[HN Gopher] Japan's Comfort Food: The Onigiri
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Japan's Comfort Food: The Onigiri
Author : zdw
Score : 192 points
Date : 2024-01-15 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (one-from-nippon.ghost.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (one-from-nippon.ghost.io)
| boringg wrote:
| Been making this for my children - they love it. Easy guaranteed
| eaten food for them which is a big win in our books.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| We have our own version here in the Philippines
| https://cookpad.com/us/recipes/12323830-puto-mayasticky-rice
| xedeon wrote:
| That's more of a dessert isn't it? Onigiri are typically
| savory.
|
| A closer comparison would be puso or tamu from Cebu. Also known
| as "hanging rice".
|
| While puso itself usually contains plain rice, it is often
| eaten with savory dishes or as part of a larger meal.
| alangou wrote:
| There is no feeling so reassuring in Japan as knowing I am always
| within a 3 minute walk of yet another tuna mayo onigiri.
| boringg wrote:
| Did you ever see whole grain rice onigiri or was it always
| white short grain rice? I feel like whole grain would be
| blasphemy over there.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| Why would anyone ever voluntarily eat a whole grain rice
| onigiri?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| White rice has one of the highest glycemic indexes.
|
| Japan has a 12% diabetes rate, which is just above the US
| at 11%.
| gnicholas wrote:
| IIRC sticky rice is the worst among white rices. I find
| it tasty but try to eat basmati most of the time.
| slothtrop wrote:
| this says it's 7% in Japan:
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/diabetes-... , but I found another source that
| says 12% for 2016.
|
| Diabetes scales with obesity and age. Japan has a very
| old population, but less obesity than the US. White rice
| despite its glycemic index is not super high calorie. If
| it's a contributing favor, it's because of weight-gain,
| not glycemic index.
|
| edit: better source: https://www.diabetesatlas.org/data/e
| n/country/101/jp.html,
| https://www.diabetesatlas.org/data/en/country/211/us.html
|
| There's more diabetes in the US.
| riversflow wrote:
| I don't get that. I would say the same about white rice.
| Why would I ever eat it when I could be eating delicious
| black rice?
|
| And before you start, I eat a go of rice virtually every
| day.
|
| I'm genuinely confused about the popularity of white rice.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| I had no idea black rice existed until you mentioned it.
| I imagine that this is likely the same for many others.
| ace2358 wrote:
| Don't forget red rice! Rice is crazy and my old ideas of
| wetlands and white rice have been crushed by reality.
| fuzztester wrote:
| Black rice exists, I've seen it in a shop of a friend,
| though not tasted it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_rice
|
| There are also other food items which have versions that
| are black in colour, some of which could be not
| naturally, but by processing them in some way, for
| example, black garlic.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_garlic
|
| Googling your favorite food name with "black" as a prefix
| could be interesting.
|
| ChatGPT, generate for me a program to automate this,
| given a list of favorite foods.
| milesvp wrote:
| Black sticky rice is a favorite dessert of mine. I always
| have to resist it when I see it on a menu at a Thai
| restaurant.
| smugma wrote:
| What is go? It is hard to Google.
| Cpoll wrote:
| "go of rice" works. It's 3/4 cup.
| legerdemain wrote:
| A Japanese measuring unit for rice, kind of analogous to
| "one cup" in US kitchens. Measuring cups distributed with
| rice cookers are usually one go in volume even in the US.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| It's not blasphemy per se. Wholegrain rice is popular for
| health reasons, and convenience stores carry wholegrain
| onigiri sometimes
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Whole grain rice and rice with beans in it are very popular
| in Japan in recent years with mainstream health conscious
| consumers
|
| (Similarly plant based food has also become much more
| available in cities)
|
| However the health benefits of brown rice are questionable
| when the outer layer retains pesticides or other toxins
| kurthr wrote:
| The onigiri would not stick together. The short grain rice
| has lots of amylopectin, while whole grain, brown, and
| basmati have much less.
|
| It would fall apart and be very difficult to eat.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Had so many tuna mayo onigiri from 7/11 for breakfast in Japan.
| snvzz wrote:
| 3 minute and a little over 100 yen.
| glandium wrote:
| You've never been to the country side.
| verisimilidude wrote:
| I lived in Gunma for a long time. The rule still holds if you
| replace the three-minute walk with a three-minute drive.
| ohxh wrote:
| There's a fun version of this that they have at 7-11 (or 7 & I)
| there. Probably other convenience stores too. They come in a
| plastic wrapper that separates the nori from the rice and filling
| so it doesn't get soggy. When you pull a little tab, it somehow
| removes the plastic from in between without messing up the shape.
