Feb

In the Kitchen with OIC: A Fun Japanese Food Tour!

by Joyce McGreevy on February 2, 2021

Yuma Wada serves sushi in Tokyo, the setting for his Japanese food tour and trivia night. (Image © by Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours)

What could be fresher than sushi made from Japan’s catch of the day?
© Yada Wama/ Ninja Food Tours

Yuma Wada Turns Trivia into Virtual Travel to Tokyo

A funny thing happened on the way to Yuma Wada’s Japanese food tour and trivia night. You know how it is. One minute you’re folding the laundry or microwaving leftovers. Next minute you’re at a fish market in Tokyo.

Maybe I should explain.

Collectively speaking, it was an ordinary weeknight, work had stolen our weekend, the kids were restless, and supper smelled . . . uninspiring. We’d all been “at home” nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for eleven long months.

We —me and several others from ages 9 to 65—needed a change of scene. Appetizing experiences and cultural insight. Creativity in good company. Something fun. (Remember fun?) And so, from coast to coast, country to country, we converged on Tokyo. Virtually, of course.

Shoppers stroll a scenic street in Tokyo, the setting for Yuma Wada’s online Japanese food tour and trivia night. (Image © by Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours)

A much-missed travel pleasure: exploring dream destinations on foot.
© Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours

“Honey? Just popping out to Japan. Back in an hour.”

There to greet us was Yuma Wada. Tokyo restaurateur, licensed sake sommelier, and self-trained sushi chef, Yuma is the founder of Ninja Food Tours.

“I grew up in a family that runs a traditional Japanese sweets factory, so food is something I cannot run away from,” he says.

While Yuma’s own journey started in Japan, he arrived at his calling by way of a background in corporate finance and extensive travels across Europe and the United States. He found other countries’ versions of Japanese food interesting—in a good way.

Sake is poured into a ceramic cup in Tokyo, the setting for Yuma Wada’s online Japanese food tour and trivia night. (Image © by Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours)

“Nihonshu wa ryori wo erabanai.” Highly versatile, “sake never fights with food.”
© Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours

Okay, there were occasional causes for bemusement. Like the “Japanese” restaurant in Wisconsin that served Korean and Thai food. Or the California bar that served “sake bombs,” shot glasses of sake tossed into beer, which was then knocked back for maximum ill effect. Not quite the Japanese custom of savoring a fine rice wine.

“When I saw that,” says Yuma diplomatically, “I was like, oh wow, this country is something different.”

Yet wherever he went (including Wisconsin), Yuma found that people loved Japanese food and were somewhat familiar with its variety. Wouldn’t it be exciting to extend their range and provide the cultural context?

Oh, Tokyo!

Yuma returned home with a whole new purpose. He founded a tour company and brought other passionate foodies onboard. Together, they created a rich banquet of local experiences—guided walks, cooking classes, online food shows, blogs detailing hidden gems, and more.

Wada Yuma samples Japanese food with fellow Ninja Food Tours tour guides in Tokyo, the setting for his Japanese food tour and trivia night. (Image © by Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours)

Global locals: Yuma with fellow Ninjas Julia, Nathan, and Amanda.
Julia, un amante Giappone, (“fan of Japan”) grew up in Italy, Amanda in Quebec.
© Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours

Three years later, Ninja Food Tours was garnering top-ten ratings in a city that welcomed 15 million visitors a year. Ninja Food Tours drew visitors from around the world to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Yuma’s work was being featured on CNN and other major news channels. Meanwhile, Japan had spent more than $25 billion on preparations for the Olympics.

Then the world went into lock-down.

So . . . No Tokyo?

Today, most of us can’t visit our local Japanese restaurants, let alone Japan. So Yuma has come up with a clever way to bring Japan to us—a simple but surprisingly rich hour of virtual travel. Presented as a trivia quiz, it’s also:

a quest for culinary inspiration
a family-friendly tour
a delightful way to socialize
a primer for in-person travel to Japan

Unlike a travel documentary, it offers plenty of interaction. Unlike a cooking class, there’s no prep needed. You’ll come away with a feast of insights into Japanese food, even if you already know your ikura from your izakaya.

Meet the New Chef—You!

