I’m a lover of Japanese sake, but not a heavy drinker. I
just drink one to two gou (360 ml) of sake at every dinner. Except hot heated summer
when the thirstiness makes me to choose inevitably beer, I go for sake rather
than sherry, wine or whisky as aperitif in most of the seasons. Sake adds
special flavor to dinner and I can taste dish more delicious. Sherry
is two sweet, wine boasts too much of its sophisticated characteristic, while whisky is too
strong for dinner. In combination with Japanese dishes, sake is certainly a friendlier
partner. Both seek to extract more of natural taste inherent to seasonal vegetables, fish, and meats. Sake with one or
two side dishes before dinner makes me feel relaxed and forget the everyday
ennui and can make me think positively for tomorrow.
In cold winter,
it’s nice to have hot sake with boiled bean curd or oden, a dish in which a variety of ingredients such as tofu, eggs, white radish, and fried fish paste are boiled together in a large pot of seasoned fish broth. In summer, a small snack like Edamame
is consistently good with sake even after drinking a first pine of beer. All these are simple, cheap and easy to be made in anybody’s home.
