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Cuisine
Home » Japan » Japan - Overview and History » CuisineJapanese cuisine offers a great variety of dishes and regional specialties. The following are some of the most popular types of cuisine in Japan.
1) Rice Dishes – For over 2000 years, rice has been the most important food in the Japanese cuisine. Despite changes in eating patterns over the last decades and slowly decreasing rice consumption in recent years, rice remains one of the most important ingredients in Japan today.
2) Seafood Dishes – Many dozens of kinds of fish, shellfish and other seafood from the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers are used in the Japanese cuisine. They are prepared and eaten in many different ways, for example, raw, dried, boiled, grilled, deep fried or steamed.
3) Noodle Dishes – There are various traditional Japanese and imported noodle dishes in Japan. Many of them enjoy a very high popularity.
4) Nabe Dishes – Nabe dishes are prepared in a hot pot, usually at the table. Typical ingredients are vegetables such as negi (Japanese leek) and hakusai (Chinese cabbage), various mushrooms, seafood and/or meat. There are many regional and personal varieties, and they are especially popular in the cold winter months.
5) Meat Dishes – Meat has been eaten in Japan in larger amounts only since the second half of the 19th century. There are a variety of Japanese meat dishes eaten in Japan today.
6) Soya Bean Dishes – Tofu, natto, miso and many more important ingredients of Japanese cooking are made of Soya beans.
7) Yoshoku Dishes – Yoshoku means Western food. A large number of Western dishes have been introduced to Japan over the centuries.
Sources
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ja.html
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/GJ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2035.html
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