Untangling My Chopsticks (4 page)

Everyone had an extraordinary penchant for cleanliness, driven by Shinto's emphasis on freshness and purity. Uniformed servers at Mr. Donut shops were constantly buffing the already pristine automatic glass doors. Train conductors habitually carried long metal kitchen-like tongs to pick up cigarette butts and gum wrappers at station stops. Gentlemen in ironed chinos regularly wiped down vending machines with moist cloths. One night
I had to step around an elderly man vacuuming the subway stairs in downtown Kyoto.

Even my first taxi ride proved to be a cathartic experience (cleaning out my wallet too, since the meter began at six dollars). The driver greeted me in a neatly pressed slate-blue suit that matched the taut fabric on his police-style cap. His black shoes had a patina like fine lacquerware and his gloves were chalk white. As I reached for the door, it automatically swung open to reveal soft seats covered with stretchy snow-white fabric that hugged them like fitted sheets. Lacy white covers capped each headrest. Smart brochures filled the plush fabric pouches behind the driver's seat, which reached down to a spotless carpeted floor.

There was also a peculiarly Japanese adaptation of things foreign. I first noticed this one rainy November evening when I stopped by Rub-a-Dub, a funky reggae watering hole located near the Pontocho, the city's former red-light district now known for its restaurants, bars, and geisha teahouses. After ordering one of the bar's famous daiquiris, I anticipated receiving an American-style rum-in-your-face daiquiri with an explosive citrus pucker. Instead, I was handed a delicate fruity drink that tasted more like a melted lime Popsicle. Over time I noticed other items had been similarly adapted. McDonald's offered hamburgers with sliced pineapple and ham to satisfy Japanese women's notorious sweet tooth. “Authentic” Italian restaurants topped their tomato-seafood linguini with thin strands of
nori
seaweed, instead of grated Parmesan. And slim triangles of “real” New York–style
chizu-keki
(cheesu-cakey) in dessert shops tasted like cream cheese–sweetened air.

Not surprisingly, Japan's culinary scene proved to be one of the best gateways to the culture. Simply tasting my first Asian pear was a revelation in ripeness. It was so swollen with sweet juices that when I bit into it I had to lean over the pavement to avoid drenching my shirt. Purchased from a fancy fruit stand where sixty-dollar cantaloupes rested in cushioned gift boxes next to thirty-dollar pineapples, the Asian pear, cultivated to perfection, cost only two dollars.

Casual eateries offered additional insight. Although Bob had a kitchen in his traditional home, it was quite cramped. What's more, only cold water ran into the stone sink and instead of a range, a portable two-burner electric stove sat on a smooth slate work area just big enough to hold a cutting board. I contemplated cooking, eager to throw myself into the markets. In the end, not wanting to inconvenience Bob and his two roommates, I decided to eat out.

As I tried various restaurants, certain preconceptions came crashing down. I realized not all Japanese food consisted of carefully carved vegetables, sliced fish, and clear soups served on black lacquerware in a highly restrained manner. Tasting
okonomiyaki
(literally, “cook what you like”), for example, revealed one way the Japanese let their chopsticks fly.

Often called “Japanese pizza,” okonomiyaki more resembles a pancake filled with chopped vegetables and your choice of meat, chicken, or seafood. The dish evolved in Osaka after World War II, as a thrifty way to cobble together a meal from table scraps.

A college classmate living in Kyoto took me to my first okonomiyaki restaurant where, in a casual room swirling with conversation and aromatic smoke, we ordered chicken-shrimp okonomiyaki. A waitress oiled the small griddle in the center of
our table, then set down a pitcher filled with a mixture of flour, egg, and grated Japanese mountain yam made all lumpy with chopped cabbage, carrots, scallions, bean sprouts, shrimp, and bits of chicken. When a drip of green tea skated across the surface of the hot metal, we poured out a huge gob of batter. It sputtered and heaved. With a metal spatula and chopsticks, we pushed and nagged the massive pancake until it became firm and golden on both sides. Our Japanese neighbors were doing the same. After cutting the doughy disc into wedges, we buried our portions under a mass of mayonnaise, juicy strands of red pickled ginger, green seaweed powder, smoky fish flakes, and a sweet Worcestershire-flavored sauce. The pancake was crispy on the outside, soft and savory inside—the epitome of Japanese comfort food.

