While visiting a dear friend in Oakland, California, I had one of the most eye-opening experiences of my culinary life. Watermelon and I have had a bit of a love affair since my parents gave me my own patch of garden and asked me what I wanted to grow, and melon balls had been an exciting specialty of my next door neighbor growing up. To see watermelon melon balls in a salad was beyond belief. I expected the watermelon to make the salad sweet. Instead, it kept the salad moist, and kept the saltier and more acidic elements of the salad from overwhelming the palate.
Ingredients:
½ head of cabbage
1 small red onion
1 small seedless watermelon
1 container of feta cheese
Italian dressing to taste
Start by chopping or shredding your cabbage. My friend had a mandoline, so this went very easily for me. If you don’t have a mandoline, here’s a strategy for getting your cabbage fine enough. Once finished, dress your cabbage with the Italian dressing and set it aside to marinate. The volume of your cabbage will also lessen during this time, so don’t worry if the bowl seems full! Next, grab your melon baller and ball up half of your watermelon. Set the melon balls aside in a separate bowl. We won’t be adding them until just before the salad is served. Cut your onion in half, then thinly slice each half. Separate the onion layers over your cabbage bowl and mix. At this point, all of your prep is done. When you’re ready to serve the salad, mix your melon balls in and top the salad with a generous helping of crumbled feta cheese. You’ll be surprised at how well this unlikely combination balances in your mouth.
Speaking of things that are greater than the sum of their parts, let’s talk about Ghost in the Shell—specifically the animated movie that started it all, not the white-washed travesty currently in theaters. An oldy, but a goody, Ghost in the Shell has inspired a lot of different reactions. Understandable, since there have been many adaptations and additions to the franchise. Besides the original Ghost in the Shell movie, there’s the sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. There’s a manga that predates both the movies, an anime series that seems to be set after the events of the movies but almost covers a different continuity than the movies could have allowed for, and the new prequel anime Ghost in the Shell: Arise. The Arise series finishes with a new movie that feeds directly into the beginning of the first movie, bringing Ghost in the Shell fans full circle by indisputably connecting the Arise series to the original movie continuity. Despite its many forms and themes, there is one theme I believe remains constant through the Ghost in the Shell franchise. Ghost in the Shell was always a story of identity.
Here, Motoko Kusanagi—sometimes known as “the Major” and always known as the commanding officer of Japanese government clean-up squad, Section 9—questions what makes up identity, and what makes that identity “real.” That conversation continues throughout the movie, as a digital life form known as the Puppet Master makes itself known.
What’s interesting about the Puppet Master is that there are two versions of their voice. Although male pronouns are always used for the Puppet Master in the English sub and dub of both the original movie and the updated release of the original movie, in the updated release the Puppet Master uses a female voice instead of the male voice heard in the above clip. Both versions are interesting, because in the original there is a discrepancy between the perceived gender of the voice heard and the perceived gender of the body the Puppet Master possesses, and in the updated release there is a discrepancy between the pronoun used and the perceived gender of both the Puppet Master’s voice and body.
In this scene from the anime, when Motoko’s gender is questioned by her team member Batou, she refutes the idea that her gender is only skin deep and that women are weaker by hacking his synthetic body and overpowering him. Combined with the different voices of the Puppet Master, Ghost in the Shell would seem to be implying that gender has less to do with an outward appearance, and more to do with what gender the life form inside the body feels themselves to be.
Which makes sense, considering the commercial quality of synthetic cyborg bodies. During a particular sequence in the original movie, Motoko sees a woman in a cafe that looks just like her. That’s like walking into a party to see another girl wearing the same dress you are—disconcerting. In an age where identity can be bought, sold, and hacked, the only place it could come from is within.
My mother and I planted beets in the garden back in the spring. My grandfather had a Greek recipe for vinegar and beets we wanted to make. Then we forgot about the beets. They became...huge. My roommate had never eaten beets before, and we needed to see if the beets were still even edible… So I peeled and cut the biggest one we had. Turns out, when you peel and cut a beet, that beautiful red coloring gets all over your hands, your knife, and your cutting board. My roommate was horrified and told me I looked like I had just killed something. After pointing out I had essentially just killed the beet, but also that the beet wasn’t really alive, I placed the slices of beet in a casserole dish, covered them with water, and nuked them in the microwave for seven minutes so we could have a side of boiled beets with our dinner that evening—assuming the beets were still good.
Something you may not know about beets: they are super flavorful. And, they’re pretty sweet. Beets are really difficult to eat if they’re raw, but they become a delicious warm side to dinner or cold topping to a salad once they’re boiled. There are actually a lot of recipes for beet salad. Like this one with walnuts, and this one with mint and garlic, and this one with cucumbers... Reading them has my mouth watering, but that’s not all beets are good for! There’s also soup! If you decide to chop your beets finely before boiling them, you can just leave them in the water and have a lovely beet soup as the water will thicken a little with the same color and sweetness as the beets. This is a really simplistic beet soup, however, and if you’re not trying to make tasty beet broth boil the beets in a pot on the stove with their skins on. Then you can peel and cut them however you like, although it’s a little messier than peeling and cutting them when raw. But, if what you’re after is a more traditional, heartier beet soup, there’s no better place to turn than borscht. Like this Russian one with bacon, or this Ukrainian one with potatoes. Borscht is delicious both hot and cold, so you don’t even have to worry about forgetting about it!
