I'm a Japanese food lover especially the Japenese Sweet which call Wagashi Wagashi(和菓子) is a traditional Japanese confectionery which is often served with tea, especially the types made mochi, azuki bean paste(red bean paste), and fruits.Wagashi is typically made from natural (mainly plant) ingredients. The names used for wagashi commonly fit a formula—a natural beauty and a word from ancient literature.Japanese sweets has over twelve-hundred history, it originated from the Chinese elixir of life.
In Edo period, it had incorporated the technique of the western sweets. After over hundreds years' harmonizing of both sweets, Japanese sweets had established as one of the Japanese own cultures.
Japanese sweets is full of seasonal taste and consisted of aesthetic sense and colors of four seasons, such as a pink colored rice cake rolled with cherry leaf in spring, as a sweet jellied bean paste in summer. Most of names of Japanese sweets are based with the beauties and scenes of the nature, traditional Japanese poetries, literature, local history, name of the place and etc.
And also, Japanese sweets is very important fact on various cultural events of Japanese people's life, such from a birth to entry to school to marriage to funeral.
Wagashi are classified according to the production method and moisture content. Moisture content is very important since it affects the best-before date.
Namagashi
(生菓子) (wet confectionery)—contains 30% or more moisture.
Jō namagashi
(上生菓子), very soft and delicate seasonally varying namagashi, in various, often elaborate, shapes and colors, often reflecting seasonal plants. Some stores will have many dozens over the course of a year.
(干菓子) (dry confectionery)—contains 10% or less moisture.
Uchi
mono (打ち物)
Oshi
mono (押し物)
Kake
mono (掛け物)
Yaki
mono (焼き物)
Ame mono
(あめ物)
After a trip to Japan last year in 2010, I totally fall in love with Wagashi. It is the ultimate intersection with food and art which I respect very much! ^ ^
It is an invitation to indulge all five sense:-
Taste
Appearance
Scent
Texture
Sound
Japanese cuisine- 日本料理 has it unique inner philosophy. The food look simple, but it does not simply just food. From ingredients to technique, the Japanese always demanding for perfection.Japanesecuisineissimple butdifficult. Because the steps aresimple, therefore, every detailsmust havea certain quality and standard, thatanyshort cutsisnot allowed. Just like the calligraphy, simple but not easy！ (简单，不简单) The Japanese will always hold with their philosophy of ' I'm with my sincere heart to make the best food for you!' and very importantly, they take care of the food hygiene as well. This is actually part of the philosophy too. (GKP -good kitchen practice, 厨德 ) They are so lovely and is very hard to eat them! ^ ^
My Wagashi learning experiences:-
My first experience of doing wagashi is with Ikuko san (郁子), she taught me how to make dango丸子. It really look simple initially. With very simple ingredients(only 2 ingredients for foaming the dango, and 3 ingredient for the seasoning) and steps, you can make dango.
So, when I try to make it on my own at home, I fail for more then 5 times and started to think whether I had brought the wrong ingredient?? The dango that I made couldn't float in the boiling water, it was so sticky and taste like uncooked.
Hoho! And then comes one day, I was struggling because couldn't sleep for the whole night, even though I have tried many ways. Then, I told myself 'why not go and do dango?' ^ ^ Eventually, I had made it after a few tries!! とても 嬉しかった！(^ ^)v It actually taste like our Chinese traditional food Tang Yuan, 汤圆.
これは いちご大福.(ichigo daifuku)This was the second experience of learning to makewagashi. My senseiisHiromisan(宏実)，she have been teachingwagashiin Japan for many years and yet she is still doing it after she moved toKualaLumpur, Malaysia! ^ ^
I got to know her from my Mandarin class. She made lots of wonderful Japanese sweets and she have her website at http://yorokombu.exblog.jp/ (in Japanese)
Daifuku mean happiness. Again, very less ingredients needed, but I had tried many times, it doesn't really work out. =_= Taste, appearance, texture... ぜんぜん だめ.
A dull edge utensil use for tasting wagashi. Beautiful!
My last try was on last Sunday, had shown little progress of improvement. ^ ^ Finally, able to share some with friends.
I really wish that the person who ate them, felt the happiness. This was my wish when made this Daifuku.For me, food represent the heart of a person who made it. Therefore, I always believe that, if I put in the spirit of love, then, the person who ate them can get the love and felt lucky for the whole day. ^ ^
Butter and milk is rarely used in the wagashi cooking, therefore, it is suitable for everybody. It can also be pretty sweet which goes well with strong green tea.
When I learn to make daifuku with Hiromi san, I have got a chance to see the tea ceremony. These are all the utensils(chawan-tea bowl, natsume-green tea powder container, chasen-the bamboo tea-whisk, chashaku-green tea macha scoop,etc) that needed during the tea ceremony. Amazing! seeing her making the macha green tea.
She took theChasenin the right hand and hold theChawanwith the left hand to make sure it doesn’t tumble over when whisking. Whisk the Oyu and Macha to froth with about half of the Chawan covered with foam. When the green-tea froth is well mixed, finish by drawing a の (No) shape in the Chawan so that the foam floats in the center.
Due to the scope of my work , I have been visiting many food manufacturing factories, and farms.
I have never seen such a great farming system. Nutrilite Farm---The real organic farm that inspire me. While searching in the internet, there are too many information appears in front of me.
They implementing Good Agriculture Practice (GAP), which is already a very high standard program, especially in US. Yet they set a requirement of all the farms supplying botanical materials adhere to the NUTRICERT farm certification program – ensuring that these farms adhere to Nutrilite's own organic farming philosophy, guided by sustainable, organic principles.
Crops used for Nutrilite supplements are grown using organic and sustainable farming methods. Instead of relying on harmful pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizes, they let nature do the work.
