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View Full Version : Contest Time Again



Dave Lowry
29th January 2002, 21:06
End of the month and that means it’s time for another contest here at the ol’ Food & Drink site.
If you’ll remember our last exciting competition, you’ll recall that the proposed answers to the epicurial challenge were… Well, let’s just say not too many of the respondents are on NASA’s speed dial list, shall we?

Okay, so let’s lower the bar a tad. Most readers here will have sprinkled shichimi togarashi on their tempura soba, nabemono, or in other dishes. Most of them should know the word means literally “seven flavour chili.” But how many of them can name the seven ingredients in shichimi togarashi? First wit who ventures any answer containing "Sleepy, Grumpy, etc., is disqualified from further contests for six months.

(Hint: a couple of these ingredients may have been in stock at the average Grateful Dead concert.)

Extra points for
a) Giving an alternative name for shichimi togarashi that’s used in Tokyo.
b) Providing the ingredient lists for both Tokyo’s Yagenbori shichimi and Kyoto’s Kiyomizu recipe.

Have at it.

Earl Hartman
29th January 2002, 21:13
A lot of time on your hands, Dave?

I'll go home and check the ingredients on the container at home and get back to you.

John Lindsey
29th January 2002, 23:21
Because it is spicey, it might have red pepper, I don't know what kind. I think Nori is also part of the mix.

Neil Yamamoto
30th January 2002, 00:12
Shichimi Togarashi is also called "Nana iro togarashi"
Dried hot chiles Sansho
Hemp seed - Dave's not here!
White and black sesame seeds
Poppy seeds
Dried orange or tangerine peel
Roasted nori


Yagenbori Shichimi recipe
Black sesame seed
dried mandarin orange peel
Fresh and roasted red pepper
sansho
Japanese pepper
poppy seeds
hemp seed

The Kiyomizu shichimi recipe
Red pepper
Japanese pepper
black sesame seeds
white sesame seeds
sansho
nori
hemp seeds

Earl Hartman
30th January 2002, 00:44
Where do you get this info, fer cryin' out loud? Is there some website called www.reallyobscurejapanesefoodinfo.com or something?

Neil Yamamoto
30th January 2002, 01:06
Earl,

Nothing so strange as that. I just asked Joe Svinth, he knows everything obscure and if you buy him beers, he'll tell you. :cool:

Naw, looked up the ingredients is all. Google's a wonderful search engine.

Earl Hartman
30th January 2002, 01:17
You can find that stuff on Google? Damn, that is just plain amazing. Just shows how aggressively low-tech I am.

Go home and look on the bottle. Jeez.

TommyK
30th January 2002, 04:16
Greetings,

I just heard the most amazing rumour, Joe Svinth is really the avatar for Google.! He exists ONLY on-line. Neil just buys himself large quanties of brew!

LOL!!!

Regards,
TommyK
Tom Militello

"One must first know how to laugh, before one CHOOSES NOT to!"

Dave Lowry
30th January 2002, 16:16
Ding-ding-ding!
Congratulations to Mr. Neil Yamamoto, who correctly identified all ingredients in both of the most popular forms of shichimi togarashi:

Togarashi=ground, toasted, and dried chili
Sansho=prickly ash seedpods
Kuro and shiro goma=black and white sesame seeds
Chinpi=dried citrus peel
Shiso=perilla
Aonori=green laver
Keshinomi=opium poppy seeds
Asanomi=parched cannabis seeds

(The latter two, it is important to add lest we have some less than brilliant readers purchasing shichimi togarashi in industrial size quantities, are sterilized.)

Mr. Yamamoto wins a brand new Chrysler LeBaron for his efforts (see Mr. Lindsey for details). Now, Mr. Yamamoto, want to play in the first division? Answer this follow-up question and win an Official E-budo Bumper Sticker: “If They Take Away My Gun, Can I Use My Sword?”

Asanomi is the modern word for hemp or cannabis seed. But what’s the older term, the one used back before WWII, when Mr. Hartman was in grad school?