The premise of the quiz is half the fun: You’re welcomed as a newly hired chef in Tokyo. As part of your culinary training, you tag along with a master chef who presents you with challenges. Together, you explore Japan’s biggest fish market, the city’s kitchenware capital, and more.

Ninja Food Tours tour guide Kaz displays a chef’s deba knife in Tokyo, the setting for Yuma Wada’s online Japanese food tour and trivia night. (Image © by Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours)

Your master chef (portrayed by Ninja guide Kaz) shares cutting-edge culinary skills.
© Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours

Now I can’t say too much, or I’d give away trivia-quiz answers. But what I can share is that the challenges are varied, creative, and instructive. The quiz is an icebreaker, fun to play with folks you know or folks you’ve just met. You can apply much of what you learn the next time you cook at home or order take-out.

Yuma Wada’s Sake Bar Doron is close to Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, in Tokyo, the setting for his online Japanese food tour and trivia night. (Image © by Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours)

One of my first stops in Tokyo will be Yuma’s restaurant, Sake Bar Doron.
© Yuma Wada/ Ninja Food Tours

Memories of Travels Past Future

Given my thwarted plans to visit Japan in 2020, I was surprised at what I gleaned from this Japanese food tour—virtual travel, for sure. In addition to expanding my culinary skills, I got my questions answered on everything from etiquette and edible gardening to locally-beloved, less touristed neighborhoods. Oh, I see: I now have good memories of a place I’ve not yet been. And the happy prospect of saying, “Kon’nichiwa, Yuma! It’s so nice to see you again.”

Yuma Wada is beta-testing a new Japanese Food Trivia Night. Join FREE—until February 5. Register here.
Join all live events—Japanese Food Trivia Night, here; Sake Class, here; Kitchenware Shopping in Kappabashi, here.
Follow Ninja Food Tours on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Dining solo? Discover food-themed Japanese shows, here. (I love “Midnight Diner.”)

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 4 Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Japan/The World's Chefs

Dec

In the Kitchen with OIC: Cooking with Spice!

by Joyce McGreevy on December 21, 2020

Nistha Trehun teaches an online class on cooking with spices, using Indian tradition as inspiration for any cuisine you like. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

Live from Berlin, Nistha shares the art and science of spices with people around the world.
© Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party

Nistha’s Top Ingredient: Indian Tradition

What’s in your spice collection? And how long has it been there? Even confident home chefs can feel intimidated when it comes to cooking with spices. Sure, we regularly summon familiar favorites into culinary action. But are they favorites because they’re familiar?

Meanwhile, turmeric, cardamom, fenugreek, and other spices may languish in a cupboard, their magic wasting away, if we’re not sure how to use them.

Cue Nistha to the rescue. The India-born, Berlin-based chef (whose name in Sanskrit means “trust”) helps people around the world spice things up—from everyday cooking and eating to their health and even how they learn.

Oh, I see: Inspired by the Indian tradition of cooking with spice, Nistha Trehun is on a mission to enhance our appreciation of food in general.

An array of spices shows why the Indian tradition of cooking with spices helps create a variety of tastes, flavors, and colors. (Image by Veganamente and Pixabay)

Beyond bottled lookalikes: Spices reflect a rich variety of form and function.
Veganamente/ Pixabay

Kitty in the Kitchen

As with many chefs, Nistha’s fascination with cooking began early. Growing up in northern India, she lived in a 20-room house with her extended family and a kitchen that offered the lively appeal and rich aromas of a restaurant.

“When I was really young, I used to tell my mom, ‘I want to cut onions,’ and she would give me a very small knife, not that sharp. I would have tears the whole time, but still I wanted to cut them.”

Despite her keen interest, “Kitty,” as her family called her, was mostly kept out of the kitchen, as were the other children. Why?

“In [my mom’s] generation, parents always wanted the girls to learn cooking. But while I was growing up times had changed, and for my parents, education became the only thing that mattered. So, I studied. A lot.”

Nistha’s discipline earned her a gold medal, graduation at the top of her class, and a degree in business administration.

“In my college, everybody would say, ‘I want to be an engineer or a doctor.’ And I was saying, ‘I want to open a culinary business and name it The Kitty Party.’”