Essentially, what I’m saying is that these red root vegetables are so versatile and easy to prepare you literally have no excuse for not preparing and eating them. Also, that when preparing them you may look like a blood-spattered murderer.
Speaking of blood, let’s talk about other things that might be good for you, such as a poignant death in a piece of media you love. I know, seems like a strange segue, but I’m about to relate a very personal story to you about how dealing with the death of a character I loved prepared me to deal with the death of my grandfather, who loved beets.
Gurren Lagann is what is commonly known as “a mecha anime.” This means one of the main things this anime revolves around is giant robots! These animes tend to fall into a bunch of tropes, mainly the shounen anime ones. If you’re unfamiliar with these tropes or need a refresher course, allow me to direct you to the informational treasure trove that is TV Tropes. What I like about Gurren Lagann is that it breaks a ton of those tropes. This may be a coming of age story about a boy with a giant robot, but it’s also a motivating and humbling epic about family, what constitutes humanity, and the right to really live.
But what story about life can really drive home its point without pointing out the transience of it?
The three main characters of Gurren Lagann are Simon, Kamina, and Yoko. Simon is the main character, a little boy from an underground village who spends his days looking for materials to bring back to the village. Kamina is the village trouble maker, always rambling about how they should break the earthen roof of their village and go to the surface. Yoko is a girl from the surface that the two boys meet when a giant mechanized monster breaks through the ceiling of their village. Yoko is fighting it. Kamina and Simon end up helping—Kamina with the only sword in the village and his trademark wise-idiot routine, and Simon with the strange mecha he found while digging that day that couldn’t possibly play an important part in the overarching story, why would you say that, no. Next thing you know, Kamina and Simon have joined Yoko’s band of surface dwellers, fighting against the beastmen who control the giant robots called Gunmen.
But even though it’s Simon that’s the main character, it’s Kamina that affects change throughout the first half of the series. He’s the one that thought bigger than the villagers by trying to break through the roof to the surface. And he thinks bigger than the surface resistance party by suggesting that instead of just fighting off the beastmen and their giant mecha every day, they take their mecha from them instead and take the fight to the beastmen at their own base. Kamina is an interesting blend of anime character tropes. He is the “big brother mentor” character to Simon. He also presents aspects of “the leader” and the “wise fool.” TV Tropes seems to consider this particular blend of tropes to be a trope called “the fearless fool”—because as you will see when you click on this link, Kamina and two of his quotes are being used as the image and caption for this trope—but I would have to disagree to some extent. What is interesting about Kamina is that he appears to be the fearless fool. He seems like a character full of bluster and wise-sounding bits of nonsense, but what he often reveals in quiet moments of clarity is that he knows the risks and dangers of his actions, but chooses to be courageous in spite of them because he can’t bear the alternative of living in fear below the surface of the earth. Kamina’s actually forced to confront very early in the series that he may well die trying to take a Gunman from the beastmen.
Kamina is full of memorable and inspirational bits of dialogue. Like this one:
And this one:
And this one:
That last one is so popular with the fans, it’s been turned into several variations of motivational poster.
The point is, to both Simon and the viewer, that can be a real inspiration. I know it was for me. Kamina was the driving force behind Simon’s courage and Yoko’s belief in their success of winning a war against the beastmen.
And then he died.
It was unexpected. Kamina was the sort of character that wasn’t supposed to die. He was the leader. He was the fool. He was the big brother mentor. He was the sort of character the tropes told the audience was invaluable to the story. He wasn’t supposed to die.
It took me two weeks of crying and trying to rationalize what had happened to come back to the show. I was incapable of understanding where we were supposed to go from there. Kamina was not the main character, but I didn’t understand how Simon and Yoko were supposed to continue without him. Where would Simon find the courage? How could Yoko believe her small band of rebels could be victorious?
Ultimately what brought me back to the show was deciding that Kamina wouldn’t have wanted me to give up. I came back and cued up the next episode to watch Yoko and Simon dealing in the same way. Yoko went into hyperdrive trying to fill Kamina’s shoes, spurning people from her and trying to do everything by herself. Simon was an inconsolable lump. Both of them were grieving, both of them unhealthily. Now, we don’t live a world that requires us to deal with our grief in the span of a twenty-two minute episode, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that the course of Simon and Yoko resolving their grief within that time period is both realistic and doable. Simon finds the strength to fight again and Yoko finds the strength to cry. Both of them find this when they are reminded of the aspects of Kamina they were forgetting about in their grief. Even from beyond the grave, he is inspiring them to grow and evolve.
