Kanto vs Kansai: How Japanese Regional Food Differs (Ep. 167)

Kanto vs Kansai: How Japanese Regional Food Differs (Ep. 167)

Hey, hey. My name is Thersa Matsuura, author of the Book
of Japanese Folklore and podcaster here at Uncanny Japan, where I tell you about the more obscure nooks and
crannies of Japanese culture. Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite topics, one of the things that makes Japan special to me, and I’m
guessing special to you too. It still gets me excited after all these years, and that
is food. But not just any generic Japanese dish like sushi,
tonkatsu, ramen, or yakitori. Let’s go a little deeper than that. I absolutely love that wherever you go in Japan, there
are some, and oftentimes many, local specialties. Osaka okonomiyaki, often
translated as savory pancakes, and takoyaki, humorously, but not incorrectly,
called octopus balls. In Nagoya, you have your tebasaki, little chicken
wings. In Okinawa, don’t forget to try goya champuru, a stir-fry with bitter melon, tofu, and
pork. But there are also certain foods that are just prepared differently, depending on what
prefecture, city, or area you’re in. And I’ll get into those too. Let me start by telling you about a friendly little
rivalry we have here on Honshu, the big island. That’s the Kanto versus Kansai. Kanto
is eastern Japan, so think Tokyo or Yokohama. It’s easy to remember too, Kanto, Toh, Toh, Tokyo. And
then there’s Kansai, which is western Japan. Think Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto. So let me try another
clever mnemonic device. When you’re traveling, you “kansai” with relief when
you’re back in Osaka and Kyoto, after all that hustle and bustle of Tokyo. Did you know
that the delineation line between Kanto and Kansai is usually agreed upon to be around
Hakone? I live near there, kind of, and I can attest that we get a little culture and food
from both sides, which is kind of fun. Before food, it’s important to point out that the Kanto
versus Kansai difference does extend well past all things culinary. Some quick
generalities, not stereotypes, to keep in mind. The Kanto, Tokyo-area people, are more fast-paced,
reserved, and formal, and the Japanese spoken there has the standard
pronunciation as well. While in Kansai, Osaka-area, the people are more
talkative, friendly, and have a really unique sense of humor. Dare I say goofy or rough around the
edges? And I mean that in the best possible way. I hear that non-Japanese often feel a little more
at home in the Kansai area. I know I do, and the accent is a hoot, too. A real quick example would
be “thank you” in regular Kanto Japanese is, as we all know, “arigatou gozaimasu.” In
Osaka, you’ll get a feisty “ookini.” Really? In Tokyo is “hontoni.” In Osaka, “honma.” Okay, I can go on and on, but what I really want to talk
about today is food. Of course, you’ll find exceptions when you visit, but in general,
flavor-wise, Kanto has stronger, bolder flavors, where Kansai has lighter, more
delicate flavors. Miso soup in Tokyo is made with a katsuobushi, or smoked bonito flakes,
base and uses red miso or mixed red and white miso. Osaka uses kelp for the base and white miso.
I read the reason for this is because of all the minerals in the water in Kanto. You just can’t
get a pleasant-tasting soup from boiling only seaweed there, so you have to use the smoked bonito
fish. When you order udon in Tokyo, your soup will be this with a splash of soy sauce thrown
in, making it richer and dark. In the Kansai area, however, they have softer water,
which is actually ideal for making dashi with kombu seaweed. You get all those delicate
flavors, and if soy sauce is used, they’ll go with a light-colored shoyu and maybe some mirin or
sweetened sake, so a clear, less fishy soup. Since we’re talking about udon, here’s something
funny I just learned. Another difference is if you get your noodles with tenkasu, those crisp,
crunchy little beads of deep-fried batter that have been scooped out of the tempura oil and sprinkled
on top, it’s called tanuki udon in Kanto. Yes, raccoon dog udon. In Osaka, though, some call it
haikara udon. Haikara means something fancy. Haikara, high-class, stylish. But the name is born of
