S2E10 Thanksgiving Food Traditions and Japanese American Identity

Join hosts Koji and Michelle as they explore the fusion of Japanese and American cultures through food in the latest episode of the Japanese America Podcast. They delve into their Thanksgiving traditions, unique culinary experiences, and the impact of Japanese cuisine on identity. Koji shares a personal essay about his relationship with food, including his thoughts on natto, while Michelle reflects on her family's cooking. Discover the flavors that shape their stories and the connection between cuisine, culture, and belonging.

For more information about the Japanese American National Museum, please visit our website at www.janm.org. 

CREDITS

The music was created by Jalen Blank

Background music by music_for_video via Pixabay.

Written by Koji Steven Sakai

Hosts: Michelle Malazaki and Koji Steven Sakai

Edited by Koji Steven Sakai

Produced by Koji Steven Sakai in conjunction with the Japanese American National Museum

Transcript

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Koji. What does your Japanese American Thanksgiving look like? My Japanese American Thanksgiving is probably like everybody else's Thanksgiving, but the only difference is we have two additional dishes. One is rice, we have Gohan, and we also have a Japanese styled potato salad. So that has, like, apple and Kewpie mayonnaise. Wait wait wait, I make my own potato salad. B my potato salad doesn't have apples in it I don't like I don't know, it's good. Like, it's like curry when you go to somebody else's house and they have different curry. Yeah. And it tastes good. And so yes, it tastes good, but I don't make it with Apple. I make it with cucumbers. My mom used to do with cucumbers and apples, I think. I used to think the apple was weird. But then now that she's passed away, I kind of miss the apples because, yeah, I don't make it with apples or anything cause I don't like to. I don't like to peel and cut and it's too much work. Yeah, too much work. Well, what is your Japanese American Thanksgiving look like? I've only done my own turkey once because I read that making turkey is. Preparing turkey is like making instant noodle cup ramen noodles. How so? Yeah. So like it? Just the preparation is, like, very quick. You just take it out of the bag and then put stuffing in and put it in the oven and just let it sit for 3.5 hours and it's done instead of three minutes. And yes. But then I don't know, I, we don't have turkey commonly in Japan. So I didn't know there's stuffing the inside of turkey. I'm like ah. Do you eat. Do you eat it with Gohan or. No Gohan? No. So now I've been married for 24 years. Today is my anniversary, by the way. Oh, congratulations. Oh. Thank you. And, um, he my white husband, he cooks that Thanksgiving dinner. So he makes the regular, I think it's regular Thanksgiving with the turkey stuffing in it and, um, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and maybe salad. No salad because nobody eats salad. And what else? That's a very traditional Thanksgiving. Yeah, and he doesn't like yams, so I have to make yams. I love yams and, um. And maybe pumpkin pie to finish it off. Welcome to season two, episode ten of the Japanese America Podcast, the podcast where we explore the blend of Japanese and American cultures, history, and traditions, as well as all the quirky and wonderful things in between. My name is Koji and I am one of your hosts. And I'm the other host, Michelle, Koji. Any exciting holiday plans? I wish we had something exciting. Actually, we don't really do too much. We used to have a lot of people over, but then now that we have a kid and we don't really do anything. What about you guys? Do you guys do anything exciting for Thanksgiving? No, I don't do anything exciting. You know, I don't. I'm kind of dreadful Thanksgiving, because when you have people over, it takes all day to cook. And then it takes five minutes to eat. Okay. Maybe seven minutes to eat, and then you're done. That's it. You get sleepy from eating turkey, and that's it. I don't know, and then Black Friday used to be a huge thing. My sister and I used to camp out. Oh, my God. After Thanksgiving dinner. But now they don't open on Thanksgiving night, so it's I don't know. And you could also buy stuff on Amazon. Yeah. Nothing special. It's just another day that you eat turkey. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we thought it would be fun to talk about food. Yeah, food. Michelle, what's your best and worst Japanese American food experience? So the worst is the one that I had udon noodles at the restaurant when I was in college, like 30 some years ago. 37 years ago, maybe. I lived in San Diego to go to school in San Diego. And my friend took me to this Japanese restaurant with other friends, at all Japanese friends. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, all the stuff that I don't usually eat because I was a poor student and I don't go to restaurant that often. And I look at the menu and one of them had udon, gyoza and tempura and eggroll. I'm like, oh, All my favorite things. I ordered that and it came with udon and egg noodle and egg roll and gyoza and tempura all inside the udon soup. I was like, ah, no, that's terrible. You know the eggroll in udon soup? Ah, that was the worst. Wow. Do you have a best experience? Best experience is when I was invited to a Japanese American family dinner, and they had the football inari sushi, and I haven't had that for a long time. So I was like, oh my gosh, inari sushi is the best. They're like, oh, you like football? I'm like, no, inari sushi. Do you call it football or inari sushi? Uh, we call it football because it's just easier. Uh, my best experience is there's a omakase place here in Alhambra that is, uh, like, it's like one of those, like, $400 kind of places, but, uh, it's really, really good. I went for my birthday last year and it was, uh, it was really wonderful experience. The only problem with that, though, was my son. We took my son, which was a mistake because it's wasted on such a young child. And he was hungry, so he kept eating mine. So all like the ones I really wanted to eat were the ones that he would eat. So then it made me really sad because I couldn't even enjoy the food. But my worst experience, my worst Japanese American food experience is probably just in general. I remember when I first started working for the museum and I went to Little Tokyo and I went to all these Japanese American events, and I was always so disappointed by the food. I always wondered why they called it Japanese food. I was like, this doesn't taste like Japanese food. This tastes like a weird hybrid American food that kind of tasted Japanese. What did they serve? I don't know, you know, like the normal, like spam musubi and teriyaki stuff and things that, like, they kind of taste like Japanese food, but not really. They're more like American Japanese, Japanese American food. And at the time, I was just really kind of horrified by it. But then over the course of the time, I just got used to it and I just accepted that there was Japanese food from Japan, and there's Japanese American food from America, which is two totally different things. Which kind of brings us to our next question. What Japanese food do you miss most and can't find in America, or is it just not the same? I love tonkatsu in Japan. Oh yeah. And it is usually better in Japan. And cheaper. Yes. And also rice in general when you eat at the restaurant is so much better in Japan than in here. The Korean restaurants. Have you ever been to K-Town where they do tonkatsu? That's pretty good. That's pretty. That's the closest I've ever found to Japanese tonkatsu is the the tonkatsu places in Koreatown because they're like super, super Asian. Even though I'm not from Japan, what I kind of miss most is in Japan. Like, the yakitori is so much better. It's just like. And it's cheaper. And because here, if I go to like a yakitori place, it's kind of expensive, right? Everything is like $4. Like, every skewer is like. Or set of skewers like 4 or $5 or something. And then you just can't eat a lot. But over there, it's part of the drinking food. So I could you could get a lot of it for cheaper or cheap ish. And it's, uh, that's something that I miss while over there. The skewers make me think of kushikatsu. Those are good too. Oh, my gosh. I went to this kushikatsu place in Tokyo in June and it was so good. Me and this guy just ate ate, ate, ate, ate and we had this All you can drink package. To help us talk about food, identity and culture. We are going to be hearing a personal essay my co-host Koji wrote about natto. Food is our common ground, a universal experience James Beard. I've always had a weird relationship with food. Okay, what I should say is that I've always been obsessed with food. I'm a foodie. There, I said it. I used to bristle when people called me one, but now I embrace it. It's liberating to finally admit it in public. Ask me where we should eat. And I take pride in taking you to a hole-in-the-wall place you've never heard of. My earliest memories of food date back to my first trip to Japan with my family. For some reason, I told my mom before we left that I would only eat Japanese curry rice. I'm pretty sure my mom didn't believe me, but I stood by my decision. I refused to eat anything else. So no matter where we were, there had to be a curry option. My favorite memory from that trip was eating what my mom called fancy curry. She told me it was expensive. I don't know how expensive it was, but I do remember how good it tasted. I still dream about that fancy curry to this day. I never lost my love for curry rice. One of my favorite restaurants was the old curry house in Weller Court, Little Tokyo. I love that place so much that I even told my mom I wanted to get married there. I think I'm gonna order curry for lunch. My mom was the cook of the house. She passed away about a half a decade ago. What I miss most