Kamina had to die in the narrative for Simon to develop into the real main character, the one that carries us through the second half of the series, fighting for humanity’s right to exist without chains, restrictions, or limitations. And none of that would have been possible if Simon had won the first war fighting from behind the shield of Kamina.
What I’m trying to say is that Kamina’s death achieved two things: it furthered the development of the story and other characters, and had a great effect upon the audience. The best deaths in fiction are the ones that help us carry the effect of the real thing when it unexpectedly sneaks into our lives. Carry the burdens you can afford to without letting life be a prison. That’s different for everyone, and I don’t have a perfect answer for how to grieve or deal with death. But I know this death in this piece of media helped me to remember my Papu when he died in a way that helped me to continue to work towards my own goals, cry, and eat yummy vinegar beets with my mother.
One last note: don’t watch the English dub of this one. It’s so lackluster in comparison to the Japanese. Trust me on this.
This really isn’t a recipe, but since my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer this month, I’ve got a link to a bunch of fun summer water infusions and a lot to say about MMORPGs. For those of you that don’t know, MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game--MMO for short. What in the world could water and MMOs possibly have in common, you ask?
All of our bodies are made up of sixty percent water. In that respect, we’re all the same. In an MMO, aside from differences that are chosen such as height, weight, class, and a charmingly outlandish haircut, all player characters are also the same. Everyone can run in the game. There’s no disease or physical limitations and you don’t ever have to present as a gender you don’t want to be perceived as. Depending on the game, sometimes it can be difficult to pass for androgynous or ungendered, but we continue to evolve. The important part is that everyone is on the same playing field. Everyone can be a dragon slaying, horse breeding, warrior farmer they want to be.
There have been some pieces of media that have illustrated this strength of MMOs to great effect over the years.
One of my all time favorites is the cult classic, .hack//. .hack// is a series that centers around an MMO called The World and has had many installments, starting with .hack//Sign, the first anime installment. The main character of .hack//Sign is a male presenting character named Tsukasa that gets trapped in the game and can’t log out. Turns out in real life, Tsukasa is actually a girl. This becomes relevant once Tsukasa gets out of the game at the end of the series, because while trapped in the game he falls in love with a girl whose character’s name is Subaru. Subaru is the leader of a prominent guild in The World called The Crimson Knights. In real life, she is a woman with a wheelchair who could never explore the caves, mountains, and forests she can in The World. What’s fantastic about both Tsukasa’s and Subaru’s experience with their characters in The World is that they offer them experiences they can’t have in real life. It’s unclear if Tsukasa chose to play a male character because they have issues with their assigned gender, but the point is that they are able to pass for male within The World. Subaru, on the other hand, gets to walk. When Tsukasa and Subaru finally meet outside The World for the first time, they recognize each other not because of the way they present in the real world, but because of the way they know each other as people from within The World.
The fade to color is a particularly evocative technique here. Only the in-game experiences of The World are portrayed in color throughout the series, while any real world scenes and flashbacks are depicted in the grayscale the video starts in. In this way, .hack//Sign creates a sense of realism within The World, implying that The World is the world that is most real to the main characters in this story. When Tsukasa and Subaru recognize each other as the people they know from the game, their interaction becomes real to them as well.
Because of the level playing field created by the equality of characters in online games, .hack// is able to include a wide and diverse cast of characters. Aside from Subaru and Tsukasa, they also include a trouble making child named Sora. Sora is taken seriously in The World as though he were an adult. This eventually gets him into trouble (spoilers: he ends up in a coma and losing his memory, and then shows back up in .hack//G.U. as the main character Haseo), but he learns from his mistakes and inevitably comes back to The World as a teenager in the .hack//G.U. game series. The other character .hack// has the chance to include that is often left out of most “save the world” stories is a pregnant woman!
.hack//Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, and Quarantine are the first set of .hack// video games that was released in the franchise. One of the first party members Kite (the player’s proxy in-game) acquires is a spell caster named Mistral. In the third game, she informs Kite that she can’t keep fighting against the anomalies in the game with him because she’s going to have a baby. She explains that she’s not just risking her life anymore, and if she was killed by one of the anomalies in game and fell into a coma in real life she might lose her baby. However, in order to protect The World for her child to enjoy free of anomalies and threats of falling comatose, Mistral later returns to the game in time for the final battle. Later, in the manga series .hack//Key of the Twilight, the reader meets Mistral’s child who has inherited Mistral’s old avatar, showing once again that The World is made for everyone.
