Hello! Thanks for checking out my blog. Here's what it is and why it exists in the first place if you happen to be interested.
A well-timed coincidence was that in the beginning of 2019 my apartment's tiny, old and rather run-down kitchen got a much-needed, thorough renovation, and with new solutions with regards to the space and appliances, the kitchen was practically entirely new and functional like it'd never been before. So, excited by the possibilities of my brand new kitchen, I started cooking at home consistently every day, and soon figured I should try my hand at cooking Japanese food. And, much to my delight, I was indeed able to replicate the flavors and textures I'd experienced in Japan! I then got just massively into it, basically spending the entire summer trying various Japanese recipes I was able to find online. I went from cooking rice maybe once a year to buying a rice cooker and using it at the very least every week, if not multiple times a day.
The director of that film was Hirokazu Kore-eda and it instantly made me fall in love with his slow, quiet style of filmmaking where the characters and sights have time to breathe and exist in a way that makes them feel incredibly real and relatable. And as a truly serendipitous chance would have it, in autumn the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) of Finland would do a special run of seven of Hirokazu Kore-eda's most well-known films. Of course, I took it upon myself to see as many of them as possible. In the end I saw all the films shown in the special run (apart from Shoplifters, which I'd already seen): Maborosi (1995), After Life (1998), No-One Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Our Little Sister (2015).
And many of those moments in the film are spent cooking and eating. From hurried breakfasts together in the morning, to bonding over making plum wine after grandma's recipe, to a couple eating a quiet meal together thinking about their future, to the school soccer team going to a cafe after training - the film is full of these moments where life happens while eating with friends and family. Kore-eda emphasizes his movies' plot developments and the personalities, emotions and reactions of his characters by showing what, how and with whom they eat. These scenes are full of detail, introspection, warmth and joy, people bonding over food and traditions both familial and ancient. They are entire worlds unto themselves. And, of course, it's not just Our Little Sister - Kore-eda's other films also use food and eating and cooking to build their characters and accentuate plot points.
And finally, a disclaimer of sorts: I'm by no means a professional cook or even a particularly good one, an expert on Japanese cuisine or a writer of any sort. I'm just a dude from Finland who gets way too excited about dumb stuff from time to time. I have no idea how long I'll be able to stick with this, but I'll consider the project a success if I manage to deal with Our Little Sister in a way I find satisfactory. Time will tell if I feel like I have the time and motivation to do more.
ようこそう！
In short:
I like cooking and eating Japanese food and also the films of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, in whose works food is often a recurring, important element. In this blog I'm going to look at various foods in Kore-eda's movies and try to replicate them when possible.At freaking length:
My history with Japan and Japanese culture
At the very end of 2018 I visited Japan for the first time. I'd been interested in Japanese culture for pretty much as long as I can remember, in particular due to playing plenty of Japanese video games, watching a lot of anime and reading manga in my youth. My active enthusiasm for Japan, however, had been on the backburner due to other interests and commitments for quite a long time. In 2017-2018, after rediscovering my childhood love of pro wrestling, I ended up seriously getting into Japanese pro wrestling. That reignited my interest in the country, and seeing as I could afford it for the first time in my life, I finally realised a dream of mine and made the trip to Japan, primarily to see New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 13 in Tokyo. But this blog is not about pro wrestling.Japanese food
What's really always been something I really loved was Japanese food - sushi of course being my initial obsession, because that's what's most readily available outside of Japan. There's just something about the philosophy of simplicity and the focus on the interplay of subtle flavours and textures that are present in Japanese cuisine that always struck a chord with me. However, apart from making sushi with friends and family a few times over the years, I'd always thought cooking Japanese food at home was too difficult and/or too expensive to do regularly, as evidenced by the effort required by sushi. That all changed when I visited Japan and got a more comprehensive look at what people actually eat day to day there. There is, of course, much more than sushi and ramen. There's a whole universe of those Japanese flavours that I loved out there, and it doesn't have to be overly complicated.A well-timed coincidence was that in the beginning of 2019 my apartment's tiny, old and rather run-down kitchen got a much-needed, thorough renovation, and with new solutions with regards to the space and appliances, the kitchen was practically entirely new and functional like it'd never been before. So, excited by the possibilities of my brand new kitchen, I started cooking at home consistently every day, and soon figured I should try my hand at cooking Japanese food. And, much to my delight, I was indeed able to replicate the flavors and textures I'd experienced in Japan! I then got just massively into it, basically spending the entire summer trying various Japanese recipes I was able to find online. I went from cooking rice maybe once a year to buying a rice cooker and using it at the very least every week, if not multiple times a day.
