The wakame wars

It's Tuesday, raining, and I find myself wrapped up in a silent war with wakame. The seaweed has no idea we are fighting, so clearly it is winning.

It started late last week, innocently enough, as these things do. I had picked up the seaweed during an ambitious moment on my lunch break. My friend, who is Japanese, had let me tag along to the grocery store for a shopping lesson. In the past, she's patiently answered questions such as “where is the sushi ginger?” and “what's the kanji for rice vinegar?”

Last week, I wandered into the wakame, the moist seaweed that often shows up as the bed under seared tuna or floating alongside noodles in udon. Unlike nori, the dried, flat version that wraps sushi or enhances sashimi, wakame looks like it came straight from the sea. It's wavy and chewy, like kale, but with a subtler flavor of green. I found myself agreeing to my friend's instructions: wash off the salt really well, seep in boiling water for just a few seconds, then use. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I brought the wakame – wet, salted, green, shredded – home. Into the fridge it went, a small, heavy-ish plastic bag set atop the top shelf. But over the next few days, my mood shifted. Lunching at neighborhood restaurants beckoned. Cereal for dinner with a movie felt like a treat. And still it loomed, that seaweed, behind the refrigerator door. By Sunday I was treading nervously in the kitchen, circling widely, like a golfer dreading a 20-foot put. I peaked in again this morning. It hadn't moved an inch, the stubborn bastard.

Funny thing, because Wakame isn't exactly known for its patience. Underwater it climbs like kudzu. The weed takes over reefy shelters and pushes out the algae that sea urchins and fish eat. For Korea, China and Japan, where wakame has been harvested for centuries, the rapid growth makes for good crops. But this weed gets around and finds unsuspecting neighbors off-guard. (Don't I know it). Twenty years ago it was first discovered in waters off Wellington and has grown, quite literally, to be a problem there.

Perhaps the kiwis would be more forgiving if they heard this: Wakame also is suspected of fighting fat, specifically, bulges found around the belly. I can't speak for New Zealand, or anyone else really, but I say “Get that little baggie out of the fridge and onto the dinner plate!” It's a tad long for a bumper sticker, but it beats “fucoxanthin,” the compound in the seaweed that initiates the slimming. Japanese chemists have found this mouthful-of-a-word causes fat mice to conjure up a special protein that converts their pudge into energy.

This being a story of the sea, there is a catch. This “thin” compound inside wakame is wound up so tightly in the seaweed's own protein structure that you'd have to eat an ocean's worth to get the same results as those in the lab. “Fucoxan,” I say, with my own special accent.

So here I am, five days later, at a wakame stand-off. I just went in for an apple, whistling ever so carelessly, and the vegetable barely bothered to sigh. I'm beginning to be reminded of the start of more than one relationship, only this time I haven't even had a decent meal yet. I've got a potential dinner in my fridge that could, in my scientific dreams, mean one step closer to buttoning up my skinny jeans. Instead I sit here typing. Figures. Something tells me that if I continue this battle much longer, I'll have to restock my fresh wakame.

Which is what I do. Out with the old, in with the new. And like most things taken for granted, the wakame salad comforts comfortably. Even overdue, exaggerated truces are worth the wait.

Wakame salad

Prep wakame according to package. I used the wet, salted version. First wash off salt, then cover with boiling water until pliable to your liking (it took barely 2 minutes for me to be happy). Drain and set aside to cool. The dry version, I hear, just involves steeping in hot water longer.

Add equal parts shredded cucumber and carrot (I had about 1 1/2 cups of each) to a large bowl. Add a small handful (2 to 3 tablespoons) chopped pickled ginger, 1/4 thinly sliced red onion and 1 whole diced avocado. Once cool, slice wakame into manageable pieces and add to bowl.

Make dressing: 1 tablespoon each miso, soy sauce, sushi vinegar (rice vinegar with sugar added). Add about 10 or so drops of sesame oil. Add about 1/8 cup of hot water. Mix and taste against the vegetables before adding.

Pour dressing over salad and toss. Add protein if you like -- leftover chicken, shrimp, baked tofu. I had tofu on hand for a nice, light summer dinner. Serves 3 or so for dinner, 4 to 6 as a side dish.

The Rice Bowl

In the beginning, there was rice. Or rather, in our beginning there was rice. Those green-gold and wavy plants had their start long before we got it together enough to winnow the grain from the stalk and then thresh, husk, dry, polish, steam and fill the bottoms of our bowls and stomachs with these little pieces of wonder. For us, it began more than 10,000 years ago. A few hungry souls in China stripped wild rice from plants and began pounding away with rocks. By 5,000 B.C.E. or so, more and more folks were getting the hang of putting the white on rice, and the trend spread over land and sea. People sowed the grain into languages, land measurements, economies and religions eastward to Japan, westward through Asia, and on to Africa and Europe. Magically, wine appeared, and rice-a-paloozas ensued with honors and hoorays for this tiny giver of life.