The other piece of media that showed the strength of the leveling effect of MMOs is Corey Doctorow's graphic novel In Real Life. It’s difficult in western media to find media that depicts MMOs and players of MMOs in a good light. Too often, it’s the anti-social, overweight, white bigoted troll that is made out to be the only fan of MMOs. In Real Life’s main character, Anda, is not only a woman, but a woman with a real body shape. She’s not one of those gamer girls that hangs out in her bra and panties while playing Call of Duty to impress some asshat boyfriend--not that there’s anything wrong with hanging out in your underwear playing video games, but I find it’s often a lot less sexy than the internet makes it out to be. Instead, Anda’s a real woman who decides to get into the online game Coarsegold to join a guild of other female gamers.
With things like GamerGate and convention horror stories, it’s no secret that gaming and nerd culture in general can be a pretty sexist scene. In Real Life calls that out within the first few pages of the book:
This is an interesting phenomenon because while female players often play male characters to avoid sexism, there are male players that play female characters because they find them prettier than the male avatars. This is an example of the privilege male gamers enjoy in MMOs.
While the .hack// franchise doesn’t address the issue of sexism in gaming (I can only assume because the creators hoped such things would be resolved in the future era of gaming they chose to set their story in) In Real Life does a great job of being inclusive towards a female audience right from the get-go. The story then chooses to tackle another true-to-life issue with MMO gaming: gold farming.
Gold farmers are players who play the game solely to amass in-game assets and then sell them to other players for real life money. Most MMOs have rules that outlaw this behavior, and players can have their accounts suspended if they are caught participating in such exchanges. However, it doesn’t stop it from happening, and people who have only just started an MMO can find websites to buy in-game weapons, armor, materials, mounts, houses, and even pre-leveled avatars. Like many real life MMO players, Anda’s mentor in the guild doesn’t think it’s fair, and so combats the unfairness of gold farming by killing gold farmers’ characters for cash in her spare time. Killing other player’s characters is often referred to in MMO communities as “player killing” or “PKing” for short. Anda becomes involved in the gold farmer PKing, but when one of the gold farmers talks to her, Anda becomes conflicted.
Raymond is the name the gold farmer gives Anda. He tells her it’s the name he uses in his English classes. Through a mix of English, Chinese, and surprisingly inaccurate online translation services, Raymond tells Anda his story. He’s a Chinese man who works as a gold farmer--meaning he is paid in the real world by the company he works for to play Coarsegold and create in-game assets that the company then sells for real world money. For him, gold farming is not something he does to make a little extra money on the side like PKing is for her. Instead, it’s how he makes his livelihood.
What’s interesting about this story is that it does so many good things while simultaneously telling some really hard truths. Yes, gaming can be sexist, and yes, our global economy is royally messed up if illegal gold farming is the basis for companies in certain countries. Even more messed up if those companies aren’t offering things like health insurance, like Raymond’s company does to him. What I love about In Real Life, though, is that the game itself is never made out to be bad. Some bad things can happen in it like PKing and gold farming, but good things can too! International connections, crowdsourcing, and anonymously started calls to action like the one that gets the workers at Raymond’s company to strike until they receive health insurance are just some of the examples; and it’s because of all of those things the world of Coarsegold is just as real as the real world in some ways.
The transitions between the real world and the online one really illustrate that as well. At no point do we ever see Anda in the real world “playing” her character. Anda is always shown inhabiting her character in the online world, as if her avatar were her real body and the game her real world.
Now go have your own real life adventure in an MMO.
My host mother surprised me with a gyoza making lesson the other day. Here’s how it went down:
Ingredients: cabbage, chives, ginger, garlic, 1 package of gyoza wraps, ground meat of choice (we used pork, but lots of people use beef).
Seasonings: sake, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and salt.
Check the back of the gyoza wraps to see just how much all of your wraps can hold. This will determine exactly how much of the other ingredients you will need.
Mince all ingredients and mix together in a large bowl.
Mix seasonings and pour over gyoza filling.
Mix again.
Ready a glass of water, and open your gyoza wrappers.
Make the dumplings!: Place your filling inside the wrapper. Then dip your finger in the water and moisten the edges of the wrapper. Close the wrapper to create a gyoza dumpling. You can try pinching the wrapper as you close it strategically to make little creases in the dumpling.
Cook in pans with olive oil in the bottom—covered!—until browned.
Here is a more exact recipe, and here is one with pretty pictures that covers the dumpling making process since I was too busy getting my hands dirty to take pictures.
The thing about gyoza is each dumpling is complete on its own. Served as an appetizer or a side, just one would be completely acceptable—but they’re so tasty that we often want more than one of these delicious dumplings to complement the last one.
And, what with Hanukkah happening as we speak, I’ve got series with stand-alone segments on the mind anyway. My two best examples of media that manages to pull off stand-alone segments are Mushishi and Undertale.