| Magic!
| layer8 wrote:
| You haven't looked at the article, did you?
| boringg wrote:
| Right? It's literally the majority of the article .. the
| onigiri wars.
| defaultcompany wrote:
| The article talks about this at the end. I'm confused about how
| it works though.
| andreareina wrote:
| There are two layers of plastic wrap, one on either side of
| the nori. It works because there's no nori at the side and
| that's the direction you pull the plastic off.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| You have to be pretty specific about how you pull it apart.
| Most people will ruin their first onigiri because they do it
| wrong. But basically you break a seal and then pull the
| plastic out on each side, sliding them out.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah there's instructions on them but they're in Japanese
| and the pictures aren't very clear in my experience.
|
| But it's not a big deal if you're going to eat it right
| away because the nori doesn't get soggy that quickly.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| It does ruin the aesthetic of it though
| kylegalbraith wrote:
| This is the magical stuff that I love finding on HN. We don't
| make this enough at home.
| kizunajp wrote:
| Author here. Thank you for the kind words! <Shameless plug>
| This post is part of a newsletter we write semi-regularly. If
| you found this interesting, do take a look at our other pieces
| and consider subscribing! </plug>
| xenodium wrote:
| On a tangent, I've toyed with the idea of starting a
| newsletter. What are you using to run yours?
| seemack wrote:
| Not the OP but it looks to be https://ghost.org/
|
| I use it as well for a small development blog and it's been
| an enjoyable experience
| xrisk wrote:
| Just spent a great half-hour going through your blog. Great
| work! :)
| smarks wrote:
| The link to the video showing how to unwrap an onigiri was
| very helpful! I've encountered that wrapping before but I
| found it confusing. (I don't read Japanese and I couldn't
| figure it out from the diagrams.)
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Practically lived off of 7/11 onigiri for lunches when I was last
| on vacation in Japan.
|
| Apparently some local 7/11s now stock onigiri. I'll have to try
| it out. Hope it takes off.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Also known as jelly filled donuts to american fans of pokemon.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Or dumplings, for people who played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in
| the West.
| traeregan wrote:
| I've been on two trips to Japan - 2014 and 2023. We enjoyed
| eating a lot of onigiri on both trips. During the latter trip I
| noticed that the Y= price hadn't changed much but the amount of
| filling (various proteins) had gone down considerably, which
| makes sense from a business perspective.
|
| We've tried making them at home a couple of times but haven't
| perfected it yet. Reading this is motivating me to give it
| another shot soon.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| You can find onigiri at independent shops not only convenience
| stores, with good price and better fillings/quantity.
| Convenience stores seem cheap compared with America but
| everything they sell is expensive locally
|
| There are also onigiri adjacent foods worth exploring like
| tenmusu. I love this tiny place in Tsu (Mie prefecture capital)
| that serves 6 of them with soup for about $3, a full meal
| offered with dine-in, even though it's now Michelin
| recommended. It's probably 1/3 the price of convenience store
| onigiri per unit cost and it's freshly made to order.
| neom wrote:
| Oh don't get me started. In Korea, the size of the samgakgimbap
| has increased in some cases, and the price DECREASED in some
| cases... but the filling, ugh....!!!! Not only has the amount
| of filling decreased, but the quality is going down. Some of
| the tuna mayo ones have basically no mayo in them anymore, the
| tuna quality has also gone down. If I wanted rice and seaweed
| I'd buy rice and seaweed...!!!! And this isn't just CU/711/etc,
| it's everywhere! </rant>
| riversflow wrote:
| Well one thing that is sort of notable about Japan/Onigiri but
| left off this blog is that they will all contain fish.
|
| Being a vegetarian in Japan was miserable. I want to go back with
| a pack of Protein bars so I can travel and feel decent. I
| practically subsisted off potato chips on my trip.
|
| Edit: The number of people telling me I should have hired a guide
| is hilarious. I couldn't have afforded that. I did go with 2
| Japanese speakers, but wasn't with them the whole time.
|
| I asked for help often, and got it (Japan is so cool like that
| <3), but when I was there in 2017 I had a _really hard_ time with
| my diet.
|
| I _so_ wish I would have brought protein bars because I would
| have felt better, been more present as a result, _and spent less
| time thinking about food /my diet and more time taking in the
| experience_.
