your hand over with a graceful flip, so the fish side is still face-up. The sushi should now be resting on your index finger, cradled delicately by your thumb and middle finger.

2) With one smooth motion, turn your wrist over again and dip just a little of the far end of the fish side of the sushi into the soy sauce (to which you have *not* added extra wasabi), and continue the motion by placing the entire piece on your tongue, fish-side down.

Voila. You are now a Child of Tokyo.

Placing the fish-side on your tongue allows you to immediately know if the fish has gone bad, although I have to admit I never learned how to gracefully extract the sushi from your mouth in such a case. I'm sure Mr. Lowry must know a few ways.

Earl Hartman
12th January 2005, 21:25
Sounds like a difficult way to eat sushi. You have to reach over the top of the sushi and tuck your forefinger under the rice on the far side?

I hate wasabi, though, so that part's good (the Seder on Pesach is still a problem). I got sick of arguing with the itamae-san who always scolded me for "eating sushi like a child/not understanding the true flavor of Japan." Instead of apologizing for being an iggerent gaijin, now I just say (politely, of course) "Shut up and make what I ordered".

Joshua Lerner
12th January 2005, 21:37
Actually, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it - much easier than using hashi, that's for sure. You just keep your fingers and wrist relaxed and curved, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself. It helps to start by lifting the sushi a little with the thumb and middle finger. Plus, it's always fun to impress the locals and regain some face after making social and linguistic blunders.

Earl Hartman
12th January 2005, 21:50
Doesn't eating sushi with o-hashi just make it painfully obvious that you don't really know what you're doing? I seem to remember almost everybody using their hands.

Joshua Lerner
12th January 2005, 22:39
I remember being surprised that I saw relatively few of the Japanese use their hands for sushi. Most of the sushi I ate was at private parties and family events, and everyone used chopsticks, but I do remember seeing the same thing in public. Maybe I should have been eating in better sushiya.

And by the way, I've been experimenting with increasing the amount of lime in my gin and tonic. Very nice.

Earl Hartman
12th January 2005, 22:43
Well, if you don't have access to an oshibori, then o-hashi are called for. But using your hands is easier and more fun.

Yeah, kinda hard to argue with extra lime in a gin and tonic.

Dave Lowry
18th January 2005, 22:51
Apologies for not replying sooner here. Mr. Lerner is largely correct in his objection to my challenge of finding an “archaic” form for Omakase. Sushi as we know it now dates only back to Edo-jidai. However, the term omakase can be used in other kinds of eating establishments and was. And before it came into currency, the term was “Mitsukuroide.”

I had an interesting discussion with Mr. Lerner in person over the weekend in which he was kind enough to venture a suggestion as to the etymology of this word—I do not have the kanji handy. He suggested it may have been written to mean figuratively, “Keep me in the dark” as a request to the cook, another way of saying “Surprise me.”

Okay, so that was a bit too obscure. Let’s ratchet down a bit for this next round so some others might play.

Describe briefly the difference between kabayaki Kanto style and Kansai style.

Cordially,

Joshua Lerner
19th January 2005, 05:00
I deeply appreciate Mr. Lowry's generous description of our conversation, although in reality it was less of a discussion between the two of us and more a matter of me walking over and intruding on a conversation that he was having with a friend.

And as much as I would like to take the credit, "keep me in the dark" was in fact his friend's translation, after Mr. Lowry said that the "mitsu" was written with the kanji for "secret". I suggested that "kuroide" was possibly some verbal imperative form of the adjective "kuroi" ("black", or "to darken" as a verb). It sounded to me like it was a contraction of "mitsu kuroide kudasai".

But the plot thickens. Mitsukuroi, as I just found out by dusting off one of my dictionaries, can in fact be a noun written as "mi tsukuroi":

mi = the kanji used for the verb miru "to see"
tsukuroi = the nominal form of the verb tsukurou, "to repair, mend, adjust".

My dictionary offers a sample sentence for the verb form of mitsukurou -

narubeku mitsukurotte kudasai
"Show us some things that you think will become us."

So "mitsukuroide" is probably a contraction of "mitsukuroi de yatte kudasai". Maybe it can be written both as "mitsu kuroi de" and "mi tsukuroi de".

It seems I am turning into quite the pedant. Sigh. I'm really not this boring in person.

Joshua Lerner
19th January 2005, 15:17
And as for the kabayaki question, I have no idea what the answer is, so I will borrow from what I know of the difference between Kansai and Kanto sushi rice - does Kansai kabayaki glaze use less sugar?

Dave Lowry
19th January 2005, 16:33
Mr. Hartman must be asleep or busy; likely he’d have been able to answer this one.

In Kanto style cuisine, the eel for kabayaki is grilled, then steamed, then grilled again. In Kansai traditionally, it is simply grilled. That’s why kabayaki in eastern Japan tends to be softer than what you get in the west.