If you ever wondered what a Hayao Miyazaki movie might feel like it if it was packed into a twenty two minute anime episode, you need look no further than Mushishi. Full of fairytale like mysteries and beautiful Meiji era Japanese nature scenery, the series sets a quiet, peaceful mood that allows the viewer to feel as if they’ve experienced a revelation that lasted longer than one episode of anime. The reason for this is because Mushishi is the story of… well, of the supernatural beings called mushi, really. In each episode a new set of people deal with some sort of effect of the creatures called mushi. Mushi as defined by the show are the most primitive form of life. They are like fairies or ghosts in a way, because not everyone can see them, and they often cause trouble for people without meaning to. The only consistent character is the traveling Mushi Master, Ginko. Because of this, every episode is very dense. There’s hardly any pre-existing knowledge necessary in order to watch each episode—except that Ginko knows a lot about mushi and how to deal with them, but that’s established in every episode anyway when he explains what he does to the new set of characters. There are some episodes that are connected and go further into the past of Ginko the Mushi Master, but every episode is filled with new characters, a different kind of mushi, and its own set of themes.
Mushishi is one of those shows you can accidentally watch out of order or skip episodes on and never even realize it because each episode stands on its own so well. When the second season of the show came out, I accidentally watched the second half of the season before watching the first half. The story is also available in manga form.
Mushishi screen cap. Mushi dealt with appears in the form of a reversed rainbow.
Undertale is a different breed of stand-alone from Mushishi. It seems like a nostalgic RPG when you first start playing. You play as a human child that has fallen into the sealed underground world of the monsters. Your goal is to get back to the surface. However, it very quickly becomes apparent that this game is nothing like the RPGs from your childhood. Whereas in something like Pokémon one would always fight the wild Pokémon and other trainers even if one intended to catch or befriend them, fighting is something you can’t do if you want to get the best ending for Undertale. In order to really understand everything that’s going on in the background of the game, the player must run through the game three times. Fortunately, Undertale is relatively short, and once you achieve the Neutral Ending—because I can almost guarantee that is the ending you will receive on your first run through of the game—it’s possible to run through the game again and get the Pacifist Ending (so called because in order to get it you mustn’t kill any of the monsters you encounter) in less than a day. From there I don’t recommend actually trying to get the Genocide Ending. In order to get that ending the player must kill every monster in the game and actually trigger a certain number of encounters in each area for the sole purpose of killing monsters. Aside from taking a lot of time and effort, there are consequences for completing a Genocide run of Undertale: it is impossible to ever truly receive a Pacifist Ending again.
But in order to truly understand everything that’s going on in the world of Undertale, it’s important to receive all of the information that exists in all three story lines. If you’re personally interested in playing the game and having all three experiences, I would recommend Youtube to you as a resource after completing a Neutral and then Pacifist run.
The reason each run of Undertale stands so well on its own is because of how the responses and futures of the characters and the world change based on the player’s actions. In a Neutral run, Undyne, the strongest monster in the land, will sneer at the player for having killed any monsters at all, telling them that they didn’t need to and that they only did it because it was easy for them. However, in a Pacifist run, she will sneer at the player for putting on a “goody-two shoes” act. In a Genocide run, she simply vows to kill you. Nothing is the same from run to run, and so each play through stands on its own to give the player a new experience and enlighten them to a new facet of the game.
Undyne’s dialogue, prefight on a Neutral run.
Undyne’s dialogue, prefight on a Pacifist run.
Undyne’s dialogue, prefight on a Genocide run.
Now you’ve got two new things you can do on those days when you only have time for a little bit of something. Enjoy your dumpling sized helpings of anime and video games!
Okonomiyaki is often described in English as a seafood pancake. While this little Osakan foodstuff may have started as only a seafood dish, the mixed nature of the ingredients lends itself to endless variations.
How does one make it? Let me show you:
First you start with your bowl of raw ingredients. The base is usually one of cabbage, egg, flour and water, although traditionally grated Japanese mountain yam Nagaimo is used because of its viscosity and distinct ability to hold an okonomiyaki pancake together. The other ingredients are according to ones tastes—although I admit that my favorite combination was the tuna. Once you get your bowl of ingredients, you mix it up until everything is coated in a thin layer of the egg/flour/water combination. If you don’t coat the ingredients fully, you may end up with okonomiyaki pieces instead of pancakes.
Once you’ve mixed your ingredients into a satisfactory jumble, it’s time to grill them. With a griddle table like this, you spread the mixed ingredients on the table, give them an extra chop with the metal cooking spatulas, and then form your pancake.
But once you’ve finished grilling your okonomiyaki, the diversity doesn’t stop. Now you get to pick your toppings! Common toppings include okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise (the lighter Japanese kind), seaweed flakes, and thin fish flakes.
And even then, this is only one way to make okonomiyaki! Here and here are a few other ideas on how to make it if you’re interested.
But the reason I bring up okonomiyaki this month is because of the powerful nature of mixing things. Let me present to you two examples: Samurai Champloo and Star vs the Forces of Evil. Samurai Champloo is an Edo period samurai story that is blended with hip hop. It may sound like an aesthetic that’s impossible to achieve, but people said the same thing about chocolate and peanut butter.
