Washing all those plates :(

There are so many things I love about Japanese cuisine. The mild and calming flavors, the respect towards tasting the ingredients, the small cute portions and the beautiful presentations. I just love eating Japanese food, and sometimes I learn to cook them at home too.

One thing I can never bring myself to do is how Japanese cuisines use plates. A lot of plates. Too many plates!

When it is a bento box, you see that it is just one pre-separated container that all the food are placed in. Donburi is all about putting everything into a bowl too. I feel that those are not the best representations of Japanese cuisine.


If you have eaten a course meal in Japan, or even better, eaten at the home of a Japanese family, you might understand what I mean about too many plates. When I visited a family here, they treated me to dinner. I learned then why I always see tiny Japanese plates being sold everywhere. Every single thing gets a plate, and each person gets a set of those!




For example, if the dinner is grilled sanma for the night (yummm~), each person would get a plate with a dish on it. Then you get another plate with a slice of lemon for your fish, and you can put the lemon on that plate afterward. There might be another small plate for you to put the fish bones. So there, 3 plates just for your fish, and you are eating way more than that!


- a bowl for rice

- another bowl for soup, which has a lid on top

- a plate for nimono which is in a big bowl in the center of the table

- another plate for the salad which is on a big plate in the center of the table

- a tiny plate with a tiny bit of tsukemono

- a cup for tea/water

Excluding the big plates for food that is shared in the middle, based on the example above we are already looking at 9 plates/bowls per person. And if it is a family of four, that is immediately 36 items to clean up and wash afterward!

Lucky Japan doesn't go crazy with forks and knives like how people do at fine-dining, but there are also a big communal spoon or fork for each big sharing plate in the center. A meal can easily build up to 50 things to wash just from the eating, and adding everything used during the cooking process, no wonder Japanese housewives always have the stereotype of being in the kitchen wearing an apron!


I also remember the one time I went to a Japanese friend’s house for sukiyaki. To enjoy sukiyaki, the beef is often dipped in mixed raw eggs right before you put it into your mouth. I saw an egg on the table on a sauce plate in front of me. There were also two small bowls on the table and I asked what they are for. She told me that one is for the egg mix, and the other one is for me to place the emptied egg shells in afterwards. I was so surprised, because I would have either cracked the egg at the kitchen and throw the shells out immediately, or I would crack the egg at the table and walk over to the kitchen to toss the shells out. Never in my life would I use 3 containers just crack open a raw egg mix at the table!


I just can’t do it. I wouldn't mind using a big plate and putting each item at a different corner of the plate. If the sauce contaminates other items, then let it be! It just adds flavor to the other things. If the pickled vegetables get warm, then let them be! They warm up in my mouth when I eat it with rice anyway. As long as it saves me time from washing more plates, I will accept almost any unintentional crossovers.