about her is the disappointment in her eyes when she thinks of my career as a writer. I'm kidding. Half kidding. One of the things I miss most about her is her cooking. She was able to make any food taste amazing. Her broccoli tempura, her gyoza, her potato salad. I can still remember how they all tasted. My mother moved from Japan to the United States in the 1960s, and only now do I see how brave she was leaving her home and going to a place where she couldn't speak the language is something I have never considered. However, no matter how long she stayed, she never thought of herself as American. She was Japanese and she passed that to me. Growing up, I was told that I was Japanese. Being a child, I wanted to believe that because during that time people didn't love the Japanese or Japanese Americans. And it was clear that I wasn't American. My eyes, the way my house smelled, my funny name, they all screamed foreigner even though I was a yonsei fourth generation. I remember telling people that I was from Japan. That's how much I believe my mom's words. The reality hit me the first time I went to my mom's birth country. It was clear that I wasn't Japanese. The way I talked, the way I walked, the way I saw the world. It was so American. It makes sense now. I barely spoke Japanese due to a speech impediment that prevented me from learning. I grew up in America, I watched MTV, I tp'd houses, I went to the prom. I was as American as apple pie. Yet when I was in America with just my family and my mother cooked authentic Japanese food, that food made me feel like a good Japanese kid who just happened to be away from the island. My mother's cooking represented the closest I could feel to my ancestral homeland. My mom's cooking was the tie that made me feel whole. That's how I started eating natto. Natto is fermented soybeans. Legend has it that a samurai in Japan carried soybeans, but he let them sit too long and they became fermented without anything else to eat. He decided to try them. And that's how natto was born. I knew I hated natto from the first time I saw it. It was sticky looking. It didn't smell like food. Worst of all, it didn't look like food. Then I tasted it and confirmed that I hated it. Hate does not do justice to how I felt about natto. I disliked it with a passion that I reserved only for things I truly hated Celtics death, dogs being sick, the Giants. But then my mother told me real Japanese people eat natto. More than anything, I wanted to be a real Japanese person. However, what does that mean? I eat with chopsticks. I take my shoes off when I enter the house, but I just didn't feel like a real Japanese person. So if natto was the key to becoming Japanese, I was willing to try it. I was willing to eat it. I took one bite. Still horrible. I took a second bite. Not getting better. I spent the first year hating every single bite. But the thought that if I ate it enough, I would become a real Japanese person was enough to keep going. 40 years later. Do I love natto? No. Can I eat it in a pinch? Yes. But I have to be pretty hungry. Does that make me a real Japanese person? I hope so. In the end, I finally found my common ground. It's not in the fancy curry I ate as a child. Or the natto till my mother used as a test. It's in the food she made that fed my body, and maybe more importantly, my soul. Food wasn't just a universal experience for us. It was a way for her to speak a language she didn't know I would understand. It was her way of passing down a piece of our heritage, a piece of herself to a son who felt lost between two worlds. I may not be a real Japanese person, and I may not be as American as apple pie, but through my mom's cooking, I found a sense of belonging. I am a person who found his home and himself in his mother's kitchen. Michelle, do you like natto? What about your kids husband? I love natto, and my son loves love natto. But my daughter, I don't think she ever eaten natto. My husband? Never. Never. I don't see natto is cheap in Japan, but here it's very expensive, so I don't want to waste it for somebody. They're not expensive. I mean, I think you go to, like, Marukai. You could get, like, a three pack for, like, $1.50. How much are they in Japan? That's expensive in Japan. Um, three pack is like $0.40. What? Wow. Okay. Yeah. That is cheap then. Yeah. My son eats, uh, natto. He actually really likes it. What's weird about the way he eats it, though, is he doesn't like rice. Or he doesn't want to eat it with rice. He just. I mean, he likes rice, but he doesn't eat natto with rice, which is weird to me, because the only way I could eat natto is with rice. So I have no idea how he how he does it, but he could just sit there. I could just feed him. Not though. He puts all the sauce and the mustard. Hot mustard. And then he just. He just eats it plain like that. And, uh, that's always interesting. Has your husband ever tried it, though? I don't think so. I don't I don't want to waste my good food. So when I was growing