In the 16th century the Japanese wrote of barbarians from the south landing on their shores,
today we call those barbarians the Portuguese,
and they brought lots of stuff with them including dessert like this keiran somen or chicken egg noodles.
So thank you to Vite Ramen for sponsoring this video as we see how these barbarians changed Japanese cuisine forever
this time on Tasting History.
So the Japanese word used to describe these first visiting Europeans was nanban which meant southern barbarians.
Originally it came from Chinese and referred to raiders from the south,
and since in 1543 the Portuguese would have come from that direction calling them that just made sense.
Eventually nanban lost its negative connotation and came to refer to anything from that period
that was exotic i.e. influenced by foreigners especially Europeans
like this recipe for keiran somen.
It comes from a collection of recipes compiled likely in the early 17th century
called 'Nanban Ryōrisho' which Eric Wrath translated as 'The Southern Barbarians cookbook.'
"Strain egg yolks with a cloth. Heat sugar until it becomes a syrup,
and dribble the egg yolks over it like fine kudzu noodles.
Stretch these out and sprinkle with sugar. There are oral instructions."
What those instructions are I do not know and I'm sure they're absolutely necessary to the making of this dish.
Luckily we have a lot of modern versions that we can take hints from
because these are still made with slight variations in Japan, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Brazil,
and they're still actually made in Portugal today under the name fios de ovos or egg threads,
but in Japan there is actually a shop in Fukuoka Prefecture and they've been making them since 1673
and they claim that they make them the same way now as they did then. So we can take some hints from how they do it.
Now this recipe only has two ingredients: egg yolk and sugar, three if you count the water,
and so I assumed that it was so simple so it would be so easy.
I was a fool because it is not easy. Actually making these noodles is is rather difficult
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you can get started on the more laborious and rather difficult noodle that we are making today,
but I promise you it's so worth it. So for this recipe what you'll need is:
20 egg yolks and you're going to want to use free-range chickens if you can simply because the egg yolks
tend to be darker and a little bit more orange, and so it ends up looking better as a final product.
Today often actually they add a little bit of orange food coloring when they make them so you can also do that.
Four and a half cups or 900 grams of sugar, and six cups or one and a half liters of water.
So I actually first tried making this without the water because it's not mentioned in the recipe
and it turns out it doesn't it doesn't work because you have to get the sugar so hot
to cook the eggs that it ends up turning to caramel if you don't add some water.
So I'm assuming that one of the oral instructions that aren't actually included included water.
So add the sugar to the water before setting it over medium heat and you want to dissolve the sugar by stirring with a wooden spoon as it heats,
but as soon as it is dissolved stop touching it because
the more you mess with it the more likely you're going to create sugar crystals, and that can ruin the whole thing.
Also you can do this in a pot it works just fine but if you use a wok it's a lot easier because
it's just easier to maneuver the noodles once you put them in there,
so if you have a wok that's the thing to use. As the syrup heats stir your eggs up to get them smooth,
but don't beat them because you don't want to add extra air to the eggs.
Now the recipe says to strain these through a cloth and you will but first I suggest straining them through a strainer to get any big pieces,
and then put it into the cloth after that. I'm using a bag that's meant for nut milk
but if you don't have one of those then just a piece of cheesecloth will do just fine.
Also you can make a smaller amount of this, you don't need 20 egg yolks you can do this with 8 or 10
but this first time you do it I suggest doing all 20 because
it takes a little practice to get the method down, and I'd hate for you to run out of egg yolks before you actually figure out how to do it.
Now when it comes to actually making the noodles there are a few options,
you can can get a funnel that is actually meant for making this. They're very popular in Thailand
and the funnel has little holes that are in the bottom but if you don't have one of those
you can put it into a bottle and then poke little holes in the lid or you can use a piping bag,
but you want the hole very small, basically just big enough for the egg yolk to run out in a constant thread.
Then once the sugar syrup is boiling put the funnel or bag of egg yolk over the pan and let it run out in a single thread
forming circles in the syrup, and you want to keep it moving fairly fast because you don't want any breaks in the line,
and you want about 20 to 25 circles.
Then stop the yolk and let it cook for about 15 seconds. That's really all that it takes,
then take a chopstick and gently pull one side of the circle to meet the other drag the noodles
through the syrup a few times, making sure that they're coated and then pull them up using a second chopstick to stabilize,
and wrap them so that you can let the syrup drain before setting them on a wire rack to dry for 30 minutes.
Like I said the process takes a little time to to figure out how to do it right. Honestly...
