The concept of vegetarianism in this country almost does not exist, Japanese cuisine is mostly based on the use of fish and when we started talking about this trip and the period I would have spent in Japan, I was conscious of what I was going to Against, and to make compromises. I say I prefer not to be vegetarian because I do not eat about eight years meat, I eat a few eggs and I do not drink milk for years, but I happen to eat fish even for health and survival issues when traveling.
At the same time, I did not want to deny the opportunity to experience the authentic food of this country in order to experience this full experience, although it is true that the cuisine of a place is indissolubly linked to it, Japan is a great example. Here the kitchen is a real art made with method, passion, and rigor, and Japanese cuisine best expresses a great characteristic: great craftsmanship!
I had the opportunity to taste things that now I can not even describe, both for the name and the look and after a while spent asking what this was rather than that, I realized it was useless, and so I started to eat without even asking.
Several times when I was possible I did not eat fish, and I asked for vegetarian meals, but most of the time I did not have any alternatives, even worse I was told that that dish did not contain meat then find out that was not so. This did not happen because the Japanese wanted to lie but because some of them, most of them, do not fully know the meaning. For example, the chicken is not meat, but no wonder this is why in Italy when I say not to eat meat, I propose ham and the like!
Sometimes to eat something vegetarian and substantial we went to Indian restaurants, or in Italian cooking chains (there are several) or in Mexican or Irish pubs.
My biggest problem with the Japanese cuisine I enjoyed many dishes is that most of the time I did not enjoy it fully and did not satiate me. I was always hungry!
Japanese cuisine is known to be very healthy and low in fat and carbohydrates, although eating so much rice it is made with foods (such as algae) that reduce its caloric intake and this is the reason why the majority Of Japanese has a thin, dry body!
Now, I also call myself a person who loves to eat healthily and quill, but generally do not give up on pasta, bread, pizza, I have always been used to eating typical South Italy cuisine so you can imagine the shock of my stomach in eating things so lightly.
I still remember when I was hungry I dreamed of gnawing foods, and yes fat, and instead, I ended up eating very small and light foods. I did not have the bread, so the bread and the flours were most of all.
And so in the end to settle my stomach I entered a convenience store and bought some chips, brioche or ice cream!
The only Japanese food that sat me was udon with tempura, but you understand that it would not be healthy to eat it every day.
There is another challenge in the supermarket.
Japan is one of the countries in the world where there have been no urbanization policies but simply built everywhere, without criterion losing forever hectares and hectares of land. It has been decided to focus everything on technology and information by renouncing agriculture! And so most of the products you can buy in a supermarket are imported. Because? Because there are no soils to grow !!! While it is true that we should take an example from Japan and the Japanese in many respects, some have already been analyzed, it is also true that we should show our politicians this country to show it with their own eyes what it means to take the land out of agriculture!
And so the soybean which is one of the main foods of Japanese food (see soy sauce and sprouts) is produced only about 2% around the country, all the rest is imported. Only rice is lucky about 90% of the cultivation and then production.
So you can imagine how expensive it is to buy vegetables or cheeses in this country, a pricing that is higher than in Sydney, considered to be one of the world’s worst cities in many respects!
And apart from the costs, the one that most “demoralized” me was not being able to be self-sufficient in cooking for me and my boyfriend. It was food to cook according to site recipes that I did not know. Not to mention the various packages where all the instructions are written in Japanese and which therefore I could not know the meaning. Once even taking some chips bags I went back and forth from the box three times until I sent my boyfriend to choose what we both wanted.
When I first entered a supermarket it was like being a little girl, I was all new to me, not just the foods I could see but also the writing in a strange language. The only things I could recognize besides most of the fruits and vegetables were udon, noodles, and yakisoba envelopes.
In Japanese supermarkets, fish is sold both packaged and fresh in self-service mode. The fish is left in ice pans to keep it in the best possible way. In addition, there are already cooked or fried foods such as tempura, various fish or chicken.
After a month in Japan, a good day, I decided to buy what I needed to have an Italian breakfast and to cook and eat dishes of my culinary tradition.
And so I bought what looked like an imitation of Nutella (the latter was too expensive) to find that it was a very strange chocolate mousse; Bread, and finally pasta, tomato and some grated mozzarella, potatoes, and onions. Thanks to these ingredients I could pamper for me and my Japanese friends some simple but very good dishes.
Unfortunately, food, beans, lentils and vegetable soup did not exist, or at least I’ve never found that supermarket that was not small.
But already finding the only ingredients, I’ve been able to change my diet, so I can switch to Japanese and Italian cuisine.
To conclude, if you are preparing to travel to this beautiful country and you are vegetarian, it will not be easy to find alternatives, but it is not impossible. And of course much depends on how long you expect to stay, if I had only spent 2/3 weeks probably I would not have eaten Italian food (something I never do when I’m abroad!).