Today, The Kitty Party is a flourishing, moveable feast that mirrors Nistha’s love of travel. She actually launched the business in South Korea when she and her husband transferred there for work. She quickly fell in love with Seoul. “I went walking every day and know every street in the city.”

A close-up of students in Nistha’s class shows how the Indian tradition of cooking with spices extends to desserts and pastries. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

With on-site classes like this on pause, Nistha creates hands-on experiences online.
© Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party

So Many Questions

As her in-person culinary events proved popular with locals and travelers alike, a common theme emerged.

“People had so many questions about spices! Because it was my first time out of India, that came as a surprise to me.” Until then, Nistha had assumed that everybody grew up with daily exposure to the traditions and techniques of cooking with spices.

For example, many people know cumin as a powder that they sprinkle, last minute, into Western adaptations of cross-cultural dishes. But in India, cumin is so much more—a virtuoso seed that produces numerous flavors depending on its origin and variety, and how it is stored, heated, crushed, milled, measured, and combined.

A supper dish beautifully presented shows the creative possibilities of cooking with spices using Indian tradition as inspiration. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

“Combining spice with another ingredient builds dimensions of flavor that did not exist before.”
© Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party

Nistha also discovered that she loved answering people’s questions. Combining scholarly drive with her passion for spices, she redoubled her research and experimentation and set out to share her mission: “To teach that whatever your style is, whatever your taste, you can still use spices in your own cooking. You do not need to cook Indian for that.”

Spices, she says, are something that everybody should eat, not because they’re Indian, but because they are healthy. And she enjoys dispelling misconceptions about spices, such as the notion that “spicy” always equals heat.

“People often assume that by spices, I mean chilies, but there are also many spices that help preserve the flavor of food.”

After Seoul, Nistha, her husband, and The Kitty Party, moved to their current home in Berlin. When the pandemic put customer foot traffic on pause, Nistha didn’t miss a beat. She simply moved the party online.

Nicknamed “The Dancing Chef,” she enlivens her online events with dance breaks and personal stories. Recently, she hosted a celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, with students who logged on from Mexico.

Nistha sporting a vivid turmeric-colored shirt shows how cooking with spices based on Indian tradition also feeds her creativity. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

“This is my turmeric shirt.” Nishta invites students to wear their favorite spice colors.
© Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party

Worldwide Spice Advice? Nice!

This combination of cultural tradition, culinary insight, and sheer fun has made Nistha a top-rated presenter on Airbnb Online Experiences.

Her audience represents almost every continent. It includes couples and college students new to cooking, families enjoying togetherness across time zones, Fortune 500 employees engaged in team building, travelers from Brazil to Taiwan to Kuwait, professional chefs across Europe, and even a chef’s assistant from Antarctica.

Nistha’s events cover a wide range, too. Students can opt to cook a full meal, prepare traditional Indian beverages or desserts, or explore a single seasoning. Or, under Nistha’s guidance, they may combine spices they already have with foods so simple (bread, cucumber, a steamed vegetable) that anyone can easily participate.

Regardless of topic, unlocking the power of spice always takes center stage.

A turmeric latte garnished with star anise and edible flowers show why cooking with spices based on Indian tradition involves more than just adding a dash of powder. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

Star anise and edible flowers garnish an elegant turmeric latte.
© Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party

“People are especially fascinated by turmeric, but often have no idea how to use it,” says Nistha.

She recalls the man who kept turmeric in his cupboard for 17 years because it seemed too precious to use. The woman whose friends believed turmeric pills and health drinks could substitute for foods. The people who bought chain-store lattes sprinkled with turmeric and were disappointed with the taste.

Nistha smiles. “You can’t just sprinkle on turmeric. It needs to be gently heated in good fat for a few seconds to release curcumin, a powerful anti-inflammatory. This also removes bitterness. In India, people call turmeric a ‘holy spice’ because it helps keep disease at bay.”

As for subbing supplements for food, Nistha wonders why anyone would deny themselves the social practice, celebration, and sensory experience of cooking and sharing a good meal.

“When we eat something, we are not just mechanically satisfying our nutritional need like an appliance charging its battery. We smell the aroma, see the colors, feel the textures, and most important of all we satisfy our tastebuds.”