I never quite got it exactly how I wanted it but I got close enough and I I definitely got better by the end
so be patient, relax and listen while I tell you how this dish got from Portugal to Japan.
On September 23rd 1543 on the southern tip of the Island Tanegashima
"a big ship arrived at dawn at Nishinomura Bay. No one knew from what country it came.
There were some 100 people on board, [some] whose physical features differed from ours,
and whose language was not understood. Those who saw them found them strange."
With the strangers was a man named Goho who was a Chinese scholar
but Goho could not speak Japanese and the village chief who came down to meet the ship
could not speak Chinese, but they could both read and write Chinese
so they communicated by taking sticks and writing Chinese in the sand.
And Goho wrote "They are traders from among the seinanban (southwestern barbarians).
They have some knowledge of the relationship between superior and inferior
but otherwise they do not know about propriety. Therefore when they drink they do not use cups,
and when they eat they use their fingers and not chopstick as we do.
They show their feelings without any self-control and they do not know the written script or the use of it.
Such traitors are in the habit of roving from place to place, bartering things which they have for those they do not have.
They are not very strange and are quite harmless."
These quite harmless people were the Portuguese and they are the first known Europeans to arrive in Japan,
and it's somewhat ironic that he calls them quite harmless seeing as of all the items that they brought to trade
the Japanese author only mentions one.
"They had in their possession an object which was about two or three shaku in length.
As for its shape, it was straight on the outside with a passage inside, and made of a heavy substance.
Even though its inside was hollow, its bottom end was closed.
There was an aperture at the side, through which fire was applied. Its shape could not be compared with anything else.
When used, some mysterious medicine powder was put into it and a small lead pellet was added...
when it was discharged... fire issued from the opening... the explosion seemed like lightning,
and the sound like rolling thunder. All bystanders covered their ears."
Of course this was the matchlock firearm and was anything but harmless and changed warfare in Japan forever,
but it wasn't just weaponry that they brought because in the years following this first exchange
Portuguese ships were a common sight in the harbor off of Nagasaki.
Along with weapons the Portuguese brought galleon-style shipbuilding, tobacco, Venetian glass, Flemish clocks, and if the namban art style is any indication
the Portuguese also introduced Hammer pants.
[Stop! Hammer time]
But more relevant to this show the Portuguese and later the Spanish brought new ingredients,
and recipes and new cooking methods to the Japanese.
Cayenne pepper and potatoes from the Americas, corn, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes which at one point
made up 60% of the diet of those who lived in regions with low rice production.
The Portuguese also brought sugar which was not new to Japan, they had had sugar before but used it in their medicine,
but the Portuguese were avid users of sugar in their cooking and
they dominated the sugar trade around the world. So they shared many recipes for
nanbangashi or southern barbarian sweets with the Japanese.
A number of which actually appear in the cookbook that we're cooking from today.
Perhaps the most well-known was a cake from Castile that the Portuguese called bolo de castela
which in Japanese became kasutera. Not only did the cake include sugar but
it also introduced the concept of using beaten eggs as a leavener.
The problem was to bake it you needed an oven and ovens were not common in Japanese kitchens at the time,
so they changed the method to bake the cake in a pot that was set over a fire and then the lid was put on with hot coals on top,
and the cake is still popular in Japan today though I do believe now they mostly use ovens.
Now there are a whole host of other sweets from Portugal that made their way to Japan that are still popular today.
Sugar candy is called konpeitō coming from the Portuguese word confeito,
bisuketto from biscoito, karameru from caramelo and a whole host of others including savory dishes
like perhaps the most famous namban dish tempura.
And in the cookbook from the 17th century there is
an early recipe for something that might be this called tenpurari and it is a piece of chicken
that has been seasoned with spices like clove and cinnamon and ginger and then it's fried in oil,
and colored with gardenia fruit which can produce a bright yellow dye,
and not long after that about 70 years or so later there are recipes for tempura
that actually start to look like what we eat today, and so I think I need to do a whole video on that.
Now two other foods that were introduced at this time were leavened bread and wine made from grapes,
but these did not come with the European traders but rather the European Christian missionaries,
both bread and wine being used in the Eucharist or communion.
In 1549 the Jesuit Francis Xavier arrived in Japan and set out to convert Japan to Catholicism,
but it wasn't the bread and wine that the new Japanese converts craved rather it was beef.
See many Japanese had long eschewed both beef and dairy products partly
due to the fact that cattle were more valuable as beasts of burden than as sources of food,
but also because the religious authorities had banned the consumption of beef centuries earlier.
