By Lorene Oikawa, Past President

Happy New Year! 2026 is the Year of the Horse. Let’s use the passion and energy of the horse to take action for positive change. NAJC is continuing work on Capacity Building Initiatives and following up on our Strategic Planning sessions.

We have three planned guided tours in Japan, one in May and two in October. The second tour in October is a new Inaka (rural) tour. In June, we are organizing a Canadian delegation at COPANI 2026, a major gathering of Nikkei communities from across North, Central, and South America. For more information about these events, see the NAJC website https://najc.ca/programs/tours-and-experiences/

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Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu. Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

With wishes for good health, happiness, and prosperity from the National Executive Bosrd of the National Association of Japanese Canadians

Why is Japanese food important?

Japanese food plays a pivotal role in New Year’s Day festivities. Osechi Ryori is presented in Jubako, usually a three-tier set of lacquer boxes. The various foods are symbolic for good fortune, good health, long life and other wishes for the new year. For example, ebi (prawns) have the bent back of an old person which signifies a long life.

We have family favourites which bring back memories of our great grandparents or grandparents or parents. For this year, I made our family favourites, inari sushi, Cumberland chow mein, chicken teriyaki, and gyoza.

The smell, taste, and visual of food may evoke memories which transport you to another time or place. In the movie, Ratatouille, the food critic Anton Ego, “The Grim Eater,” takes a bite of the ratatouille prepared by Remy and then flashes back to when he was a boy. He feels his mother’s hand on his face. He tastes, smells, and feels his mother’s love in the ratatouille.

Japanese food is not just special on New Year’s Day. Tourists have been overwhelming major cities in Japan. It’s not just the low yen drawing them. Foodies are posting their favourite bites and showing the long lineups at restaurants. Around the world, there are Japanese restaurants in cities, and Japanese-inspired food in markets, delivery services, grocery stores and warehouse clubs.

I remember making yakisoba and taking leftovers for my work lunch. I had packed some kizami nori (shredded seaweed) and katsuobushi (tuna (bonito) flakes) to top my dish after reheating in the microwave. One of my colleagues asked about the toppings. I started to explain about how I made the yakisoba, and she stopped me and said she knows. She makes it herself and loves it. I asked how she learned how to make it. “It’s easy. I buy a package at Costco, and it has everything except the meat and veg.”

Most people think “sushi” when you mention Japanese food, but in areas where Japanese food is more accessible, people are learning about the variety and the regional specialities.

If you were lucky enough to grow up in a Japanese Canadian family then you also had the advantage of tasting family specialities and perhaps going to Japanese Canadian events like a festival and tasting community food.

John Ota, author of the book, The Kitchen, recalls multicultural dishes growing up. “My happiest childhood memories are of spending time in the kitchen in our family home. I grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Toronto. My dad built boats and my mom was a high school art teacher. We were not wealthy, but I never felt poor, and the shelves of the refrigerator always groaned from the weight of stews, knishes, dai baos, sushi, coq au vin and lasagnas. We loved to eat.”

I was fortunate to have a mom who loved to cook and aunts and uncles who had roots in Europe so I grew up with a love of food and trying new dishes. I learned a lot from one aunt and her husband, my Italian Canadian uncle. He loved Japanese food especially seafood. He said it was similar to food loved by his family who was from the Milan area of Italy. His nonna (grandmother) would go to the market everyday to see what the catch of the day would be for supper. My aunt said the Italian fridges were small like a bar fridge. They cooked what was fresh and seasonal.

Chef Anthony Bourdain travelled around the world including many trips to Japan, one of his favourites. Many of his trips were documented in his tv series. During one of his trips, he experiences the pristine seafood found at the old Tsukiji Fish Market. He watches the work to make Edomae sushi, a style of nigiri which derives from the Edo period street food. Certain fish is preserved, cured, marinated or aged. This helped extend the life of the fish during a time when there weren’t refrigerators and ice was too expensive. Bourdain says this sushi comes at a higher cost, but it’s not just expense that makes the quality, it’s “the uncompromising quality, preparation, and presentation. Seafood is taken very, very seriously here. Value is placed on good food. To us food is worthless until someone famous puts a sauce on it. It’s not that way here. There is a respect for ingredients. It goes against the grain of a lot of western cooking.”

