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harmony is indeed a key principle embodied in Japanese traditional cooking.
In Japan, food is about experience as much as it is about sustenance. Although this
particular restaurant was nothing special or extraordinary for Japan, I was (as always)
impressed by the presentation of the meal. How can the presentation be so profound, I
thought, without hardly a trace of decorative or nonessential elements? Clearly,
presentation matters.
Washoku is guided by simple principles that lead to harmony and balance in terms of
both nutrition and aesthetics. For example, go shiki (five colors) dictates that meals have
a variety of colors: red, green, yellow, black, and white. This not only ensures good
nutrition, but it also leads to a visually appealing display. The principle of go kan (five
senses) suggests that the cook think about touch, sound, smell, and, of course, sight in
addition to taste and nutrition. How the meal looks is, in many ways, as important as how
it tastes. “We are as nourished by the presentation as we are nourished by the food,”
says John Daido Loori in
The Zen of Creativity
(Random House, 2005).
Other guiding principles of washoku include go mi (five tastes), leading to a balance of
flavors; go ho (five ways), which encourages a variety of cooking methods; and go kan
mon (five outlooks), guidelines concerning respect and appreciation for the meal and the
spirit in which it is to be consumed. In Japan, lessons about the art of presentation of
food are everywhere, sometimes in very unexpected places indeed.
Philosopher's Road in Kyoto, Japan.
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