up, I, when I was growing up, I didn't like natto. And my dad told me to put sugar on natto. So I put sugar and soy sauce because when I was growing up, natto didn't come with special sauce to put on. And, um, I used to eat it with sugar. And then when I grew up, I graduated to the just soy sauce or the, you know, it started to come out with special sauce. Like, is it like ponzu or is it no No. Now they have like different sauce. Oh that's right, they have different sauces with it. Yeah. Like plum flavor or special sauce. And you know, I was hoping your natto essay was ending with like, happy ending, but you still don't like natto. It's not that I don't like it. It's just I don't I would never choose it as my main course or something. I would really eat, but I would eat it in a pinch. I mean, we have it in my refrigerator all the time, and mostly it's my son and my wife. They're the two that mostly eat it. But again, if I'm in a pinch, I could mix it with some, uh, some rice, some gohan and eat it. Oh mix it with rice. Yeah, I can't I don't want to eat it. Eat it. Although, I will say like one of my friends I was telling, I showed him my essay and he was telling me that it's like, uh, stinky tofu. Have you ever had stinky tofu? No, I never had it. I've heard about it but I never. Yeah. And he was telling me it's like that. I was like, no I mean natto, like I don't think natto has a smell, but stinky tofu has a really terrible smell. But it tastes good. But it smells really not good. I mean, that's the. That's why the name Stinky Tofu, right? Oh, but it doesn't smell good. But it's good. But I don't think natto really has a smell. I mean, it's more of just like the stickiness of it. It's more of the just kind of the weird thing. But, uh. But I read this story to my son. He didn't really relate at all. It was interesting when you heard my story, where did it take you? I was like, oh my gosh, I, you know, force yourself to eat natto. I love natto, but I don't, I don't. If I could eat it every day, I would eat it. The only reason I don't eat it every day because I live in Thousand Oaks. So natto is kind of a rare commodity for me. And. But I have a friend who makes natto at her house. Wow, does it taste different? I don't know, she said. It's very easy and it's it tastes great. So I was gonna make it. I bought the beans, but I haven't made it yet, so I'll try it. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, the natto was like, more of, like, a symbol for my mom because my mom was really confused. I mean, she came really early to America. She came in, like 1965 or around that time. And I think that she always told me as a child that I was Japanese back then. Also, it wasn't, you know, being Asian, being Japanese, being Japanese American wasn't cool, right? It was still during the 80s when the whole car company and buying like, you know, golf courses and buildings and stuff, and it was kind of a bad thing to be Japanese. I think it was kind of just this weird time where I was trying to figure out who I was, and my mom was very much like, You're Japanese, you're Japanese. But when I went to Japan, I mean, I've gone more than one time, obviously, when I was a kid. And it was just it was very clear that I wasn't Japanese. Right. Like and so I think that it was very confusing to me. So I think for me, like, not natto represented this like this is how I could be Japanese like, and that's why I forced myself to try to eat it and, you know, like and I think that was kind of weird. And I think that, like your kids or my son, they don't really have that because, I mean, first of all, being Japanese is not seen as a negative anymore. I think. I think it's much more positive, like Japan's cool, right? All the cool stuff, all the cool culture stuff is from Japan. And I think and then being Asian American, I mean, you look around, there's like K-pop, there's Asians who are, you know, who are popular and successful and seen as handsome or beautiful in ways that weren't there before. Yeah. So when I came to America, I was the first class I took. I think I told you before, when I came to America, I came here to go to school. And the first class I took was the world history and, you know, started in late August. And by December it was about World War two. So on December 8th, I didn't go to school because I was scared. Or seventh. Seventh. No. But in Japan. Oh, in Japan is the eighth. Oh yeah, you're right, you're right. Then I found out December 7th was the Pearl Harbor Day in America. So I was okay, but I still didn't go. I was scared on the eighth also. Um, I don't know. I've been living in America. Maybe too, too long when I came to America, I thought I was Japanese. And when I went back to Japan to visit, first time I was still Japanese. But like every time I go back to Japan, I feel less Japanese. The way they treat me like I really? Yeah. I went to a museum with my son and it was closed. I'm like, ah, it's closed. And they felt I was not from Japan. Although