The series opens with a title card that tells the viewer the story that follows won't be historically accurate, and then rewinds from a present day hip hop scene to the Edo period. From there, the viewer encounters many things they never would have during the Edo period, from little things like the addition of glasses to an old-school ronin samurai ensemble to big things like the inclusion of graffiti tagging culture and fighting styles that include breakdancing.
But aside from the initial statement that the story won’t be an accurate historical portrayal, the anime takes the experience a step further. When one is blending two things that wouldn’t usually go together, one has to think about every aspect. Since Samurai Champloo is a TV show, that means the creator gets to work with content, visuals, and music.
The Samurai Champloo soundtrack is chock-full of hip hop, this being one of the songs included. It’s ultimately the choice of soundtrack that I think works as the batter to hold the work together. It sets the mood and gives the viewer an expectation for the hip hop references and paraphernalia that appears throughout the story. Music can often be used this way. Take the opening for Star vs the Forces of Evil as an example.
Here’s a song about rainbows and puppies sung by a man for a children’s TV show. This is exactly the sort of amalgamation of pretty and powerful I’ve been looking for in children’s cartoons since Sailor Moon debuted in America when I was a kid. Although more subtle than the combination of Edo and hip hop, the combination of gendered items surrounding the main character of Star vs the Forces of Evil—characteristically named Star Butterfly—sends a powerful message about Star’s ability to be herself. Take a look at her room.
When she arrives on Earth to live with the normal, California-based Diaz family, Star works a little magic with her wand to create her own room in their house. What you’ll notice about the above screen captures of this room is the juxtaposition of “feminine” and “masculine” (we’re going to use quotes for those terms because items don’t actually ever connote gender)—a sword in her chest of stuffed animals and jewelry; posters hanging in one corner and weapons in the other; and, of course, the princess-like canopy bed and the morning star resting upon it. Star’s outfit is an amalgamation of things as well, combining a skirt with spiky shoes and a devil horns headband. In the very first episode, Star introduces herself as a princess who likes to fight monsters and tame wild unicorns. The blend of masculine and feminine in the character of Star Butterfly is one of the most refreshing blends I’ve seen on TV in a while because it’s real: every person is a combination of traits our society has come to define as “masculine” or “feminine” when they’re really just “people-line.” Star doesn’t really need any batter to hold her together because she’s already so realistic, and her portrayal just helps us to break down the fake barriers between people our society created until we can accept her as normal—again, like peanut butter and chocolate.
I wonder if they have Reese’s Peanut Butter cups in Japan, because now I have one heck of a craving. Have fun mixing it up, everyone!
The month of Halloween is upon us, and all I have on my mind is pumpkins. However, the standard carving pumpkin is really a thing of myth here in Japan, despite the heavy party decorations. The only pumpkin my host family says is common in Japan is this little guy:
Meet kabocha, the little salad pumpkin of many edible uses. Eaten sliced and raw in salads, cooked and mashed into a savory-sweet paste, and even sliced and dipped in a light battering of tempura, these salad pumpkins, while delicious are NOT the sort of pumpkins I am used to eating—perhaps because it isn’t actually called a pumpkin in the United States. In the US, this little variant is actually called “kabocha squash,” which, when translated will redundantly read as “pumpkin squash.” There do seem to be a variety of recipes for the “kabocha squash” though:
You’ll notice that the paste I mentioned is on here, if not the raw and sliced option—but you’ll also notice quite a few more recipes than the ones I’ve encountered in Japanese cuisine.
In episode twenty one of Ouran High School Host Club, entitled "Until the Day it Becomes a Pumpkin!" or "Itsuka Kabocha ni naru Hi made" (いつかカボチャになる日まで), pumpkins are a bit of a versatile metaphor, highlighting just how shallow the symbolism of Jack O’ Lanterns and Halloween are in Japan. The title of the episode doesn’t refer to a Jack O’ Lantern, but to the carriage of Cinderella. It’s a complex metaphor for a situation that cannot last, and one that the show uses because of its connection to pumpkins and Jack O’ Lanterns.
Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage
The Jack O’ Lantern used as the symbolic pumpkin the carriage will turn back into
The difference between Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage and a Halloween Jack O’Lantern is not one that the show seems phased by in the least, however. This is because Jack O’ Lanterns are purely for decoration in Japan. There is no pumpkin carving to be done with your family, no trick or treating to be done, no need to dress up to avoid being pranked by ethereal beings that can only come into our world on Halloween night. Instead, Halloween is an excuse to scare your friends, test your courage, and dress up as your favorite anime character. And kabocha? That’s an everyday thing.
As for how we eat pumpkins in America… Oh, where to start? The pie, the spice lattes, the salted seeds, the soup? A few friends and I have a tradition of making pumpkin soup and also doing some pumpkin carving around Halloween. Of course, the pumpkins made for eating and the pumpkins made for carving are of completely different varieties! The gourds one enjoys putting faces on are good for little else than their lightly salted seeds, although apparently there is one type of pumpkin called a Baby Pam Sugar Pie pumpkin that is good for both carving and eating. For the most extensive list of pumpkin and winter squash varieties I’ve found yet, please click here—although you will be amused to notice that kabocha won’t be found on either list, perhaps because the author of this list was as unsure about which side of the list to put this gourd on as the rest of the US. The pumpkin my friends and I used for our soup last year was a Cinderella pumpkin.
