Introduction to the assignment (Takashi)

Hi all, 

It’s time to give you an assignment for this class, as I mentioned earlier.

So, I’ve been trying to find something common across all of your posts, but honestly, this year that turned out to be pretty difficult.

That said, one thing that did come up a few times was carbohydrate sources. We saw things like takoyaki, poha, udon, okonomiyaki, ramen, and so on in your posts so far.

So I was thinking—maybe we can go with “processed carbohydrate sources” as the theme. It sounds a bit abstract or hard to approach at first, but actually, it’s all about very familiar foods.

Let me explain what I mean, because this might still sound vague. Basically, these are foods made from rice or wheat, but processed into a different form.
From wheat, for example, you get things like takoyaki, okonomiyaki, ramen, udon, Indian naan…
From rice, you have poha, of course, but also mochi.

Now, is that enough to cover everyone? Probably not yet. But if you’re Japanese, you can also think of somen. And even with udon, if you narrow it down—like Inaniwa udon or Sanuki udon—you suddenly get a lot more options. There’s houtou, too.

And then there are things like dango, gyuhi, kiritanpo, gohei-mochi… see, there’s actually a lot out there.
If we include senbei and arare, that works as well. Oh—and I almost forgot, soba counts too.

And if someone wants to focus on tortillas as a theme, that’s absolutely welcome as well. 

I will explain in more detail in the next post.

The photo shows Okinawa soba I had in Okinawa Island last month. You may know but Okinawa soba does not use buckwheat flour.