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Japanese people and meals

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In Japan, people usually eat rice at meal times. There are also dishes called okazu that go with rice.Okazu dishes play a secondary role to rice, which is quite unusual compared to dishes of other countries.

As rice itself is pretty much tasteless, homemade okazu is usually well seasoned, which isn’t perhaps how people would think of Japanese food.For instance, there is usually one main dish and about two side dishes of vegetables etc. at dinnertime.

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Average meals

Japanese people usually have breakfast at around 7 a.m. Around half of them eat bread for breakfast these days.Lunchtime is between 12 a.m. and 1 p.m. at school and at work. School meals are provided at school, but company employees sometimes end up bolting soba and ramen noodles in 10 minutes.

There aren’t many fortunate company employees who can make it home to enjoy their dinnertime conversations with their family. Average dinnertime is about 6 p.m. Many single people have a quick dinner at a local diner on their way home or buy a pre-made dinner at a supermarket and heat it in the microwave at home.

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What to eat?

There are almost no religious taboos for food in modern Japan.
Other kinds of meat apart from beef, pork and chicken aren’t very common, but Japanese people eat almost any seafood. There are also many kinds of vegetables available.
Before the Second World War, fish was commonly eaten. After the war, Japanese food culture changed dramatically and now 70% of people are eating meat quite often. If you go to an ordinary supermarket in Japan, you’ll find the shelf space for fish is less than half of that of meat.

There are lots of ways to cook in Japan; grill, boil, steam and simmer.

Most people buy pre-packaged meat and fish at supermarkets. Chunks of meat aren’t really available on the shop shelf. Most meat sold at supermarkets is thinly sliced and fish is usually sold as pre-cut pieces.As everything has been done for you, all you have to do is to think about what to cook, what to use and then start cooking.

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Who does the cooking?

Usually, cooking is still a mother’s job in Japan. Most mothers go to local supermarkets for groceries about three times a week. These days, many families go to restaurants for lunch and dinner by car on the weekend.

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