実はドイツで料理するのが難しい日本食

Japanese food that is actually difficult to cook in Germany

I think that there are many people who study abroad in Germany for work or study abroad, but one of the things to be concerned about when living abroad like that is the diet.

I want to prepare the same Japanese food as when I was in Japan for my family. Although I live in Japan, I think there are many opportunities to prepare Japanese food.

Recently, there have been more and more opportunities to see Japanese restaurants and Japanese ingredients in Europe, including Germany.

Even so, the number of Japanese food ingredients that can be purchased in Germany is still limited, and in some cases, the prices are nearly double what they are available in Japan.

Some of them are sold in any supermarket in Japan, but it is not uncommon to find them nowhere in Germany.

Japanese food and Japanese ingredients that are difficult to cook in Germany

As mentioned above, even if you try to get Japanese food ingredients, the prices are higher than in Japan, the quality is different compared to what you buy in Japan, and you can't find them anywhere. There are some Japanese foods that are difficult to make for various reasons.

Below, I would like to introduce Japanese food that is difficult to cook in Germany.

1. Beef bowl

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Thinly sliced ​​beef is indispensable for making beef, but in the first place in Europe such as Germany, thinly sliced ​​meat is rarely sold at supermarkets.

If you want thinly sliced ​​meat, you can either use a meat slicer to slice the meat sold on the market, or ask the staff at a butcher shop to slice it thinly for you.

However, when having a meat sliced ​​at a butcher shop, the staff does not usually receive orders to slice the meat thinly, so there are many cases where it is difficult to convey to the staff and the meat is not sliced ​​as thinly as you thought. it seems like.

Other than that, Japanese food that we usually eat often uses thinly sliced ​​meat, so I think it's harder to make those dishes compared to when we're in Japan.

2. Seafood dishes

Except for a part of the northern part, Germany hardly faces the sea, and it is a country where it is difficult to obtain fresh fish compared to Japan.
Therefore, it is not possible to easily buy raw fish at supermarkets like in Japan.

Fish is sold at supermarkets and other places, but most of it is frozen.
Of course, there are places that sell raw fish, but the price is still higher than in Japan, so it's hard to get your hands on it.

In this way, it is possible to make dishes using seafood, but it is difficult to get them, the taste and freshness are not good, and the prices are high. It can be difficult.

3. Seaweed

I think it's common to have wakame seaweed in miso soup, but seaweed, including wakame, is not as common as it is in Japan.

Recently, it seems that wakame can be purchased cheaply at supermarkets, but the taste is a little different from the Japanese wakame that we are used to eating.

Asian supermarkets sell kelp and hijiki, but they are more expensive than buying them in Japan.

salmon roe

Since salmon roe is used as a sushi ingredient, many people may think that salmon roe is a uniquely Japanese food.

However, there is a theory that the word salmon roe originally meant "fish egg" in Russian, and that it was introduced from Russia in the Meiji era and became popular from the Taisho era to the early Showa era.

For that reason, salmon roe is available at Russian markets in Germany, so it's by no means impossible.

However, salmon roe is also sold at ordinary supermarkets, but the price is high and the taste is quite different from that of Japan.

It would be nice if there was a Russian market nearby, but if not, it may be quite difficult to taste salmon roe dishes like in Japan.

By the way, I used to buy salmon roe in a small bottle and make my own soy sauce marinated salmon roe.

The basic ingredients are soy sauce, mirin, and sake, which are difficult to obtain in Germany and have few varieties, so I tried making them.

However, even though I made it according to the recipe, the taste was completely different from the Japanese salmon roe pickled in soy sauce.

mayonnaise

Although mayonnaise is not a cooking ingredient, it is a versatile condiment that can be used to cook many different Japanese dishes.
Of course, mayonnaise can be bought normally in Germany, so it is not particularly difficult to obtain.

Since mayonnaise originated in France, it is of course common in Europe, and it is a common seasoning all over the world.

However, Japanese mayonnaise and German mayonnaise are quite different in taste.
German mayonnaise is much sweeter than Japanese mayonnaise, and it seems that Germans sometimes feel quite sour when eating Japanese mayonnaise.

Unlike overseas mayonnaise, Japanese mayonnaise uses only egg yolk instead of whole egg when making mayonnaise, and it seems that the vinegar used is also rice vinegar.
As a result, it has a milder and creamier taste than the ones from overseas.

You may need to be careful when trying to make dishes based on the taste of Japanese mayonnaise.

When making Japanese food that uses mayonnaise, we recommend purchasing Japanese mayonnaise.

Burdock

In Japan, burdock is a root vegetable ingredient used in common Japanese dishes such as pork soup and kinpira burdock.
However, there are almost no dishes using burdock in countries other than Japan.

It may be well-known that during the Pacific War, when the Japanese army gave prisoners of war from the enemy country burdock dishes, they were forced to eat tree roots.
Eating so much burdock may have seemed strange to foreigners, especially Westerners.

As you can see, burdock is a food unique to Japan, so I don't think you will ever see burdock in Germany.

For the time being, there is something called Western burdock in Germany, but the taste and cooking method are completely different from Japanese burdock, and it seems that it tastes like asparagus.

summary 

As we have seen, the food situation in Japan and Germany is quite different, so there are some dishes that are easy to make in Japan but difficult to make in Germany, and even if they can be made, they take time and money. I hope you understand.

Especially in Germany, there are few places facing the sea, so seafood is quite scarce.

You may miss Japanese fresh seafood quite a bit while in Germany.