Presentation is another important aspect of Japanese food. When I was a teenager helping my mother to prepare for dinners, I was directed on the table settings and where to place dishes and cutlery, and what serving dishes to use. At that time, I didn’t understand the importance of presentation. Once, I grabbed a serving dish and my mother said it was the wrong dish. She told me which one to get. I remember feeling annoyed and thinking, “what difference does it make.” Although, I had to admit, it did look good. My mom was an artist, but we didn’t know it. She had an eye and taste for food which came to her naturally, just like her love of fashion, flowers, and interior design.

Shizuo Tsuji in his book, Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art, said,” The Japanese custom of serving things in separate dishes emphasizes the importance placed on presentation. No Japanese, however humble, would think of serving food on just any old plate, relying on flavor alone to please. Each item is an artistic composition in which the receptacle, the food, and its arrangement are all carefully brought together to complement one another. The whole meal is a composition, too – a symphony of carefully orchestrated flavor, color, texture, and season appropriateness. Japanese food is fresh and only lightly cooked.”

Aji is the word I remember my Obaachan and my mom used. The presentation is important, and the food must taste good. When cooking they would check the aji, the taste, the flavour, and adjust if necessary.

When Chef Anthony Bourdain visited Vancouver for an episode of his tv show No Reservations, Chef Hidekazu Tojo prepared a special omakase (special selection of dishes by the chef) meal. When Bourdain tried Tojo’s West Coast Tuna Toro nigiri, he described it as “That’s unbelievable. That’s a religious experience.”

Chef Tojo came to Canada in 1971. He wanted to expand his creativity. In the 70’s, Vancouver was not familiar with sushi. He wanted them to get to know sushi, but first they had to try it. To overcome their reticence, he created the California roll with cooked crab and fresh avocado and rolled it “inside out” with the nori on the inside and the rice on the outside. It became and still is a “bestseller” and is internationally known.

In the film, The Chef and the Daruma, about Chef Tojo, Tojo says, “Daruma may wobble from time to time. But it will always get back up.” Tojo relates to the Daruma. Also, I think that it’s an apt description of the perseverance of Japanese Canadians. I had the honour to share the history of Japanese Canadians in the film.

Famed food writer M.F.K. Fisher described Japanese food. “At its best, it is inextricably meshed with aesthetics, with religion, with tradition and history. It is evocative of seasonal changes, or of one’s childhood, or of a storm at sea: one thin slice of molded fish puree shaped like a maple leaf and delicately colored orange and scarlet, to celebrate Autumn; a

tiny hut made of carved ice, with a little fish inside made of chestnut paste and a chestnut made of fish paste, to remind an honored guest that he was born on a far-north island; an artfully stuffed lobster riding an angry sea of curled waves of white radish cut paper-thin, with occasional small shells of carved shrimp meant tossing helplessly in the troughs…”

In her introduction to From the Sea and Shore, Steveston’s Favorite Japanese Canadian Recipes, Mas Fukawa calls it a “memory cookbook.” She says it is “an important contribution to preserving the traditions of the Issei who are largely gone and the fast-aging Nisei or second generation.”

For me, Japanese food is tradition, culture, and art. When I make a favourite or am learning a new Japanese recipe, I feel the presence of my Obaachan and my mother. I feel their love and support, the history of my family and ancestors, and it is infused in what I am making. When I share my food with you, you see who I am and who/where I came from.

We are what we eat, and what we make.

Sources:

Books:

From the Sea and Shore, Steveston’s Favorite Japanese Canadian Recipes -Steveston Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre & Tonari Gumi

Japanese Cooking A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji with the assistance of Mary Sutherland. Introduction by M.F.K.Fisher

The Kitchen by John Ota

TV/Film:

Anthony Bourdain A Cooks Tour, Season 1 Episode 1: A Taste of Tokyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7EufSNr1RA

The Chef & the Daruma – TELUS Original. https://watch.telusoriginals.com/play?assetID=the-chef-and-the-daruma Ratatouille www.disneyplus.com