In this shot you can see two Cinderella pumpkins and one standard carving pumpkin. Here’s what the pumpkin looked like when we were through with it:
At this point, it seems the versatile use of pumpkins to celebrate Halloween really must be an American custom. But perhaps our Halloween customs surrounding this specific gourd are just as appropriated as Japan’s are? After all, our version of Halloween was built up from the Celtic festival of Samhain, which was held on October 31st. During this night, it was believed that the dead would return to the land of the living and walk the earth for one night. It was also a time in which faeries and spirits could easily transcend the barriers between their worlds and ours. It’s also where the earliest form of trick-or-treating may have developed, in the form of “mumming” or “guising” in which people would dress up as faeries and spirits and make a nuisance of themselves until placated by food and drink.
Aside from the faeries and the mumming, Samhain isn’t dissimilar to the Mexican Day of the Dead, which is celebrated on November 2nd. In both of these festivals, it was customary to remember deceased loved ones and make offerings of food, drink, and other worldly items like flowers and trinkets. It’s a little more difficult to find media that represents these particular holidays in America and Japan but two very good examples are Folklore and The Book of Life.
Ellen talking to Scarecrow, whom one can identify as both ghost and faerie
Folklore was released in 2007 and is a Japanese Role Playing Game that sets itself in the island town of Doolin, Ireland. The game is essentially a murder mystery in which you must converse with the dead in order to finally lay the mystery of the town to rest. Ellen and Keats, the main characters of the game, gain their ability to enter the land of the dead and investigate the mystery during the festival of Samhain—and the Japanese development team must have done their research on the festival, because the Western influences in this game are apparent. I actually didn’t know the game had been produced in Japan until the credits were rolling and J-pop was playing instead of some Western or Celtic theme music. The food used as offerings during Samhain isn’t really covered, but there is a pub on the island where you can sometimes converse with ghosts.
Manolo as a child with his family, both living and deceased, on the Day of the Dead
The Book of Life is an American movie that came out in 2014 and was created by Mexican animator, writer, and director Jorge R. Gutiérrez. The story’s events center heavily around the Day of the Dead, following the young Manolo’s journey through death and rebirth after being tricked into letting a deity kill him. The movie deals heavily with themes such as familial ties, remembering those who have passed on, and whether it’s ever alright to kill or forget anyone. The only food we really see in the movie is the bread that is offered to the deceased on the Day of the Dead, but if you ever saw the film The Halloween Tree you know all about the candy skulls that are also available on this day. Both movies are completely devoid of pumpkins, however.
Which leads us to one conclusion!: The pumpkins are completely and utterly American.
Which, when you think about it, does make a modicum of sense. Pumpkins flourish in the Americas, especially in the area we now know as the United States. There is some hearsay that the first Jack O’ Lanterns were made out of turnips and potatoes by the Celts for Samhain, and that the traditional Jack O’ Lantern we’re familiar with today is a result of what happened when those people immigrated to Plymouth and found a better vegetable for carving—but even if this was the case, that would still make the traditional Jack O’ Lantern American. Growing pumpkins so well also explains why we’re so good at cooking pumpkins in America. So go grab yourself a Cinderella or Fairytale pumpkin and make yourself some of this delicious soup. It’s quick, easy, and sure to keep you and your friends warm on All Hallows’ Eve while watching your favorite spooky flick.
Oh, and I haven’t had a chance to try this one yet, but if you’re inclined to brew your own beer (or know someone who does), you might enjoy this Pumpkin Ale recipe. There’s a rumor that the Pilgrims made pumpkin beer out of persimmons, hops, maple sugar, and pumpkin. It sounds lovely, but I can’t find a recipe for it. Stick to the one I did find, or play with the rumored ingredients. Either way, let me know how it turns out. I’m looking at you, Portland!
Food. There are a lot of things we silly humans have in common, but a need to feed oneself is one of the most unifying. Although, depending on culture and available materials, what one consumes can be very different from what one’s neighbor does--an observation I would like all of you, dear readers, to remember applies not just to the food we’ll discuss here, but also to culture and media.
But back to what we have in common: Ramen.
Of course we would start with ramen. You laughed at the title of this blog, or you wouldn’t still be reading. You’re expecting noodles, and we’re all acquainted with this particular food whether as gourmets or college students who couldn’t afford anything else for dinner. American, European, Japanese, or Chinese (where the soup actually originated from, btw) we have our own versions of this soup. For an irrefutable example of this, please refer to episode 2 of Space Dandy, entitled "The Search for the Phantom Space Ramen, Baby" or "Maboroshi no Uchū Rāmen o Sagasu Jan yo" (幻の宇宙ラーメンを探すじゃんよ).
