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New Horizons Exotic made easy. Delicious and nutritious meals from the Land of the Rising Sun.
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I grew up in South Carolina, raised on biscuits, cornbread, fried chicken with gravy, and vegetables simmered for hours in fatback. What little food my mother prepared came from a can. My husband, Notch, on the other hand, grew up in Hawaii, picking ripe mangoes in his backyard and enjoying fresh, homemade sushi, teriyaki and stir-fried vegetables.
It was from my mother-in-law, a second-generation Japanese-American, that I learned to savor fresh ingredients and enjoy cooking. Her recipes for inari sushi, yosenabe, teriyaki and other delicious dishes forever changed this Southern girl's diet from fatback to fresh.
Protein-rich, low-fat and nutritious, Japanese cuisine is ideal for people with food allergies, thanks to its reliance on simple ingredients, such as rice, fish, tofu and seaweed, and its avoidance of animal proteins and dairy products. Despite their exotic names, most Japanese dishes are simple to prepare, require little time, and readily adapt to different needs. Many are also vegetarian or can easily be prepared as such.
Notch, like many Japanese, is lactose intolerant, and I have celiac disease, a hypersensitivity to gluten found in wheat, rye and barley. Japanese cuisine deliciously accommodates these dietary restrictions. My initial concern about soy sauce, an essential of Japanese cuisine that contains wheat, was allayed when I found tamari, a wheat-free sauce with the same flavor and consistency of soy sauce.
If you have been hesitant to prepare Japanese food at home, I hope the following recipes will encourage you to try. With so many healthful, low-fat and flavorful styles of cooking, Japanese cuisine can be the perfect alternative for people with food allergies or, as I discovered, those with a taste for something besides fatback and fried chicken. |
This is an excerpt of an article featured in the Spring 2006 issue, which is sold out. |
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