Peel an onion and country cooking

A number of years ago I had the great opportunity to train with Gaku Homma Sensei, Nippon Kan, when he gave a clinic and lecture here in Minnesota.

The technical training was wonderful, but the things I best recall were some of his interpretations of Aikido. One was that there is no right or wrong way to do Aikido, just different variations. He noted this idea came from the many individuals who trained with O'Sensei. They trained with him during different periods of his life; thus bringing about different focuses or points of view. The description was that you should liken this to an "Aikido globe" and it is all Aikido.

The second was we should appreciate the change of seasons or periods of the year in which we train and the evolution our bodies go through. These changes are also reflected in and tied to the foods we eat during the respective seasons. He noted many of the first classes he taught in Denver were followed by gatherings where he cooked for the students.

Some of these ideas are found his book The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking: A Traditional Diet for Today’s World by Gaku Homma:

To balance mind and body, we need to refocus and appreciate the season-to-season gifts we receive from nature. If we eat what is given to us naturally, we can find truer nutritional fulfillment, as well as a truer understanding. (p. 22)

Part of the true essence of Japanese country cooking was carried in the hearts of the people who first created the foods. By experiencing their creativity in arranging these ingredients, we can truly enjoy the richness of these foods, emotionally as well as physically. (p. 18)

Early this spring I came across the book Chef: A Novel by Jaspreet Singh.

The gastronomic writings brought me back to the descriptions Homma Sensei used and to the many layers of learning one goes through during their study and training in Aikido.

These are some of the "tasty" samplings - enjoy!:

'Pay attention to simple things, Kip. If one cannot deal with a simple dish properly, there is no way one will be able to handle the more sophisticated. Take a tomato, for instance. What is the taste of this tomato? There is no such thing as the set taste of a tomato. Taste lies in the surface, the way you cut it...
'Before cutting a tomato, give it the reverence it deserves and ask: Tomato, what would you like to become? Do you want to be alone? Or do you prefer company? Apricot, what would you like to become? Would you like to become more than yourself in the company of saffron?
'Saffron, who are you?'(p. 27)

'Kashmiri is the language of poetry,' he said.
'There is no such thing as the language of poetry,' I corrected him. 'Poetry can be written in all languages. No language is inferior. When I peel an onion in the kitchen there is poetry in it.'
'You are not entirely wrong,' he said. (pgs. 37-38)

...Chilies are South American. Coffee, Arabian. "Curry powder" is a British invention. There is no such thing as Indian food, Kip. But there are Indian methods (Punjabi-Kashmiri-Tamil-Goan-Bengali-Hyderabadi). Allow a dialogue between our methods and the ingredients from the rest of the world. Japan, Italy, Afghanistan. Make something new. Channa goes well with artichokes. Rajmah with brie and parsley. Don't get stuck inside nationalities.' I would watch the movement of his hands for hours on end. Once the materials stripped themselves bare, Chef mixed them with all that he remembered, and all that he had forgotten. Sometimes he would contradict himself, and that was the toughest thing to master in the kitchen. (p.88)