Doug Daulton
30th January 2002, 17:40
Originally posted by TommyK ... I just heard the most amazing rumour, Joe Svinth is really the avatar for Google.! He exists ONLY on-line. Tommy,

I have heard this ugly rumor too. It is made more curious by the fact that Mr. Svinth (or an amazing CG rendering of his avatar) actually appears on camera in "Martial Arts: The Real Story (http://204.95.207.136/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=740)", a Discovery Channel documentary.

So the question is ... "Is Joe really a person or simply the budo version of Jar Jar Binks?" :rolleyes:

Regards,

Neil Yamamoto
30th January 2002, 18:21
I think I know the answer but there is probably another word used for hemp in relation to food that I don't know.

"Kingusa" -clothes grass or clothes herb- is a term I know was used for hemp since hemp was the major source of material for clothing, but fell out of use as cotton became more widely available. I have an old kimono made of hemp and was told it was made from kingusa.

As to the LeBaron, John, can I have a bottle of scotch instead?


As to the Joe Svinth rumor, it's plainly false. Joe is related to Lara Croft, and is not the equal of a budo JJ binks dude. I hang around Joe since I'm hoping for an introduction to Lara one day. In the meantime, he's decent company, and doesn't damage my liquor cabinet too badly when he's over, he's actually donated to the cause several times too.

Ask Walker, he'll tell you, Joe is more like Professor Peabody only he has no wayback machine.

Insult your friends by internet. Isn't the world a great place?

Walker
30th January 2002, 19:09
Can you say Max Headroom?
Joe in MA Real Story is about as good as he’s ever going to get. Sorry Joe, but at least we’re both hitched (you too Neil admit it!) and can stand the deterioration of our “male display characteristics.” At least your high point is on tape.
The real truth is that Google is merely a holographic projection of Joe’s cognitive matrix as captured and hosted by a very hush hush super-computer hidden off shore near Prince William Sound (sssshhhh.):smokin:

Joseph Svinth
30th January 2002, 21:01
Usually when I'm at Neil's, I say,"I'll take the fifth," but he rarely lets me ingest more than a pint. Which is probably just as well, as my wife doesn't like it when I drink too much.

Anyway, Earl, your URL was close -- try http://japanesefood.about.com/library/blgloS.htm

Neil -- the cloth is _kingusa_ , the hemp itself is _asa_ . (See, one learns a new Japanese word every day.) For details, see http://www.hempfood.com/japanhemp.html and http://www.taima.org/en/nomin.htm . Note: the latter site includes some period images of hemp processing in pre-WWII Japan; it seems that modern Japan's harsh drug laws were introduced by MacArthur and Co. ca. 1948.

Old Japanese paper is also hemp-based. http://www.isei.or.jp/Paper_Museum/history.html

For those of you in Tokyo, check out "Asa (World cuisine) -- 3412-4118 -- Kitazawa 2-18-5, Kitazawa Bldg. 3F, Tokyo's only hemp restaurant, serving Indian, Mexican, Thai and other Asian dishes flavored with hemp oil or seeds - the fried chicken is especially flavorful. With a library of hemp-legalization literature and non-stop hemp videos playing in the background, this makes a good first stop on a retro/counterculture tour of Shimo-Kitazawa. Open 5-midnight. Closed Wednesdays." (From http://www.bento.com/ra-shimo.asp .) See also http://www.tokyoclassified.com/tokyorestaurantsarchive299/285/contents.html : "Under the Hemp Control Law, it's legal to serve the seeds," says Asa's owner, Maeda Koichi in laid-back English. "The law stipulates that seeds and stems aren't illegal, because they don't contain THC." He passes us a four-bowl condiment dish of hemp seeds in varying stages of process - whole, hulled, ground, and rendered into oil the hue of virgin olive oil. "The seeds are sterilized, so they don't germinate. They're the perfect food," he enthuses, "Not only edible but as nutritious as soybeans. They contain all essential amino acids, Omega 3 and 6, carbohydrates and protein. Hemp is easier to digest than soy foods and ecologically sound; it can be grown without chemical fertilizers, at any altitude, under almost any condition."

Like wow, man.

Dave Lowry
31st January 2002, 16:42
Valiant effort, Mr. Yamamoto, and perhaps we should wait to give the answer in case some of the other musha-kateers here have it, but I must admit this one’s rather obscure. The old term for asanomi is onomi. The “o” (cho) here is the one for “hemp.”