Himono Izakaya

I will go to this Izakaya tonight. It's a special Izakaya of Japanese stockfish "Himono" and rice cooked at hearth "Kamadodaki gohan".

To prevent the propagation of bacteria, fish were dried in the sun for long time. This was usual before. But the flavor went away and the taste was not good. Actually, I didn't like Himono when I was a kid. So recently, drying overnight or such quick-dry methods are the trend, called  "Ichiyaboshi" (overnight dry). Ichiyaboshi is soft, and rich taste of "UMAMI", very yummy. Not only yummy, it's good for health too. Like Natto can be nutrient-rich more than the original soybean, himono is also nutrient-rich more than raw fish. We say "Umami ga gyoushuku" which means "condensation of UMAMI" after evaporation of water. Aside from Ichiyaboshi, there are Choumiboshi (soak fish in dressing before drying), the super smelly fish Kusaya is one of this kind; Yakiboshi (roast before drying);  Koriboshi(freezing and drying); Maruboshi (soak in salt water before drying) etc.

I did not like Himono before and I had a poor image of it as just stockfood. But Himono is a labor-intensive product and actually good Himono is very expensive. This is an online Himono shop. Hmmm, good price.

Because of the health boom and slow food boom, Himono Izakaya was a topic last year. Such Izakaya tend to serve rice cooked "Ginshari" by hearth or earthen pot like this. (The taste is so different from rice cooked in an electric rice cooker.)  Fish, a bowl of rice and miso soup -- these are "Japanese soul food." That's what I thought. The peak is over and I found some shops were closed already. But I hope Himono Izakaya is over as a trend or the usual food fads like this and this.

Anyway, when I was kid, I really wanted to taste the food of a traveler -- "a piece of bread, wine in deer skin bag and cheese" -- in a foreign fairy story. It sounded very delicious to me and I did not have any interest in rice balls in Japanese stories.

Comments

[Mari]

Hi there
thank you for comments, my favorite himono is Ajino hiraki, Mirinboshi, Shishamo. Beefjerkey is a kind of Himono, right? but I don't know how to make it. Smoke? Dry?

[g]

You must eat himono so you will have the strength to defeat your enemies! wine, cheese, and bread will make you constipated!

[jack]

When I was a teenager, my friends and I would go hiking and camping in the early spring for a week. We would each bring large amounts of cheese, meat, bread, and twinkies. It was a heavy load, but it's amazing how much you can eat when such a trip. The only alcohol was vodka that we drank on the last night.

As for fish, I didn't like it as a child, excepting tuna, and the shark my uncle would catch. Abalone was a rare treat, as well. I will eat most any fish or sushi now that I am old. Dried, I haven't tried.

[bshock]

I find it pleasantly amusing that as a child you wanted to try the bread, wine, and cheese from a Western story, because when I was a child (many decades ago) I wanted to try the rice, fish, and miso from Japanese stories. (And yes, predictably these were all stories about samurai and ninja.)

I lived in the U.S. state of Indiana at the time, so this was all very mysterious stuff to us.

My mother could understand the fish part, though she had difficulty with the idea that anyone might not want fish breaded and fried.

Rice was a bit more difficult for her, since this wasn't a normal part of our diets. My mother thought of rice as a dessert food, because she had only seen it used in rice pudding. When she tried making rice, she always used "instant rice," and insisted on cooking it with butter and salt (that's how the instant rice box recommended it). Still thinking that it was a dessert food, she also put sugar on it before serving!

Miso soup was a complete mystery to my mother. They didn't have anything like this in the grocery stores, and there were no Asian markets near us at the time. Although a few books in the library mentioned miso, none of them explained it in terms of a recipe. As I said, this was a long time ago, even before ARPA started the first pieces of what would become the Internet.

[The Feckless Punster]

I know one Himonoya, across the street from Tokyu Honten in Shibuya. Perhaps you are going to a different one since it is a chain store, but anyway I like that place too. You can choose your 'otoshi'. It's like some places where you can choose your sake 'ochoko' when you drink nihonshu. Cool...

Hmmm... slow food boom... slow food my boom is... Mos Burger. Good, but not fast. Spicy Mos Cheese Burger!

I agree regarding bread, cheese and a bag of wine. It seems like that might be Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, or Earthsea Trilogy? It sounded good when I read it when young, but I wonder what the reality is... tasty? Also sounds like the Heidi stories.