Sushi crazy, it is the food trend of the moment: the "Japanese" in the Belpaese has been very popular and for years, but the real news is that between oriental and Italian cuisine, so different but both considered very healthy, there are starting to be different points of contamination.
The contact attempt was actually born from a now ten-year rivalry: the health derby in fact began in the 90s, when made in Italy dishes invaded the Land of the Rising Sun: today they are about An estimated 20 Italian cuisine restaurants in Tokyo alone, and in the meantime a real cult has exploded – complete with sommelier courses – for the most refined Italian wines. Conversely, in recent years it is our country that has been under siege.
In Milan alone, which is the first Italian city in terms of sushi consumption, according to data from the food delivery app JustEat, an average of 13.000 kg of uramaki and 7.000 kg of nigiri are ordered per year, the two most popular dishes. There are almost 1.000 Japanese restaurants in Milan alone, even if quantifying them precisely is difficult, given that many are Chinese adapted to follow fashion, which has also posed a serious question on the quality and reliability of certain establishments.
Indeed, it is undeniable that the boom in Asian cuisine, especially in the last few years, mainly regards proliferation of cheesy "all you can eat", which as testified by various surveys (including one of the Hyenas, created by the late Nadia Toffa) offer in some cases raw fish at cheap prices (10 or 15 euros) but with loads of bacteria even dozens of times higher than normal .
Thus, all that glitters is not gold, but a so-called "gourmet" twinning is still possible, in the name of quality and well-being. Not by chance Italians and Japanese are among the longest-lived peoples, the Mediterranean diet was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site nine years ago and the typical diet of the Land of the Rising Sun - the real one - is in some ways even healthier, thanks not so much to sushi as to precious vegetables such as soy , edamame and tofu.
In fact, the Japanese diet is rich in weak estrogens and low in saturated fats, which it even brings the average life expectancy to 85 years (above the 80 of the Mediterranean diet). It also reduces the chances of getting Parkinson's disease by half and the risk of stroke by a quarter. For cancer, however, the local diet wins: -35% chance of getting sick, against the good -27% with a diet based on sushi and similar.
CHEF TOKUYOSHI AND THE ITALIAN-JAPAN GOURMET
One of the first to try to unite Italy and Japan at the table was Yoji Tokuyoshi: for ten years Massimo Bottura's sous-chef in his Osteria Francescana in Modena, the chef is the first Japanese to have obtained a Michelin star in Italy with his restaurant opened four years ago in Milan.
Il Tokuyoshi restaurant (currently closed for renovations, will reopen in the new year) is a real temple of gourmet: more than a menu, it offers an experience, which the Michelin guide as "dishes with strong flavours, sometimes unusual, in an ideal journey between Japan – his native country – and Italy, the cradle of his professional growth”.
His dishes are real works of art and in some cases the "fusion" even involves the very Italian pizza, which the Japanese chef has revisited as follows: a base of rice and polenta with ingredients on top that mimic the mouthfeel of a capricciosa pizza.
“Especially in the beginning people expected sushi; but I've never done anything like that”, explains Yoji Tokuyoshi, originally from Tottori, a small town 100 km from Osaka, who already as a boy moved to the capital Tokyo to gain experience as a cook in various Italian restaurants.
Among his Italian-Japanese creations, which he refuses to define as ethnic (“What does it mean?”), the tajarin with butter and bergamot with fresh katsuobushi (not the one already minced in the sachets), which the chef serves you by mimicking the gesture of slicing truffles on pasta, or the famous tigelle, in homage to his experience in Emilia, served in the traditional mold and stuffed with squacquerone cheese, Cinta Senese, dandelion greens and vegetables.
THE “GLOCAL” SUSHI
However, the mania for revisited Japanese does not only involve haute cuisine, but also the local area. Among the many so-called "glocal" experiments, one could cite, for example, the idea of To Silence, a culinary laboratory in Rovereto, in Trentino, where “trentinsushi” is served".
There are three menus available: the “Lago di Garda”, “Valle di Gresta” and “Rio Cameras” sushi, with local ingredients such as lake fish (smoked or marinated trout, marinated char), apples, speck, Baldo flowers (monarda, calendula, cornflower), cheeses and vegetables from the area and in season.
JAPANESE IN STREET FOOD VERSION
Among the latest trends, street food could not be missing, which is so fashionable in all its forms. The protagonist dish in this case is okonomiyaki, a symbol of Hiroshima street food and for the nostalgic, a typical dish served in an episode of the historic cartoon Kiss Me Licia. Okonomiyaki it literally means what you want (okonomi) grilled (yaki) and is an increasingly popular dish in Italy.
More and more restaurants offer it on their menus and supermarkets sell the ingredients to prepare it, especially the otafuku sauce to be added at the end of cooking. The dough is made with a batter of flour, water, egg and minced cabbage: the mixture is then cooked on a plate to which further ingredients such as meat, fish and cheese are added, according to taste.