A cook booklet, The Simple Spice Box Recipes, by Nistha Terun, sums up the art and science of cooking with spices based on Indian tradition. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

Nistha’s new recipe booklet is a tribute to her favorite Indian spices.
© Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party

Nistha also emphasizes that cooking with spice from the Indian subcontinent does not apply only to recipes based on Indian tradition. After all, she says, people who like olive oil don’t use it only for Italian food.

“I’m not here to teach you complicated menus. I want to teach the power of each ingredient.” What you cook, she says, can be as simple as a one-pot meal.

In short, any day’s the right day to spice up your life. Says Nistha, “We can’t afford to lose these small pleasures of life if we want to thrive as humans.”

Nistha teaching by Zoom from Berlin combines the festivities of December with the fun of cooking with spices based on Indian tradition. (Image © by Nistha Trehun, The Kitty Party)

Need a “seasonal” gift with lasting appeal? Click here.
© Joyce McGreevy

Follow Nistha on Instagram and Facebook. Explore The Kitty Party here.

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 2 Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/India/The World's Chefs

Nov

In the Kitchen with OIC: “Pan” Cultural Cuisine!

by Joyce McGreevy on November 23, 2020

In lockdown? Don’t flip out—flip a pancake instead!
Gilaxia/ iStock

Easy Pancakes from Around the World

Rembrandt sketched them. Shakespeare wrote them into his plays. Sweden established an academy in their honor. They’ve starred in ancient tales and modern movies, inspired mad dashes and dashes of spice and color.

They are pancakes. For many of us, that means a common breakfast food that takes minutes to cook, seconds to eat, and hours to walk off. In fact, that little circle on your plate connects to a multitude of ingredients, shapes, languages, and traditions. Oh, I see: Known by hundreds of names and varieties around the world, this food encompasses a rich “pan” cultural cuisine.

Let’s explore this sisterhood of the traveling pancakes. Along the way, we’ll see how different kinds of pancakes stack up. On your return, peruse our menu of online classes to cook easy pancakes from around the world.

Palatschinke are among the most popular of easy pancakes from around the world. (Image by MariaPolna and Pxhere)

Popular in Slavic culture, palatschinke are Greco-Roman in origin.
MariaPolna/ Pxhere

Breakfast of Ancient Champions

For many culinary historians, all foods lead to ancient Rome. The Romans spiced their pancakes and dubbed them Alita Dolcia. Lyrical but lazy, it simply means “another sweet.” In the second century, Greek physician Galen saw fit to provide a detailed recipe for them in his medical tome. Still popular today, traditional teganitai are sizzled in olive oil and topped with honey.

But did the Greeks invent pancakes as is often claimed? It’s true that many forms of pancake developed throughout Europe, became popular in the Middle Ages, and later crossed the Atlantic. However, archaeological evidence shows that indigenous peoples of the Americas had been making cachapas, arepas, and other corn-based pancakes since early pre-Columbian times.

A cachapa, a Venezuelan pancake, is among the easy pancakes around the world made with corn. (Image by nehopelon and iStock)

Starchier than tortillas, Venezuelan cachapas are filled with creamy cheese
and eaten hot off the griddle.
nehopelon/ iStock

Early on, almost every culture improvised griddles from hot stones. At food festivals in Lucca, Italy, a few chefs still rock this method. To make necci, they pour batter onto hot, flat stones, cover them with chestnut leaves, and stack them on top of each other. The choice of leaves is apt, because necci are made with chestnut flour, milled from the harvest of local forests.

Flour Power

Chestnuts, corn—these are just two items on a long list of pancake possibilities, as well as reminders that “gluten-free” pancakes are nothing new. The flours that power a culture’s popular pancakes include:

rice: India’s dosa and malpua, Korea’s jeon
chickpeas: Southern France’s socca
beans: Nigeria’s akara, Japan’s dorayaki
potatoes: Ireland’s boxty, Ecuador’s llapingachos
buckwheat (which isn’t a wheat at all): New Brunswick’s ploye, Nepal’s phapar ko roti)

Add wheat, and suddenly the globe is paved in pancakes from Samoa (panikeke) to Morocco (beghrir) to New Zealand (pikelets).