Hirokazu Kore-eda
My second trip to Japan was a worryingly impulsive one. It was in June, barely half year after my first trip. The plan was basically to see more pro wrestling and eat more fabulous food, and that's exactly what I did. On the flight back to Helsinki from Osaka I watched a film I'd heard was supposed to be fantastic: Shoplifters, an award-winning movie about a poor Tokyo family all but forgotten by a society that refuses to acknowledge their poor living conditions. What struck me the most in this heartbreakingly raw look at poverty and the meaning of family were the simple joys depicted in the movie: despite being down on their luck, the family still finds energy to spend time together, taking baths together, sharing the food they are able to buy with their meager salaries from their terrible jobs or by shoplifting. The film's ragtag, adopted family was full of flawed but sympathetic people whose lives and problems felt desperately real.The director of that film was Hirokazu Kore-eda and it instantly made me fall in love with his slow, quiet style of filmmaking where the characters and sights have time to breathe and exist in a way that makes them feel incredibly real and relatable. And as a truly serendipitous chance would have it, in autumn the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) of Finland would do a special run of seven of Hirokazu Kore-eda's most well-known films. Of course, I took it upon myself to see as many of them as possible. In the end I saw all the films shown in the special run (apart from Shoplifters, which I'd already seen): Maborosi (1995), After Life (1998), No-One Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Our Little Sister (2015).
Our Little Sister
Several of those movies instantly became my favorite movies ever, and Kore-eda one of my favorite directors. However, nothing affected me quite as powerfully as Our Little Sister did. There was something about this lovingly crafted look into the lives of four ordinary women in various times of their lives, making it through their problems big and small with the help of their sisters, that hit me somewhere deep. They each have their own lives but they hang out and have fun together, comfort each other when life comes at them too hard as well as make mistakes and get mad at each other, but in the end they make up because they are sisters who are there for each other.And many of those moments in the film are spent cooking and eating. From hurried breakfasts together in the morning, to bonding over making plum wine after grandma's recipe, to a couple eating a quiet meal together thinking about their future, to the school soccer team going to a cafe after training - the film is full of these moments where life happens while eating with friends and family. Kore-eda emphasizes his movies' plot developments and the personalities, emotions and reactions of his characters by showing what, how and with whom they eat. These scenes are full of detail, introspection, warmth and joy, people bonding over food and traditions both familial and ancient. They are entire worlds unto themselves. And, of course, it's not just Our Little Sister - Kore-eda's other films also use food and eating and cooking to build their characters and accentuate plot points.
This project
So, thinking back on those films and the importance of food in them, I had an idea: a blog that would look at the various foods depicted in Kore-eda's films, explain what they are, find recipes for them and then recreate them - if at all possible. As far as I could tell, no one had yet done this, at least in English. I might look at other films too later (there are some wonderful depictions of food in anime, for example), but first I'll focus on Kore-eda. And I'll start where I got whole idea from: Our Little Sister.And finally, a disclaimer of sorts: I'm by no means a professional cook or even a particularly good one, an expert on Japanese cuisine or a writer of any sort. I'm just a dude from Finland who gets way too excited about dumb stuff from time to time. I have no idea how long I'll be able to stick with this, but I'll consider the project a success if I manage to deal with Our Little Sister in a way I find satisfactory. Time will tell if I feel like I have the time and motivation to do more.
ようこそう！
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