Cooking Chronicles: Breakfast

For Breakfast the Japanese usually have plain steamed rice, miso soup (which has green onion, tofu, and seaweed), broiled fish, sour plums; but many Americanized Japanese could eat any of the previous or a more American breakfast like fried eggs or hotcakes (pancakes). 

When we stayed with a couple from the church our first day in Shimonoseki, they prepared fruit, yogurt, salad, and toast. Pancakes, or hotcakes to the Japanese, are usually something served at supper and not typically with syrup, they will have butter or jelly on them. After we made a trip south about an hour to Costco we purchased a big bag of pancake mix.

*All prices are related to 78 yen per $1.00 even though the yen has been anywhere from 75-79 lately. 

The pancake mix was 858 yen/$11.00. 

That is a great price for the size of the bag. In the states if pancake mix was on sale I would buy it, but most of the time I would just make it from scratch with the flour, sugar etc. When we were shopping in Shimonoseki we found small bags of pancake mix and even smaller bottles of syrup. Syrup has a new name in our household ‘liquid gold’ because it is so expensive. We also purchased this at Costco.

Two bottles of syrup were 2776 yen/$33.00.

I guess it makes up for the pancake mix being so cheap.

Milk and Orange Juice come in 1000ml cartons only. Milk is around 200 yen/$2.50 and Orange Juice is around 130 yen/$1.60. 

We recently saw Milk and Orange Juice for a better price at another grocery, but we have to drive there, so I am giving the prices for the grocery right next to our house.

The photo below shows the materials needed to make pancakes.

The instructions were in Japanese and English but using Japanese measurements. Most cooking is done in grams and if you have a powder you have to measure on the scale how many grams of something you need. So compensating for the weight of the bowl I add the powder needed and that’s it. I take the bowl off of the scale and begin on liquids. I personally like to mix liquids in another bowl with eggs first because then if a piece of shell gets into the bowl you can scoop it out and no harm done to other powders or liquids. Liquids are in milliliters. I found a wonderful measuring cup that has cups and milliliters because I still think of measuring things in cups and some recipes I have use cups for measuring. So this was perfect. It is shown in the photo above also. I always add sugar and cinnamon to my pancake mix at the end before I cook them because I think it adds a little something extra! We have recently seen frozen blueberries so maybe someday if we get a good deal we may add some yummy little blueberries to our pancakes.

The finished product!!!

Besides pancakes we have been having eggs, cereal, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast.

The only cereals recognizable to us have been Kellogg’s frosted flakes and corn flakes and we also have seen the off brand of these two, which taste the same. There are other cereals but the Japanese don’t eat a lot of cereals cold like we do so we stick with frosted flakes and corn flakes.

Below is a photo two of the different kinds of frosted flakes we have purchased.

I unfortunately don't remember the prices for cereal but I know that a box only comes in one size and is more expensive than in the states.

Eggs come in sets of 10 not 12. They usually come in plastic containers and they insert a slip with the expiration date on them. The eggs here are very good. The photo below shows our egg storage in the door of our refrigerator, which can hold up to 16 eggs. I also place the slip for the egg date in a holder, shown in photo, so that we always know the expiration date.

Eggs are about 188 yen/$2.00 for 10.

Stay tuned for the next entry of The Cooking Chronicles!!!