The organic farming methods used to produce ingredients are more costly and more labour intensive than conventional commercial farming , but they offer enormous advantages. By focusing on long-term sustainability, instead of short term yields. They produce healthy crops without damaging the earth and the environment. They believe that best supplement begins with the best plant.
To implement a organic farm standard is not easy. To achieve this objective we need a very powerful support from the Top Management and also the workers. There are a lot of farm claiming themselves as organic farm, but when I went to visit them, there are still far behind from the standard. They 'look like' but they are NOT.
When study about the Nutrilite farming technique, I was soon be attracted by their philosophy and commitment to grow the best plant that led to development of one of the industry's most extensive organic farming operations. Here are some implementation that I am so impress！！^^
Integrated pest management(in chinese: 天敌法):-
Integrated pest management (IPM) is an integrated approach of crop management to solve ecological problems when applied in agriculture.
These methods are performed in three stages: prevention, observation, and intervention. It is an ecological approach with a main goal of significantly reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides while at the same time managing pest populations at an acceptable level.
The emphasis is on control, not eradication.Should a pest reach an unacceptable level, mechanical methods are the first options to consider. They include simple hand-picking, erecting insect barriers, using traps, vacuuming, and tillage to disrupt breeding.Using biological controls,promoting beneficial insects that eat target pests.They use ladybirds, green lacewing, spiders, predator birds like hawks, owls, bats and so on.
(you browse to this webpage www.nutrlite-farm.com to know more about the pest control in nutrilite farm. It is in Chinese and game approach ^^ )
Soil Management:-
It concerns all operations, practices and treatments used to protect soil and enhance its performance.a soil that functions effectively today and will continue to produce crops long into the future.
They implement crop rotation, nutrient-rich organic compost(derived from decomposed plant materials), soil microbes, "green manure" crops (i.e. clover and vetch are grown and ploughed back into the soil to increase nutrients and improve the soil structure) and earthworms(the key players in soil health, which they enrich the soil as they ingest, decompose and deposit casts continuously.)
No soil or environmental contamination, such as using genetically modified organisms. The idea is to protect the farms from potential sources of contamination from neighboring farms.
grazing livestock in between plantings will reduce weeds and enrich the soil with biological nutrients.
In-depth quality control standards, including proper documentation of farm inputs, traceability of crop sources, written plans to avoid contamination and control pests, and a quality assurance program for farm products sold.
What I admire the best is that we could actually find a small ecosystem in this organic farm. You can see lake, trees, river, different species of plants and fauna, human, etc.
They built a healthy social environment around the farm, providing farm employees with the opportunity for personal development, including education and training. They build school, clinic, and other facilities in the community. They create harmony atmosphere in the community. The farmers are certified as the organic farmer.^^
My father's quest began in1915 in China.
There he observed that people who lived in rural areas seemed
to be healthier than people in the cities,
and he soon made the connection between plant-based nutrition and improved health.
When my father returne to the United States in 1927,
he set up makeshift multimineral products based on plant mterials.
In 1940s, my father leased a two-acre farm in the San Fernando Valley
to grow alfalfa and other plant materials without using
synthetic pesticides or herbicides.
He called his natural methods "Nutrilite farming Practices"
and we have used those methods ever since to ensure that
we remain in control of the quality of our products
' from the seed to the finished supplement'.--Dr. Sam Rehnborg
(Note:-After reading a book named " The Nutrilite Story- past, present, future".
I got to know that the knowledge of the Tradisional Chinese Medicine,TCM had been studied and introduced by Dr. Carl Rehnborg into the Nutrilite products. There were 'ying' and 'yang' and also the 'qi' concept. This is pretty surprise. He even read the book '神农本草经'.)
This is more than a Organic Farm！Awesome！This is the reason why I said I have never experience such a powerful organic system before. Yet this is only the 'seed'. They control over plant ingredients from the seed to finished supplement, 150 product and packaging patents and industry leadership in phytonutrient product formulation.
In 2009, they celebrate their 75th anniversary.
Implementing a standard into a food factory or a farm is actually creating a ripple in the whole supply chain. Food Factory/Farm --- Intermediate Suppliers --- Main Suppliers from local or oversea.
By setting supplier requirements/ purchasing specifications, the supplier will be forced to improve their system. More safe food will be produced.
However... unfortunately... most of them think that this is costly, impossible, wasting time, hard to manage, etc. So, what else you think is good ? When a problem come to you? or When somebody out there die because of you?
I'm a Japanese food lover especially the Japenese Sweet which call Wagashi
And also, Japanese sweets is very important fact on various cultural events of Japanese people's life, such from a birth to entry to school to marriage to funeral.
Japanese cuisine- 日本料理 has it unique inner philosophy. The food look simple, but it does not simply just food. From ingredients to technique, the Japanese always demanding for perfection.Japanese cuisine is simple but difficult. Because the steps are simple, therefore, every details must have a certain quality and standard, that any short cuts is not allowed. Just like the calligraphy, simple but not easy！ (简单，不简单) The Japanese will always hold with their philosophy of ' I'm with my sincere heart to make the best food for you!' and very importantly, they take care of the food hygiene as well. This is actually part of the philosophy too. (GKP -good kitchen practice, 厨德 )
So, when I try to make it on my own at home, I fail for more then 5 times and started to think whether I had brought the wrong ingredient?? The dango that I made couldn't float in the boiling water, it was so sticky and taste like uncooked.
これは いちご大福.(ichigo daifuku) This was the second experience of learning to make wagashi. My sensei is Hiromi san (宏実)，she have been teaching wagashi in Japan for many years and yet she is still doing it after she moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! ^ ^
Butter and milk is rarely used in the wagashi cooking, therefore, it is suitable for everybody. It can also be pretty sweet which goes well with strong green tea.