|
| Also, being vegetarian is going to be miserable to me most places
| I go, as my home in California is one of the best places to be
| veg in the world. I find the mid-West just as bad as Japan, for
| example. Being vegetarian, fit and trim means I have to be very
| careful of my macros. Getting adequate dietary protien is hard
| even at home.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Umeboshi onigiri still contain fish broth ingredients? There's
| always the plain salted onigiri too
|
| Btw careful with chips in Japan, most varieties have meat
| extracts in them
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| A local guide would be invaluable to recommend vegetarians
| options. Also, be very explicit if eggs or milk are
| acceptable, because there's very few strict vegetarians in
| Japan. Even monks and nuns who practice Buddhist
| vegetarianism consume milk.
| dpassens wrote:
| Eggs and milk are vegetarian, just not vegan.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Eggs or dairy specific abstinence is more associated with
| variations of vegetarianism than far stricter veganism,
| for example lacto-vegetarianism.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Umeboshi onigiri reliably does not have fish broth
| ingredients.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I find this very hard to believe. Japan, and Asia in general,
| has plenty of vegetarian food. Any guide can point you to
| restaurant with suitable dishes.
|
| Potato chips would be way down in my list, unless I had a very
| tight budget... but then I wouldn't be in Japan.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Nepalese restaurants are also all over the country and
| reliable veg friendly options. They sometimes serve only
| Indian food but the menus are made to Japanese taste so it's
| fun to try as something new. They also often stick to the
| Japanese tradition of offering free rice refills by having
| free naan refills instead, at least until recent inflation.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| With a guidebook/website you can easily find some restaurants
| with vegetarian options in cities, or vegan restaurants
| (although they tend to also serve ultra-healthy low calorie
| dishes). But in towns you may be out of luck and it can be
| super frustrating trying to explain that you don't eat fish
| or dashi which normally has fish in it especially if you
| don't speak the language well. It's common that a restaurant
| will not make you anything. Certain areas pretty much only
| have ryokans as accommodations, you're expected to eat there
| and they won't always accommodate you.
|
| In the recent few years, "plant-based" options are popular in
| conbinis and chain restaurants. But half the time they are
| seasoned with meat extracts. I would say "plenty of options"
| is stretching it, you really have to put effort in once you
| get out of a city. I get GP's comment and I've known other
| people that, if a known vegetarian Japanese option isn't
| available, stick to pizza, Indian restaurants and a few
| reliable things from conbinis so they can travel without it
| being a hassle.
| dark-star wrote:
| During my stay in Kyoto for university, we had one vegan girl
| with us. We all thought she would suffer a lot due to
| everything having fish in it (dashi).
|
| However, she managed really well. She found so many vegan
| restaurants and dishes that even our teachers were quite
| surprised. She also knew the most food-related Kanji of us all
| and thus knew exactly what to look for in stores/restaurants.
|
| So yes, you can totally get by in Japan as a Vegetarian/Vegan,
| but you have to do a lot of research/looking up beforehand
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Yes, Japan is actually not terrible for vegetarians/vegans,
| especially these days where even Mos Burger has good plant-
| based options. But you need good language skills and local
| knowledge. Even most Japanese locals won't know how to help.
|
| For onigiri, there are vegan varieties even at combini like
| kombu, daikon, or ume-shiso. They don't have a lot of protein
| though. At a dedicated onigiri place you can often find
| natto, bean, tofu, or egg onigiri, as well as inari.
|
| A lot of vegan restaurants are just marked as "Japanese
| restaurant" on Google maps. Many of them don't market or
| present themselves as vegan. There are especially a lot in
| Kyoto, which has traditional specialties like yuba and
| shojin-ryori.
|
| If for any reason you want protein bars, Japan has a decent
| amount of them in drugstores (although I think North
| America's are better).
| colanderman wrote:
| There are vegan onigiri, even at 7-11s, if I recall. I think
| salt, umeboshi, and kombu onigiri are safe. But yes, some
| surprisingly contain fish sauce which would otherwise be vegan.
|
| (I live in the Boston area and can even find vegan onigiri at
| the local Japanese market, Maruichi.)
| slothtrop wrote:
| If it makes you feel better many fish don't have a cerebral
| cortex. Their level of sentience is on par with insects, which
| is a popular protein suggested by some flavors of vegetarians
| (or at least was).
| glandium wrote:
| > Well one thing that is sort of notable about Japan/Onigiri
| but left off this blog is that they will all contain fish.
|
| They don't. There are onigiris containing beef or chicken. Also
| shrimp, except if you count that as fish.