A dish of malpua pancakes from India shows why some easy pancakes from around the world have been popular for thousands of years. (Image by Kailash Kumar and iStock)

India’s malpua has sweetened palates for 3,000 years.
Kailash Kumar/ iStock

**What’s in Your Pancake?**

The variety of flours is matched by what different cultures put on, and in, their pancakes. The world beyond maple syrup extends to condensed milk (Thailand), sour cream (Russia), shredded coconut (Brazil), pork fat with lingonberries (Sweden), bonito fish flakes (Japan), and edible flowers (Korea).

The look varies widely, too. Italy’s borlenghi are so big they’re also known as cartwheel pancakes. By contrast, Dutch poffertjes are teensy—they originated in a church as an improved form of communion host. Amen!

Scrambled pancakes, or Kaiserschmarrn, suggest the variety of easy pancakes from around the world. (Image by Pxhere)

Purposely scrambled, Austria’s Kaiserschmarrn means “Emperor’s mess.”
Pxhere

As for color, Indonesia’s kue ape pancakes come by their vibrant green naturally, thanks to pandan. The leaves of this tropical plant are used to make an extract that’s been compared to vanilla. The batter is cooked in woks to create a spongy center and a crispy edge. Home cooks— which is all of us these days—can find pandan flavoring extract for sale online and at our local Asian markets.

Kue ape pancakes from Indonesia are bright green, showing the variety of easy pancakes from around the world. (Image by MielPhotos2008 and iStock)

Kue ape are made with wheat flour, coconut milk, and palm sugar.
MielPhotos2008/ iStock

Not all pancake ingredients catch on, of course. In Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook (Boston, 1881) the pancake mix called for “a bowl of snow.” Seems it met the melts-in-your-mouth test, but was a little too back-to-the-land.

Pancake Planet

The world’s pancakes come with a generous side of fascinating stories.

According to traditional storytellers, it wasn’t the gingerbread man, but the pancake who ran away. Well, rolled. The runaway pancake features in several “fleeing food” tales, including in Norway, Germany, and Russia.
In Japanese legend, a samurai accidentally left his gong at a farmer’s house where he had been hiding. The farmer used it to cook “gong cakes,” the literal meaning of dorayaki. Dorayaki pancakes are also the favorite food of a time-traveling robot cat. Doraemon is the title character of a smash-hit series of manga books and movies.
In Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” the Bard flips pancakes into wordplay. Coincidentally, “as you like it” is the literal meaning of okonomiyaki, another Japanese pancake.
Several countries have religious traditions of eating pancakes the night before Lent. In France during La Chandeleur, the pancake of choice is a crêpe. An old tradition was to place one crêpe into a drawer to attract prosperity. It would certainly have attracted something.

Women running with frying pans in the Pancake Race in Olney, England evoke the fun and history of easy pancakes around the world, (Image by RobinMeyesrcough, licensed by Wikemedia Commons CC BY 2.0)

On hold for now, the Pancake Race in Olney, England was first run in 1445.
Robin Meyerscough/ CC BY 2.0

Coming full circle, the most astonishing thing about pancakes remains their sheer variety, even when considered (or better yet, eaten) within a single country. Italian pancakes alone include crespelle al bitto, ciaffignone, chisciöl, scrippelle ‘mbusse, and several others. In short, we’ve only just scratched the surface of the pancake’s many layers.

That’s all the more reason to get your hands on recipes for easy pancakes from around the world. Check out the menu below this post. We’ve stuffed it like a savory Breton galette with links to virtual cooking classes and entertaining demos. After all, what goes better with pancakes than a side of links?

A chef making dozens of tiny pancakes suggests the popularity and variety of easy pancakes from around the world. (Image by mel_88 and Pxhere)

Have yourself a merry little pancake!
mel_88/ Pixabay

Get cooking! Click on a pancake name to sign up for a live online cooking class: potato pancakes, crêpes, Japanese soufflé pancakes, Bavarian apple pancakes, Osaka style okonomiyaki, and Chinese scallion pancakes.

Can’t wait? Click on a place name for quick how-to videos: Venezuela (cachapas), Nepal (phapar ko roti), Austria (kaiserschmarrn, in German with English captions), Ireland (boxty).

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.