Another day, one of Bob's roommates, Theresa, took me to a
donburi
restaurant, as ubiquitous in Japan as McDonald's are in America. Named after the bowl in which the dish is served, donburi consists of sticky white rice smothered with your choice of meat, vegetables, and other goodies. Theresa recommended the
oyako,
or “parent and child,” donburi, a medley of soft nuggets of chicken and feathery cooked egg heaped over rice, along with chopped scallions and a rich sweet bouillon. Scrumptious, healthy, and prepared in a flash, it redefined the meaning of fast food.

The automatic sushi bars expanded upon the concept. After grabbing a free stool around an oval floor pit, you push a handleless ceramic mug against a self-serve spigot until it brims with scalding green tea. While sushi chefs slap thin cuts of fish over logs of vinegared rice, you squirt soy into a small dish from a plastic squeeze bottle and load up on pickled pink ginger from a plastic tub on the counter. Then you grab whatever kind of sushi looks tasty as it glides by on a rubber conveyer belt. You pay by
the number of plates stacked in front of you, which range from one to two dollars each.

My first fancy meal in Japan was at an elegant restaurant on a small side street around the corner from Bob's. High-end restaurants in Japan can be intimidating, since the staff rarely speaks English and most menu items and prices are written in characters.

Nevertheless, having made the decision to splurge one Saturday night not long after my arrival, I headed down the smooth stone walkway toward the entrance. The black rocks glistened, having been sprayed with water earlier that evening. Most restaurants in Kyoto do that to evoke a feeling of freshness, a time-honored Kyoto tradition stemming from the desire to purify the stones from the dust of the once-dirt streets.

A three-paneled cream cloth marked with gray squiggles hung over the top third of the pine-slatted door. This cloth, called a
noren,
indicates the name of the restaurant or the type of food it serves.

To the right of the entrance stood what looked like a bamboo music stand holding the menu, ten vertical rows of Chinese characters penned in black ink on expensive white paper. If you tipped your head slightly, you could see the delicate silvery-white bamboo leaf design that had been pressed onto the sheet.

Behind the menu was a window looking into the restaurant, only it was angled so as to reveal nothing more than a beautiful turquoise vase displayed in an alcove along the back wall. To discourage people like me from fogging up the window to decipher the kind of food the restaurant served, someone had cleverly erected an artistic bamboo blockade.

Still unsure of the restaurant's cuisine, I tentatively slid open the door and stepped in. Several Japanese patrons glanced over from their seats at a polished cypress counter. There were no tables. Two sushi chefs yelled out their greetings and looked up at me. I thought I saw one of them wince before lowering his head back down toward his work.

Suddenly, the room grew hushed and I realized people were staring at me. My very presence had punctuated the room's stillness, as if I had cannonballed into a private pool and splashed water all over the club members, who were quietly reading on lawn chairs.

Just as I was contemplating leaving, a young male waiter gestured for me to sit down at the counter. He handed me a washcloth and then a menu, his hands trembling slightly. I tried to offer him my most relaxed smile and then looked around.

On my right, two women were plucking at small tangles of what looked like daikon radish strands, tossed with creamy pillows of sea urchin, and peppery red sprouts. One had several gold cocktail rings on her slim fingers, which twinkled as she used her chopsticks. The two women hardly spoke, but delicately ate and sipped sake, like two shore birds pecking along the ocean's edge.

On my left, two men were drinking beer and waiting for dinner. One had loosened his tie and slung his tweed jacket over the back of the chair. His companion, who had rolled up his shirtsleeves, leaned forward and nodded a rosy-faced hello. I smiled back, then looked down at my menu, blankly staring at the flourish of indecipherable characters on the lavender sheet.

Soon the waiter came around with a porcelain mug of brewed green tea and put it down. He started fidgeting with his apron strings. “You speak Japanese?” he asked, his lip quivering.

“No, not really,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you speak English?”

He blew out a stiff laugh. “Little.”

At that moment, the door slid open and in walked an elderly couple. They bowed to the sushi chefs, who looked up and called out their greetings. “Moment,” said the waiter, dashing off to fetch the couple's menus, visibly relieved to leave his post.