| sorokod wrote:
| There is a cheap triangular contraption which allows you to make
| onigiri yourself to your preferred specification. You may want to
| invest in proper rice and nori, it is smooth sailing after that.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Where can I get a vegetarian friendly version of this in San
| Francisco?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Japantown has some vegetarian restaurants, and since they get a
| lot of tourists they're used to specific food requests. Just
| ask before you sit down. There's also a Japanese supermarket
| there and you can check the ingredients list on the packaged
| food in the refrigerated section.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _There is a long-running rivalry between the east and west of
| Japan. Kansai (west) includes cities like Kyoto and Osaka, and
| Kantou (east) includes Tokyo and Yokohama. For reasons the author
| doesn't understand well, the people of Kansai and Kantou pride
| themselves on these differences._
|
| The shape of the country historically made for roughly bipolar
| military confrontations, involving shifting alliances between the
| many warlords. Centuries ago, Kyoto was the Imperial Capital and
| Osaka the economic capital. West of Japan are Korea and China,
| and the commercial and cultural trade made the region wealthy and
| powerful. Near the end of the 16th century, a warlord named
| Nobunaga managed to unify most of Japan, but was betrayed by an
| associate. An intense struggle for control ensued, culminating in
| a battle at Segihara in 1600, which is more or less the middle of
| the country. The winner, a general named Tokugawa Ieyasu, became
| a Shogun (military governor, nominally in service of the Emperor
| but pragmatically in charge) and was based in Edo, now named
| Tokyo. His defeated rival was based in, you guessed it, Osaka.
|
| Edo was just a small fishing village with a broken-down castle
| until Ieyasu showed up around 1590, rebuilt the castle, and made
| the area into his base. After winning the battle of Segihara he
| was mostly generous in victory, but required other warlords to
| maintain households in Edo (making them _de facto_ hostages) and
| contribute money and labor to build out the infrastructure there;
| within 5 years Edo was a large city of ~150k. Tokugawa also
| closed the country and banned foreign trade, not least to prevent
| his rivals from raising armies and capital overseas. His family
| continued to rule Japan until the Shogunate was abolished and the
| country opened up the outside world in the 19th century. Edo was
| renamed Tokyo and made the official capital, although the
| Imperial family continued to reside in Kyoto until Emperor Taisho
| moved to Tokyo in the early 20th century.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Edo was renamed Tokyo and made the official capital
|
| It is funny that they just reversed Kyoto when they picked that
| name. I wonder why they did that.
|
| Edit: Apparently "kyo" just means capitol and Tokyo is eastern
| capitol and Kyoto is capitol city. But it wouldn't surprise me
| if they picked those names as a pun to make the names similar.
| mistermark wrote:
| Turns out they didn't, quite. Tokyo is East Capital, the To
| is 'East'; Kyoto is Capital City, the To being 'City'. Kyo is
| the same in each.
| glandium wrote:
| What they _did_ , though, is change Tokyo from a fu (Fu )
| to a to (Du ). Tokyo is the only to, and there wasn't one
| before, they came up with it for Tokyo. There were other
| fus, but there are only two left nowadays: Kyoto-fu and
| Osaka-fu.
|
| Why do I mention this? Because Tokyo-to is written Dong
| Jing Du . Kyoto is written Jing Du . Remember that Dong
| means East. And yes, there are places in the east of Kyoto
| that carry the name Dong Jing Du (higashi-Kyoto, higashi
| being another reading of the character Dong ). This has to
| be a troll.
| glandium wrote:
| > Segihara
|
| Sekigahara
| ilamont wrote:
| In Taiwan there is a variation of Fan Tuan /rice balls shaped
| like a triangle but no seaweed wrapping, usually with Rou Song
| (pork floss) in the middle, which have been around forever as a
| breakfast item. The Japanese type wrapped in seaweed with better
| ingredients started popping up in 7-elevens about 15 or 20 years
| ago, and are known as Ri Shi Fan Tuan ("Japanese food rice
| balls"). I think they cost about NT$40-50, or around US$1.50.
| It's not enough for a meal, but as a snack they're great.
| wexomania wrote:
| I love onigiri, but find it difficult to make them into
| triangles, I got frustrates one day, threw all the ingredients
| into a bowl and stirred, and I have enjoyed Onigiribowl(patent
| pending/s) ever since.
| lidavidm wrote:
| You might enjoy takikomi gohan.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| That's kind of what chirashizushi is, it just usually has a lot
| more complex toppings and you don't stir them into the rice.
|
| You can also buy a triangle-shaped rice press and ready-made
| onigiri packaging at any japanese grocery store, makes it a lot
| easier.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| For those of you as clumsy as I am, you can form onigiri by
| pressing it into the corner of a Ziplock bag. Just dampen the
| inside of the bag slightly first to reduce the rice sticking to
| the bag. If you're making Shio onigiri, you can salt the water.
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(page generated 2024-01-15 23:00 UTC)