Japanese Soulfood
by Devananda Vargas
At dinner in Tokushima I sat at a horigotatsu declaring to new friends “I can’t remember the last time I was hungry”. After three weeks on guided tours in Japan, the formal dinners and breakfasts of elaborate culinary adventures had become overwhelming. There was an ever growing awareness of abundance that had become all consuming. The komainu to my bodily temple had become vitriols. I found myself hedonically ravenous, greedily desiring and attempted to eat all the food placed in front of me.
In the onsen I sat in the gluttony with the acute awareness of the size and shape of my western body. At any dinner of five courses or more, and at formal breakfast as well, the place setting included multiple types of chawan, ohashi on hashi-oki, shiru-wan, yakimono-zara, chuzara and kozara, kobachi, donburi-bachi, and nimono-wan tableware. This does not include any donabe and teppanyaki or other table top cooking elements. Each meal was a feast for more than the taste buds, it was a complete sensory experience. First engorging the eyes, then swelling the nostrils, arousing the ears, palpitating the heart, and finally elating the tongue.Fortunately we were served nattō to help us digest it all, and unfortunately we were served nattō. It’s a curious dish of extremely sticky fermented soy beans which develop maddening viscous strings upon attempting to eat them. Japan is like that, unexpectedly tasty, strangely extravagant in its simplicity, only slightly exasperating, and wholly delightful. And now, three weeks after leaving, a hunger returns, and I dream of eating that eastern sun again.
Finally! there’s toast
soft butter sweet jam cuppa tea
farewell to Japan
Kanpai friends — may you too have the awareness of the abundance in your life that makes it nearly indigestible. And may your heart be satiated by the opulence of the sacredness of it all!
komainu are lion-dogs that guard the entrance to the shrine or temple.
horigotatsu is a the gap in the floor under the low table allowing you to dine comfortably. In cold weather has a heater.
onsen hot spring communal bathhouse
kanpai is the Japanese drinking toast entoned as you raise your glass.
© Devananda Vargas, April 2024.
Devananda Vargas lives in New Mexico, USA, and is currently doing her MFA at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University. She writes regularly on her Substack page Queer Dharma, where you will find more writing on her Japan journey. She joined Haiku Walking in Japan in April 2024.
For more international writers journeys with Jan Cornall see:
Web: www.writersjourney.com.au
Insta: @_writersjourney