All in all, it was quite the coups. Rice is mild enough for babies and grannies, sturdy enough to fuel armies of slaves and soldiers. Its greatest nutritional value is that it fills stomachs with energy that's easy to burn. Its greatest culinary value is that it thickens whatever else is on hand, spreading the bowl's contents without undermining sustenance or taste. It's not for me to choose its greatest contribution to literature, so I'll just give you my favorite rice-related tale. A long, long time ago, a dog romped down from the heavens and ended up in Hunan with three grains of cooked rice and three grains of rice seed stuck on its tail. An older man – who just happened to have a knack for spotting friends and food, – gave the dog's ears a scratch, tasted the rice, and declared both good. He planted the grains, began the harvest and called over the neighbors. In my version of the tale, he keeps the dog and names him George.

So the tiny rice prevailed and provided throughout the land. It gave protein and iron and potassium, necessities for peasants and kings. Pound it and you get flour. Ferment it, that festival-loving wine. Ladle your favorite soup, stew, curry, vegetable or even fruit atop, then sit back and admire. Even better, pack a steaming and plain scoop-full into a bowl, then lean over, close your eyes and inhale. First comes a hint of flowers, perhaps nuts, maybe a little corn. Breathe a little deeper and you'll find yourself under a cool canopy of trees, musty dirt covering the forest floor. Finally, from some hidden place, a dash of creamy sweetness appears. You open your eyes, surprised. That meager bowl of rice somehow manages to smell like the places we live, or at least where we once lived. Take a bite. It tastes simple and encouraging and warm,
like home.* It's no wonder. To this day, breakfast, noon, dusk, it remains the most cultivated crop in the world and provides one-fifth of the calories needed to keep us all moving.

Yet nothing – not rice or even George the dog – can hang around for a few thousand years without playing a part in some sort of trouble. It takes an awful lot of work to raise a few trillion grains of rice. The crop found its way to South Carolina in the late 17^th century and cultivated wealth for a few, toil for too many. Nearly half of all slaves entered America through Charleston, and buyers there paid more for those who already had experience growing rice in Western Africa. In the fields, the slaves taught their owners how to dike and flood. In the kitchens, ingredients and cultures mixed to form new world staples: gumbo, chicken-and-rice Sunday dinners, casseroles. Things got much worse before they got better for people and their rice. In aftermath of the Civil War, rice production in America's southeastern coastal states dwindled, and for a time, immigrants stopped bringing themselves and their ricy recipes to town.

Thankfully, the story does not end there. Our taste for rice survived, and better yet, more rice-loving folks began streaming in after World War II – first from the south that goes way beyond the Gulf Coast, then from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and India – to jump start our taste buds with fried rices, fried rice balls, sushi, burritos. Creamy chicken gravy had met its match, and now I bet a visit to any major grocer chain in the south will carry things like nori sheets, pickled ginger, sesame seeds, edamame, and wasabi, all needed to make this version of sushi salad.

I've been making what I've foolishly called sushi salad for years, but that was before I knew that such a thing really exists here in Japan. Of course, it's not called anything so silly as sushi salad. As best I can tell, sashimi bowl is the more accurate and least embarrassing translation. Basically, it involves a bowl of plain rice topped with whatever sashimi you like (or can order in Japanese): tuna, salmon, shrimp, egg, roe, scallops, urchin, eel. Some is cooked, some not. It's topped with sprinkles of sesame seeds and strips of Nori (dried seaweed), and you can add as much ginger and wasabi as you like. Mix, and eat.

This version is based on what I have on hand this evening, and uses cooked salmon because I bought it yesterday and figure I should sear it to keep worried readers at bay. But if you trust your fishmonger, go for it. These bowls would make a fun party food. Instead of making everyone work to roll sushi, just pack the rice in a bowl, hand it to a friend, and let him or her top with a selection of sushi-friendly ingredients. Great for a summer Sunday supper, I'd say. And as you pass each naked bowl of rice around, give just the tiniest pause. In that bowl is 10,000 years' worth of work and nourishment. I know I'm getting a little dramatic here, but I can't help myself. I mean, really, if George hadn't come into our lives, then just think where we'd be.

Sashimi Bowl

This recipe can be pushed in nearly any direction you like. You can substitute shrimp for salmon, fresh peas for edamame, white sesame for black. Make it a hundred different ways, and have fun.

2 filets of salmon

1 tablespoon miso

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 coin-sized disc of fresh ginger

¼ cup of water

Mix all ingredients except the fish into a small bowl. Add salmon, marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. (Taste the marinade first and see if it's too salty for you; if so, add more water and shorten the marinating time.) Pat dry with paper towels, then sear in a frying pan drizzled with a neutral corn/vegetable oil. Leave on one side for about 90 seconds, then flip to the opposite side for another 45 seconds or so. Remove.

Other ingredients (all should be at room temperature)

1 package frozen edamame, boiled, peeled and cooled

1 avocado, diced

2 nori sheets, cut with scissors into thin, bite-sized strips

pickled ginger

1 small diced cucumber, seeds removed

black or white sesame seeds

4 cups cooked rice, sprinkled with rice vinegar (I used Japanese, sushi-style rice)

Put rice, still warm, into serving bowls. Top with favorite ingredients, ending with the fish, the nori and the sesame seeds. Add soy sauce if needed. Mix, and eat. Should serve two to three.

*Results with rice poured from a box purporting to come for someone's uncle who can whip up a pot in a minute will disappoint during this experiment. To remedy, I suggest a few thoughtful moments on your grocer's rice aisle or quick trip to the nearest Asian- or Latino-inspired market.