 |
Nabe are steaming hot one-pot meals filled with meat, seafood and vegetables simmering in a soy sauce or miso-based broth and are standard cold-weather fare in the Japanese home. According to the findings of a leading nabe ingredients producer, the typical Japanese family eats a nabe meal on average 5.1 times per month during the winter (based on a 2001 survey made by Kibun Foods). That works out to more than once a week.
The one-pot nabe meal originated in Japanese farming villages around the 9th century. In the typical farm house, the household hearth, or irori was where everyone gathered to keep warm and where all the cooking was done. At mealtime, family members helped themselves to the contents of a large steaming pot hung over the open hearth.
The custom of the one-pot nabe meal shared by the whole family continued for a long time and was symbolic of the communal nature of the farming village. By the Edo period (1603–1867), however, eating had been elevated to a cultivated culture in its own right and a new style of one-pot meal, the small, individual nabe, became popular. Instead of the great communal pot, a small, one-person size pot was set to simmer on a charcoal brazier or hibachi placed on a table. The residents of Edo (present-day Tokyo) did not care for the soot and smoke of an open hearth and the trend was to eat away from the actual cooking place. The portable hibachi was just the thing to bring the nabe to the dining table.
The small individual nabe of the Edo period was particularly popular because it allowed each person to cook to their own taste. This and the portable convenience of the small pot and brazier led to a rich diversity in nabe cuisine. Yudofu, a simple nabe dish of tofu cubes simmering in hot water, evolved around this period. Go to one of Kyoto’s many yudofu specialty restaurants and you can still enjoy your own nabe of hot tofu set to boil on your own personal hibachi. |
 |
| Kyoto, with its plentiful supply of soybeans and fresh water is famous for its delicious tofu. Here, where the abundance of Buddhist temples has given rise to shojin ryori, a sophisticated vegetarian cuisine, yudofu, a simple dish originally devised for novice monks, is a special favorite. There are a number of famous yudofu restaurants in Kyoto, and Okutan, with its 300-year history, is among the most venerable. Okutan yudofu is made with fragrant, creamy-smooth squares of tofu warmed in a delicate broth of special dashi soup stock. |
|