But kabayaki reminds me of hot summer days and right here we’ve three inches of snow on the ground and a foot-long icicle hanging from below a tiny hole in the gutter outside I put off patching last fall. So a question more in keeping with the season, how about a question about New Year’s food?
Who can explain what tazukuri is and why it’s called that?

nicojo
19th January 2005, 16:49
Who can explain what tazukuri is and why it’s called that? Not me, but I thought I'd let you all know I'm enjoying this thread...and getting hungry. Keep it going! Just as long as you don't start talking about cod sperm or some damn thing.

Earl Hartman
19th January 2005, 20:21
I wasn't asleep, but I was busy.

The main difference between Kanto and Kansai style food is that they use much less shoyu in Kansai in just about everything. I didn't know the difference in the preparation of kabayaki, however.

This style is called "usu-kuchi" (literally "thin mouth"). I got used to Kansai style cooking when I lived in Kanazawa, since Kanazawa was heavily influenced by Kyoto, which is readily accessible by simply travelling down the Western coast, whereas Edo was practically impossible to get to because of the intervening mountains. So when I first went to Tokyo and ordered a bowl of noodles I thought that there had been an accident in the kitchen and that the cook had spoiled the soup by inadvertantly dumping a gallon of shoyu in it. I was horrified to learn later that this was done on purpose and that people in Kanto actually liked drinking broth that seemed to me to be nothing so much as hot shoyu without a hint of the delicate flavor of katsuobushi which makes Kansai-style broth so delicious. To this day I can't stand Tokyo-style noodles. Kanto people deride Kansai food as being lacking in flavor; Kansai people return the favor by deriding Kantoites' penchant for drowning everythng in shoyu.

Tazukuri are tiny dried fish, usually sardines AFAIK, which are first dry-roasted in a pan and then boiled tsukudani style until most of the liquid is evaporated and all of the fish stick together in clumps. Thus, "ta", meaning "many", and "zukuri", meaning "making". Absolutely delicious, like sweet, crunchy fish candy. (And my wife slings some mean tazukuri, buckaroos). While I have to check with my wife to be sure, I believe that tazukuri, meaining "many making" is considered a good-luck food since it symbolizes the wish for "making a lot of" (money, success, etc.) in the New Year.

Josh: pedants can be boring, but they don't have to be. You just have to be pedantic about an interesting subject.

Earl Hartman
20th January 2005, 01:45
Actually, hold that. I think the "ta" in "tazukuri" might mean "field", which would mean 'tazukuri" means "making the field". I seem to have a vague recollection of tazukuri having something to do with a good harvest or something along those lines. I have to check.

Like I said, I just eat the stuff.

Earl Hartman
20th January 2005, 02:09
I just checked with She Who Is The Source Of All Knowledge Of Things Japanese (AKA my wife).

The "ta" in "tazukuri" is "field"; tazukuri therefore means "making the field", that is, the rice field, and so symbolizes the hope for a good rice harvest in the coming year. This is because the sardines were used as fertilizer in rice fields back in the day.

In other words, disregard what I said in my first post.

Tri-ring
20th January 2005, 13:58
Konbanwa Minasan

Here are some trivas covering some of the topics above.
First of all Edomae Sushi, this literary means Edo style sushi. Since there is an Edo style natually there are other styles of sushi.
Sushi originally started as a way to preserve a catch through fermentation. Through I guess an Eureka process, rice was added with the catch to cultivate beneficially mold. These are called "Nare Sushi" and the most famous is "Funa sushi" originating near lake Biwa.
Funa or wild carp is fermentated to the point where the bones melts within the meat and the end product becomes similar to a soft Camembert.
Just 40~50 years ago, Edomae sushi was not normally eaten om Osaka. Osaka had it's own style called Oshi-zushi or pressed sushi. There is no ferementation involved but it does not look anything like the mouthwatering sushi you see at your nearby sushi bar.

Next Unagi no Kabayaki, the difference between Kansai and Kanto is as Lowry-san has pointed out but there is another very interesting difference in preparation of the eel.This dish has been prepared and eaten way back in the edo period.By the way, to my knowledge, the first copy writing was developed during this period calling out to eat unagi on day of doyo.
Back to the difference, the edo chefs alway split the eel from the back side while the Osaka chefs splits from the stomach. The reason why the Edo chefs did not split from the stomach is because it reminds them of seppuku and the city of Edo was full with samurai while the city of Osaka was the city of merchants not caring of seppuku.
I hope this was interesting.

K.Miwa

Dave Lowry
23rd January 2005, 22:17
Mr. Hartman got it solidly second time. The ta kanji in tazukuri is the one for field. So "building the fields" is a rough translation of an alternate reading of the kanji for this dish. That's why it is popular at New Years, as a reminder of hopes for a good growing season.
Okay, while still on the theme of New Years foods (and of course as some may know, the "real" New Year is not until 23 February this year), who can tell us about kuwai, one of the classic ingredients in osechi-ryori?

Cordially,

Earl Hartman
26th January 2005, 01:46
Kuwai is a root vegetable somewhat similar to a sato-imo that is served boiled in osechi ryori. My sources tell me that, due to its fecundity, it is eaten to symbolize the hope for plentiful chldren.

Never had one, though.