total sarcasm, again displaying what a great sense of humor the Kansai people have. So why fancy
high-class udon? Well, before the Taisho era, Kansaiites would just throw these little beads of
tenkasu that invariably gather in your tempura frying oil away. Who needs those? Yuck. So when they saw
everyone in Tokyo were actually sprinkling them on top of their udon like they were something
special, they jokingly said, “Oh, look at those Kanto people. They’re eating haikara or upscale
udon.” Hence, haikara udon. And speaking of tempura, that’s also made differently as well. Kanto uses an egg
in the batter and deep-fries the fish or vegetables in sesame oil. It gives the tempura a lovely
golden color. Kansai, on the other hand, doesn’t use egg at all and fries in salad oil, producing
a much lighter color and flavor. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard this
repeated before. And that is that the reason for this is because back in the day in Tokyo, they’d use
fish caught in the Tokyo Bay, which was and kind of is gross and dirty. So those fish had a
certain smell to them. The sesame oil helped mask the stink. Or it might just be seafood in general.
Because during the Edo era, popular tempura in, well, in Edo, was often shrimp, whitefish,
and anago, eel. While over in Kansai, lots of vegetables and mushrooms were preferred.
Another difference is when eating tempura, kanto will usually serve it with tentsuyu, that light
dipping sauce. But in Kansai, you’ll find most likely salt, sometimes even flavored
salt, like curry or green tea. In general, Kansai loves its flour. You can find both
soba noodles made from buckwheat flour and udon noodles made from flour flour restaurants all
over Japan, of course. But there tend to be more specialty udon shops in the
Kansai area and more specialty soba shops in Kanto. The udon texture is different as well. Kanto
is softer and easier to chew. Kansai has a firmer bite to their noodles. Now that
we’re talking about flour, okonomiyaki. It’s been translated as everything from Japanese
pizza to Japanese pancakes to Japanese soul food. It’s one of those “it is what it is” things, so let’s just
call it okonomiyaki, which means kind of fried as you like it. Or as you like it
fried. Anyway, shredded cabbage, mixed into a batter of flour, egg, and dashi broth, with
just about anything you want thrown in. And it’s all fried on a griddle. Meat, seafood, cheese,
mochi. Hey, my mom used to put potatoes and carrots in hers, which gave my mother-in-law a
heart attack. But in the immortal words of my mom, “You said it means as I like it.” And I couldn’t argue
with that. After fried up and flipped, you slather a zesty dark
sauce all over the top of your okonomiyaki, maybe make a fancy design of mayonnaise too, sprinkle
some dried seaweed flakes, and a heaping handful of smoked bonito katsuobushi
flakes on top, and then dig in. Mmm, Osaka. Now, let me tell you about the first time I
had monjayaki, the kanto equivalent I was shocked. It starts off deceptively similar to
okonomiyaki, but then it fools you. Long story short, the ingredients go on the griddle
first, and you scoop them around, cooking them. Then pour the batter over that. But the
batter never thickens up. It becomes a gooey, sticky concoction that you scrape off the grill and you
play with it for a while, and then you eat it off of these tiny little metal
spatulas. It’s good when you know what’s coming, but I was sitting
there with my kendo friends, watching them eat what I thought was raw batter, while I
just tried desperately to get it to form a cohesive pancake-like consistency, wondering what
I was doing wrong. Mmm, gooey, Tokyo, monjayaki. Here are some more differences you might
notice between kanto and kansai when you’re traveling around. Inari sushi, those
sweet, salty, tangy, seasoned fried tofu pouches filled with vinegared sushi rice, the ones that foxes
like so much. Did you know they are shaped differently depending on where you are? Kanto, Tokyo,
likes their little bales of hay kind of shape, and kansai goes for triangles. And just to
confuse you, the shape of onigiri, rice balls, is the opposite. You’ll find more triangle ones in the
kanto area, and round or bale-shaped ones in kansai. There’s a theory that the triangle shape was
