Eat Nabe - A Delicious Winter Food

by Sebastian
(Sapporo)

Nabemono (cooking pot and things in Japanese) or Nabe is a traditional winter food that people in Sapporo love. I love it and it makes me feel so warm and full and is one of the most sociable Japanese dishes around. Nabe is great for little house gatherings, as well as eating at a restaurant. Invite your friends round to share on those cold winter nights. Nabe is actually quite healthy, but if you eat it too often, you will become a fatty.

A large pot is placed in the centre of the table on top of a portable grill and shared. The soup broth which is usually soya sauce, garlic or miso flavour. But there are also other flavours depending on what restaurant you go to. You can also find various nabe soups at the shops. Add some meat, like beef or pork or chicken or anything you like and then some noodles. To complete the dish add some vegetables and boil everything with a lid on top, very similar to a stew. Then you can eat it whenever you like and take breaks as the dish can be re-heated anytime so you can just lounge about and slowly eat all night until your heart’s content.

When everything has been eaten from the pot and after some rest time so that you have made some extra space in your bellies, rice, ramen or udon noodles is added to the remaining broth and then shared out again. As you can imagine, you will be completely stuffed at the end and feel like taking a nap.

Sumo wrestlers eat a variation of this dish, Chankonabe, every day to help them gain weight. Chankonabe is full of ingredients with high protein such as chicken, fish and tofu and eaten in much larger quantities accompanied with rice. The wrestlers then take a nap which assists in their weight gain. Thinking about all this food makes my mouth drool with saliva…..ahhhhhhhh.