Japanese Food Tradition (Marino Mori)

Happy New Year!!
In Japan, we celebrate New Year with beautiful and traditional Japanese food, surrounding the table with family. This custom is very important for Japanese since the food we enjoy is very special, and each food has a meaning to celebrate the New Year. In short, the coming year won’t start without eating this special meal. However, this tradition is recently disappearing in our country because of the young generations’ loss of interest in traditional culture. I am one of the young people who tend to forget the precious cultures in Japan. Thus, I would like to remind some of the Japanese traditional food cultures through this essay. In this blog, I am going to write about three values that Japanese traditional food have; 1. Value the atmosphere when enjoying the food with family 2. Value the beautiful and delicate looks of the food 3. Value the dishes and plates they put the food in.
First, like Thanksgiving Day in America and Christmas in Europe, New Year in Japan is an important day to enjoy the food with family. Before we eat the warm and delicious food, Japanese families put their hands together and say “Happy New Year!” to hope our new coming year will also be continued to be happy. Furthermore, not only in the New Years, but also in every day meals are important for Japanese family. For example, we say ‘ Itadakimasu’ ‘Gochisousama’ before we start eating the food. They are typical greetings to thank for the sacrifices and bless of the nature, and to show the happiness with eating meal with family. Hence, Japanese traditional foods make the importance of eating family together.
Second, Japanese traditionally value the appearance in foods. For instance, Japanese traditional foods include basic four colors: white for rice, brown for fish, orange or yellow and green for vegetables. These colors make the appearance more beautiful and appetitive. Also, including these ingredients are said to be balanced and healthy style of food. Furthermore, some Japanese restaurants also offer ‘seasons’ in the food. In autumn, for example, they put coloring leaves to show the autumn harvest and beautiful nature in the meal.
Finally, Japanese food cannot be completely enjoyed without choosing the right dishes. Japanese traditional foods are relatively simple, so the dishes also need to be simple but a little decorative and colorful. The most popular dishes are lacquered dishes, which are usually colored in black or red. Deep and shiny lacquer gives the food more sacred and brilliant impression on people.
Last year of December, ‘Japanese traditional food culture’ was registered as a World intangible cultural heritage by the UNESCO. This news made an opportunity for Japanese to think about the values of traditional cultures remaining in our country. Government has founded a committee which focuses on promoting Japanese cultures throughout the country and the world. While the technology is rapidly developing and make people forget to calm down ad look back the old cultures, this movement will definitely be a positive impact on our traditional culture. We also need to develop new technology to make our life convenient, but at the same time, cultures remaining in our country represent our traditional spirits of Japan. We cannot ignore these spirits and should be cherished from all the generation.

 

 

                                                        New Year Dishes

New Year special foods