I'm speaking perfect, I think perfect Japanese. And they're like, oh, you can come in. I'm like, really? And I don't think they would let anybody in, but they just let us in because they felt I was not a Japanese person, because Japanese people are not nice to Japanese people, but they are nice to visitors. Yeah. That's funny. When I was a kid, for example, I remember one of the most, uh, experiences that really, really stuck with me was I remember I was at the beach with my family, my Japanese family, and I knew better than to speak because I haven't a funny. You know, when I speak Japanese, I has a funny American accent to it. And I know better than to talk in Japanese around Japanese people. And I remember just walking around and I remember just people were staring and people were kind of mean to me, and I wasn't even saying anything. And I just, you know, and my cousin, I remember telling me that it was the way I walked. Oh. My Americanness was so embedded into who I was. You could just tell by the way I carried myself. And at the time, it just felt like I was being normal. But now I see, you know, like the way I enter a room, the way I interact, the way I carry myself is very American. But back then it felt like, you know, I didn't understand how that that was. And I think that was one of the first times I was like, oh, I guess I'm not Japanese, you know? Is it America, the way you walk? Is it American or gogi warui no manners? Hahaha. No, I think it's yeah, there's like a confidence gay, right? That's different. Also Japanese people from Japan tend to drag their shoes a little bit. Really? Yeah. Backside of the shoes. So you could tell. Oh, that's a Japanese person, not a Korean person. No. Okay, that's good to know. I'm gonna. I'm gonna test this out. I'm gonna test this theory out. And also, you could tell by, like, hearing if you hear a Japanese person talking or if you hear Japanese people talking from a little bit away. That's not Japanese people from Tokyo. They are from Osaka. Osaka. People talk loud. Koji, if you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would you eat and why? I thought a lot about this. I mean, the first three things that came to mind four things that came to mind was curry rice. I love curry, obviously from the story. I love sushi, sashimi, sushi, I love gyoza, and I love tacos. But if I had to eat only one of those man, well, one type of food, I'd eat Japanese food for sure. One of the things I was going to say was one of the things I like about when I go to Japan that's different than when I go to other countries is when I go to Japan. I could go to any restaurant pretty much. And the food tastes familiar. You know, like nothing is weird. Nothing smells weird, nothing tastes weird. Everything tastes like home in a way. Even if I've never had it before, even if it's something like, you know, something different, it always tastes like something that I know, you know. Whereas when I've gone to other countries like China or South America or anywhere, and I eat something, you know, I'm always nervous a little bit because I'm not familiar and it doesn't taste like anything I've had before. And sometimes it tastes wonderfully. It's not a good or bad thing. It's just, you know, and that's kind of one of the things I love about when I go to Japan is that I could eat street food, I could eat food from 7-Eleven, I could eat a fancy restaurant, and all of it tastes familiar and good to me. And that's kind of why I'd probably, if I could only eat one, I'd eat Japanese food. What about you? What type of food would you eat for the rest of your life? Well, if it's type, then I like Japanese. I want to eat Japanese food or. Um, I don't know, I don't, I don't particularly like certain type of food. I, I think I want to eat Japanese food because, I don't know, I started to miss Japanese food lately as I get older. People told me about this like, oh, Michelle, wait 20 years and you're gonna miss Japanese food. And that's true. I, I it's happening to me, and I did not grow up eating oden from my parents. My mom was a terrible cook, so she didn't cook that much. And her, I don't know. How did she cook her curry was okay because curry is kind of easy. It's like an instant food, kind of like you stir fry vegetables and put meat and cook curry. But she's not a she wasn't a good she you know what she did to me when we were when I was growing up. You know, she always tells me to cook. I mean, to make or not make. She always tells me to wash rice because you are supposed to wash rice. American people sometimes don't wash their rice, but you are supposed to wash rice before you cook it. And my mom's like, ah, that tidal wave in a pot makes me dizzy so I can't wash the rice. So and so. I had to wash rice to have rice. Um. She's crazy. She's still alive. But, you know, maybe she could start practicing to cook so she'll be a better cook. Every time I go to Japan, she's like, oh, I have some feast prepared for you. It's sashimi. You just go to the store and buy sashimi already and transfer it to your own plate. Did she cut it at least? No, it's already. It's already cut. Ah, okay. What Japanese food do you miss most? You're saying you miss Japanese food? But what? Is there anything in particular? I've been eating a lot of oden lately. With daikon. Yes. And, um. Konnyaku. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. I never I mean, when I was growing up, every winter I go to 7-Eleven, and when you open the door, well, you don't open. But when the doors open to 7-Eleven or other convenience stores, you get the whiff of Oden and you're like, ah. Smells bad. But now I'm like, oden, then so comfy. Makes me comfy. Do you buy the, like, the big packs from the Japanese markets. Pack and nobody else? Nobody else eat or then. Your children don't eat it. No, my husband doesn't eat it. My kids don't eat it. So I get to have the whole pot for myself for a week. Actually, that's interesting, because I've talked to a lot of Japanese Americans and a lot of them. A lot of the people I've spoken to don't like Oden. I think it's the I think it's the the texture that they don't like. The fishcake. Yeah, the fishcake texture. It's like rubbery, I think is probably what it is, but I think, I think it's really great. I like it with the mustard. The hot mustard is my favorite. But it's got to be Japanese mustard. Yeah, not like the yellow. Like not the. Like the hot dog. Yeah, yeah. That's like, that would be terrible with it. It has to be the hot. The hot Japanese buster. It makes it taste good. Oh, gosh, you're making me hungry. I know, I was gonna say I gotta go buy oden now. Potatoes in there. So good. And boiled eggs are so good, so good, so good. That's gonna be my dinner for a week. That's great. What's your favorite? Oden? One. Like, you know how, like, they come in the packs? Yeah, I like the big chikuwa. Big one. Not the little one. Big one. Oh, those are good. And I like the one. The Otani Bukuro or the Otakara. People call it Otakara. Which was that one? Um, it's the age above the age of the, um, mochi in it. Yes. That's my. I love that one. Ginkgo in it. Ah, yeah. I like the one with the, uh. What is it? The. Oh, my gosh. Uh. It's with the brown bam. Like, not bamboo, but kind of kimpra gobbo gobbo. gobbo gobbo. The one that has, like, the inside. It's like a it's like rectangular or not rectangular. It's like circle. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It has, it's like. Yeah. It has the call that thing. Yeah. He has um, gobbo inside. It's good. Yeah. That's my favorite one. Yeah. That was, that's my mom made really really good kimpra gobbo. That was like my one of the best things she made. I've never had it since then. Kimpra gobbo when you make it, nobody else in my family eats it. So I have to eat it whole. You know, everything. That's sad. Japanese food is so good, I would give anything. I mean, I even asked my mom when she was alive before she got sick if she would teach me how to cook. And we got in this huge fight because when she cooked, she didn't like there was no recipe, right? She just cooked things. And then I'd ask her how to do it, and then she'd say, you just do this. And I'm like, what does that mean? You know, like. And so then I wish I'd tried harder because I'm sure if I tried harder, I could have done it. But it would. It would. It's very sad. Yeah, my son doesn't eat Japanese food regularly, but he eats natto. But the only thing he eats natto is when he was a baby. I read that when kids eat natto, it makes them smarter. So I'm like, ah, I gotta feed him natto. So did it work? Did he become smart? I don't know, he's you know, he's pretty good. He's a pretty good man, little man. Now. I mean, not little. He's a pretty good man. So I think natto help. Yeah. Okay, that's good to know. Thank you, Koji, for sharing your essay. And thank you all for listening to our podcast. We are deeply grateful for your continued support and enthusiasm for the Japanese America Podcast. Your engagement, feedback and passion inspire us to keep sharing stories and perspectives that bridge cultures and bring people together. Thank you for being part of our community and for tuning in to each episode. We're excited to continue this journey with you, exploring the rich and diverse tapestry of Japanese American experiences. Stay tuned for more exciting content, and don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas. This podcast is a program of the Japanese American National Museum. The museum's mission is to promote understanding and appreciation of America's ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast. Next month we'll be discussing Japanese American holiday traditions. Yay! More traditions! I mean, we already kind of I mean, I think it's more like Christmas and New Year's and. Christmas, New Year's. And how do you say that? Uh, I don't know. Christmas, New Year's and more. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening. Bye, everybody.