encouraged by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Remember him from the ancient walking roots episode?
Well, he lived right here in Shizuoka, with a great view of Mount Fuji. And maybe, I’m just
guessing here, one morning over a cup of green tea, while gazing out at the iconic mountain, he
thought to himself, “Hmm, I should suggest people start making their rice balls to look
like Mount Fuji.” Maybe not. Even Japanese people can’t decide if that’s true or not. But it sounds
good. Then you have your tamagoyaki, which is a sort of Japanese omelette made by cooking
thin layers of seasoned egg in a rectangular pan and rolling them into a log shape and then slicing.
They’re soft, fluffy, a beautiful golden yellow, and they can be sweet or savory. And that’s where the
difference comes in. Kanto tamagoyaki are sweeter, with either sugar or that sweetened meating
added to the eggs. If you can taste the delicate notes and umami of seaweed and dashi in
your rolled tamagoyaki, that would be kansai. A kansai-er might balk at the sweet tamagoyaki in their
bento, where a kantoite would say, “Hey, it’s a palate cleanser. What’s the problem?
Plus, my kids love them.” If you don’t like natto, that yummy, stinky, sticky,
neba neba fermented beans, then you just might be from Osaka. Kansai people aren’t
as fond of this as the kanto-es. Let me end by telling you one of my favorite food
differences between kanto and kansai. I learned this one while eating with my Japanese
relatives long ago. Everyone, it seemed, was in the fishing industry in some form or fashion. I
was newly married and I had a thing for unagi, grilled eel. Well, one evening, a bunch of us
were sitting around and there were two uncles. Literally, one lived in Tokyo, the other, Osaka. And we
were having grilled unagi. They started talking about how to prepare the eel for grilling, and
the cultural aspect just kind of blew my mind. I never forgot it. When filleting the eel in Tokyo, they
cut along the back, seibiraki. This stems from back when samurai roamed the land, and
cutting the belly resembled seppuku, cutting the stomach in ritual suicide, and it was very
unlucky. So back-cutting, seibiraki, was and still is done there. Osaka is the
opposite. They do cut along the belly, harabiraki, and that’s because it’s a merchant
culture. And there’s a popular phrase, “otagai ni hara wo watte hanasou,” which means, “let’s
both cut our bellies and talk honestly.” Here, cutting your belly means to talk openly and
frankly. It’s a good thing. So, belly-cutting, harabiraki, it is. Very lastly, before I let you go, let
me teach you a little trick while you’re visiting or living in Japan. If you’re visiting
a supermarket and you want to try some of the various cup noodles, look at the ingredients
label and see if you can find an E or a W. E would stand for East, and that means you’re getting
the kanto flavor of the noodle. W would mean West, and that means you’re getting the
kansai type. You could get one of each and compare if you’d like. Thank you so much for listening. Everyone stay safe and
well, and I will talk to you again in two weeks. Bye-bye.

Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite topics, one of the things that makes Japan special to me. It still gets me excited after all these years, and that is food.

I absolutely love that wherever you go in Japan, there are local specialties. But there are also certain foods that are prepared completely differently depending on what area you’re in. And I’ll get into those too.

Let me start by telling you about a friendly little rivalry we have here on Honshū. That’s the Kantō versus Kansai. I live near there, kind of. There’s a funny story involving Osaka sarcasm and udon. And let me tell you about the first time I had monjayaki – I was shocked.

I’ll end by telling you one of my favorite food differences. It involves how eel is prepared, and the cultural reason is fascinating.

===

Would you like me to tell you a Bedtime Story? Once a month, for my five dollar and up Patrons, I find obscure Japanese folktales that I translate, retell/reimagine, and then record with cool background music. Some are funny, some are creepy, and some are just weird.

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