With nothing else to do, I sipped my tea and watched the sushi masters. With quick precise strokes, they transformed glistening blocks of fatty tuna and gray mullet into smooth neat rectangles. The morsels shone like jewels, the color, cut, and shape perfectly showcasing the seafood's freshness. The two men snatched handfuls of rice from a wide wooden bowl and shaped them into ovals as if preparing for a snowball fight. They say the most talented sushi masters can form their rice so that every grain points in the same direction.

The two men worked rapidly, wiping the starch from their hands on a damp cloth on the counter, before placing thick strips of fish over wasabi-smeared rice bullets. Their actions were clear, smooth, and Zen-like in their economy of movement. A woman's hands are supposedly too hot to make sushi, which is why sushi masters are always men, a convenient bit of folk wisdom for this male-dominated profession.

Overcome with hunger, I realized the only way I was going to get dinner was to ask for what I hoped lay in the fish case. How much could ten pieces of sushi cost? Twenty dollars? Thirty? I figured ten pieces was a reasonable amount to order.

The waiter returned with a small pad and stood silently with downcast eyes. “Sushi,” I announced, hoping to set him at ease. I then proceeded to tick off my favorites—
chutoro
(fatty tuna belly),
hamachi
(yellowtail),
anago
(conger eel), and
uni
(sea urchin). I then
added on
saba
(mackerel). Aside from being cheap, it has a luscious metallic tang, like the blood-dark portions of bluefish and swordfish. The waiter nodded, handed the order to the sushi chefs, then hurried off.

I slipped my chopsticks out of their paper wrapper and then broke the top portion apart. I had heard that Japanese men twitch with pleasure every time they snap the sticks open. New chopsticks are said to be like young virgins; the snap symbolizes their deflowering.

What I didn't know then, but would discover years later, was that there are approximately fifty different types of chopsticks in Japan, made of wood, bamboo, ivory, bone, and various metals, and that numerous dos and don'ts have arisen regarding their use at the table. One of the more notorious taboos is to rub those disposable wooden chopsticks together. This implies the chopsticks are cheap, and therefore so is the restaurant, which could insult your host and/or the chef.

Another no-no is to drag a bowl or serving plate toward you by hooking your chopsticks over the edge of the dish. It is also impolite to stab an item, perhaps a slippery mushroom cap, with the tip of your chopstick.

You should avoid holding your chopsticks midair and hovering over a variety of dishes while you try to decide which delicacy to pluck, as well as making a drippy mess when picking up a morsel of food covered with sauce or in a soup.

If you wish to help yourself to a communal dish after you have begun eating, you should always use the serving chopsticks. If there are none, you should turn your chopsticks around and use the clean tops to grasp the food. This sanitary practice is derived from the Shinto belief that one's spoiled spirit can be passed on to others through shared foods.

You should also refrain from passing anything from chopsticks to chopsticks during a meal. That's because when someone dies, relatives of the deceased pass the bones from chopsticks to chopsticks at the crematory before the ashes are transferred to the urn.

Instead of resting your chopsticks on the edge of your plate or soup bowl, you should place your chopsticks on the chopstick rest. If there is none, you should make your own from the paper wrapper.

Thankfully, I knew enough to do that while the sushi chef prepared my meal. He kept his head down the entire time, then after about ten minutes, placed a white stoneware rectangle holding ten pieces of sushi on the flat top portion of the glass fish case. Only after bowing, did he quickly look up, then utter something. I held my hands in a prayer position and bowed back. The waiter brought over a cruet of soy sauce.

I could feel the chef 's eyes boring into me as I poured way too much soy into my saucer. The Japanese use a minuscule amount of soy to accent, not overwhelm, the delicate flavor of the fish. With my chopsticks I transferred a nubbin of wasabi, about the size of a raisin, into the salty brown sauce and swirled it around until it dissolved. Mistake number two. I looked up at the sushi chef.

He produced an expression that hovered somewhere between curiosity and doubt. Would this nice but verbally dumb Westerner ruin his fine work? Would she know what to do? And do it well? I glanced over at my dining companions, then suddenly got all tangled up in my chopsticks. On my right, the elderly woman with her gentleman companion was eating sushi with her fingers! And instead of dipping the rice portion into the soy, as I had always done, she grazed the fish end. Not only that, she bit
the oval in half and discreetly chewed with her hand across her lips in a gesture of politeness.