In all seriousness, though, this soup is so popular that Shinichiro Watanabe’s portrayal of a galactic ramen culture—complete with ramen bowl themed space stations that serve everything from strange blue globs to Fullmetal Alchemist puns in a bowl—doesn’t come off as far-fetched. Perhaps because the soup can be easily customized to suit many different palates.
Often thought of as a Japanese soup, ramen actually hails from China. Much like their writing system, Japan took the concept of this Chinese soup and modified it to suit themselves. This is why you’ll almost never see “ramen” written in hiregana--katakana is used for “foreign” words, and the name of this soup comes from China, which is why every banner and advertisement for ramen reads ラーメン.
An already modified soup lends itself well to continued modification. Let’s break it down shall we? What is ramen made of? Noodles, water, seasonings... anything else?
At its core, no. That’s it. That’s the essence of ramen. Simplistic, yes, but a fantastic foundation to build off of.
Slices of pork, a soft boiled egg, and three leaves of Nori seaweed plus a miso based soup broth are the key components of this particular ramen. With only these few modifications an adequate foodstuff is turned into a satisfying meal. Most ramen shops offer customers ways to customize their ramen, both on the menu and off. Usually, a ramen shop will ask customers to choose their broth base (the standard choices are miso, pork bone, and salt/soy sauce) and sometimes even noodle type (if you’re getting really fancy). But even after the ramen is served there are choices to be made! Restaurants often set out jars of seasonings, ranging from chilies to seasoned vegetables to Japanese pickles, that can be added to one’s ramen to further modify the flavor. This kind of ramen is a common breed in Japan, but not something that’s impossible to find outside of the country. For those of you on the West Coast who live in the Portland area, there is a particular ramen shop that may be of interest to you.
This is the Kakuni Ramen from Yuzu. Yuzu is a cozy little restaurant just outside Beaverton and definitely worth the trip--it’s native approved as you’ll often over hear bits of Japanese conversations when you enter, and will definitely be greeted by the hostess’s call of “Irasshaimase!” Be sure to go with someone who’s been before or have very specific directions (and definitely a reservation or time to wait if you’re taking more than three) because not only does the restaurant not have its name posted anywhere, it’s usually packed. Although everything on the menu is great (and I encourage you to try anything that calls to you) the real selling point of the Kakuni Ramen is that it’s made with pork belly. But don’t be fooled: this isn’t Portland’s spin on ramen! It’s a Japanese recipe, but still decadent enough to rival your go-to comfort food, so throw those ideas about all Japanese food being healthy right back out the window.
In fact, there are several instances of ramen being used like comfort food in manga and anime--let’s not forget how much energy Dandy put into finding the perfect bowl of space-ramen, or the story about being moved and comforted by the taste of ramen he was told by the ramen-making alien once he found it. However, one of my favorite, more mundane examples of ramen as comfort food is the way ramen is used in the manga What Did You Eat Yesterday.
What Did You Eat Yesterday is the story of Shiro and Kenji and the daily challenges they face as a middle aged gay couple in Japan, such as what to have for dinner. In this particular chapter, Kenji is spending the New Year alone because Shiro’s parents have asked him to come visit for the New Year. Normally, in a relationship as committed as Shiro’s and Kenji’s (cohabitating in the way that Shiro and Kenji do is the societal equivalent of marriage in Japanese gay culture since Japan doesn’t recognize gay marriage) when Shiro is invited home the invitation would extend to his spouse—but since Shiro’s partner is a man, both Kenji and Shiro are unsure if the invitation includes both of them, and Shiro ends up going home alone. One would expect poor Kenji to be sad. Instead he makes ramen for his New Year’s meal.
In Japan there’s a tradition of eating long soba noodles on the New Year to bring long life and good fortune. Before Shiro leaves for his parents’house he offers to prepare toppings for Kenji’s New Year’s soba, but Kenji turns him down.
Here we see Kenji customizing his ramen just the way he likes it, showing off the versatility of this particular dish once again. But we also see him using it as a way to deal with Shiro’s absence. Since he can’t eat Shiro’s cooking on the New Year, and prepared toppings would only remind Kenji that Shiro can’t be there with him, Kenji takes the opportunity to cook and indulge himself in a meal he could never get from Shiro. The reason this is one of my favorite examples of ramen as comfort food is because Kenji took a potentially sad situation and turned it into an opportunity to really be with himself for a while.
In this sense, the New Year’s meal of ramen instead of soba seems like it will bring Kenji more luck because it’s helped him to stay confident about his relationship in the coming year.
And that’s why we all know ramen. It’s quick, it’s customizable, it’s comforting, and above all damn is it delicious. Try investing in some quality ramen noodles from a specialty store and making your own variations on this dish. Who knows, you might just create your new favorite meal!