In fact they had put bans on eating many, many different meats and if you did eat them
then you had to to do penance at your local shrine for a prescribed number of days,
and while a goat or rabbit got you five days and venison or pork got you 60,
the eating of beef gave you 150 days of penance
but while Buddhism and Shintoism did not allow the consumption of meat at the time
Catholicism had no such restriction so
the Japanese converts began to eat the beef that the missionaries were offering them.
In the city of Oita on the day after Easter in 1557
missionaries held a feast for 400 new Christian converts and they bought a cow and they cooked it
along with some rice in a style that seems very similar to paella,
and in many cities that the missionaries were at the price of beef skyrocketed.
In 1652 the poet Matsunaga Teitoku wrote that "Around the time when Christianity was introduced to Japan,
even people in the Kyoto region referred to beef as waka and ate it as a highly prized delicacy."
Waka possibly coming from the Portuguese word vaca meaning cow,
but while some people embraced this new Christian cuisine others did not...
"What foul things have foreign priests done to Japanese converts?... They are are the worst enemies of Japan...
Their black ships carry goods and they set up rare items for display...
If someone comes to look, for people who like to drink alcohol they offer... grape wine, and for teetotalers they proffer things like
kaustera, karumeru and konpeitō to enlist followers to their sect."
And in 1587 the missionaries were expelled from Japan.
Then in 1612 the Tokugawa Shogunate outlawed Christianity of any kind and with it
there was a decline in the consumption of beef and bread,
and it wasn't just the European missionaries that the shogunate was getting tired of but Europeans in general.
In 1624 the Spanish were banned and in 1639 the Portuguese, and for the next 200 years
the only European power that was allowed to trade in Japan were the Dutch
partly because they showed no interest in converting anyone to Christianity,
but even then they were isolated to trading on one tiny man-made Island in Nagasaki Harbor called Dejima,
and they were not allowed to have any contact with ordinary citizens.
So while the Dutch were there for over 200 years their Cuisine has virtually no effect on that of Japan.
Portugal on the other hand who was only there for a few decades
well they still to this day, their cuisine has an effect on the food that is in Japan but
basically as soon as they left maybe even sooner the Japanese changed the foods to make them their own.
Beef was replaced with fish, and wheat flour with glutinous rice flour, and milk and cream were pretty much removed altogether,
and when it came to leavening bread instead of using ale barm or sourdough they used amazake,
a low alcohol drink of fermented rice.
Though there are a few dishes that seem to have changed virtually not at all in the last few centuries
including keiran somen, or chicken egg noodles.
So as soon as you've gone through through the last of the egg yolk and let the noodles dry for a half hour they are ready,
Though how you plate them can be can be rather tricky.
Different places in the world plate them in many, many different ways but this recipe says to
pull them out like long strings but I'm sure that somebody can, I was unable.
I just kept- they just kept breaking. They're very very fragile so I'm doing as it's often done now in Japan
and folding them over on themselves and then cutting off the end.
And here we are 17th century keiran somen, chicken egg noodles.
And it says to sprinkle them with sugar so do that right before you serve them.
They are so pretty, they're just like so vibrant.
Yeah I'm excited. Here we go. It's falling apart already.
[nom nom]
Hmm!
That's fantastic.
So let's first talk about the texture
because that's what's so impressive, you can feel every individual noodle
They don't like-
that's really, really interesting they they all stay very, very separated
and they're rather firm. You have to like bite through it. I doesn't it- they don't just like melt, I kind of figured they would.
There's just egg and sugar...
so I would think that it would melt but it doesn't. You do have to kind of chew it.
Really cool texture. The flavor is fantastic too.
What's interesting, pleasantly so, is it's not eggy at all. It does not taste like egg.
It kind of reminds me of creme brûlée which is also made with egg and sugar and cream,
but I wouldn't say tastes like like egg,
but there is a creaminess about it but mostly it's just sweet.
I can see why in in some places they add you know different flavorings vanilla or Jasmine
because that would kind of you know change it I guess but honestly it's it's really good this way.
[nom nom]
Mhm! Really good! *_*
So make sure to check out Vite Ramen, follow me on Instagram @ tastinghistorywithmaxmiller and if you have a bunch of egg whites left
watch the video on Fannie Farmer's angel food cake, I'll make sure that that's
down here somewhere that you can click on, and I will see you next time on Tasting History.
Seriously I'm gonna eat all of them.
They FEEL low-cal, they're not
but they feel low-cal. So light.
[NOM]