Food

Japanese cuisine is highly seasonal, with many dishes using ingredients only available at the right time. Modern technology has eased this burden, but it is still traditional to eat certain foods at certain times of year.

Special thanks to Kuniko Saito's player for contributing most of this guide!

Winter

The prototypical dish for winter cuisine in Japan is the hot pot, also known as nabemono. Ingredients are combined in a pot and boiled, forming a rich broth; it is typically shared, with individual diners plucking out their favored morsels, and the broth typically mixed with rice at the end and consumed as a final course. Eating nabemono with your friends would be an excellent reason for a social scene; gather together, stick your legs underneath the kotatsu, and enjoy the warmth of friendship and flavor.

Nabemono is very versatile. Indeed, the name can be translated as "cooking pot stuff." Here are some common styles of nabemono; all of them can be considered to have vegetables such as bok choy and daikon involved, as well as varieties of mushroom.

• Sukiyaki: Thinly sliced beef (sometimes pork) simmered with vegetables and a soy sauce/sugar/sweet rice wine sauce. Before eating, the hot ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of raw beaten egg. Common at year-end parties and suitable for all ages.
• Shabu-shabu: Thin sliced beef is boiled in water or broth and eaten with dipping sauces. This dish may be considered similar to the "fondue" style meals available in America. It is quite suitable for service with fine ingredients, particularly wagyu beef and other marks of conspicuous consumption.
• Yosenabe: A combination style of nabemono which combines all sorts of things and cooks them well together: meat, seafood, tofu, egg, and vegetables. A common "homestyle" meal, often with a thicker sauce than is typical for nabemono.
• Yudofu: Nabemono prepared in a kombu stock and featuring tofu as the primary protein, with citrus and spicy sauces. Socially considered as vegetarian, though small amounts of fish are typically involved.
• Chankonabe: A nabemono dish that is a common restaurant meal, it was originally a heavy dish eaten by sumo wrestlers to put on weight efficiently. Very high in protein, often with chicken, fish, beef and various vegetables, chankonabe is a good meal for growing young'ns when served in less heroic proportions.
• Ishikari-nabe: A Hokkaido specialty, this hot pot features salmon and potato as well as butter.

Oden is another characteristic winter dish, prepared in a manner similar to hot pot but made available as its own individual dish in many venues. Featuring boiled eggs, daikon, fishcakes and a soy/dashi broth, most convenience stores have a bubbling pot of oden to sell by the cup during the winter months.

Tori zosui is another winter favorite; a thick rice soup with chicken, often prepared with leftover rice and served with sliced scallions on top. It's an excellent and popular way to warm up after a bitterly cold day.

Winter Holidays

There are also some specifically traditional holiday dishes, associated with an individual day or days. Your character is likely to eat them, and may well help prepare them!

• Christmas Cake: These cakes are typically a simple sponge cake, frosted with whipped cream and decorated with strawberries plus a chocolate plate that says "Merry Christmas!" Something of a more structured strawberry shortcake. It is eaten on Christmas Eve, which is, in Japan, typically celebrated as a romantic holiday a la Western Valentine's Day, and is thus perhaps the hardest night of the year to get a table at a nice restaurant. Yule Log cakes are also popular.
• KFC: There is a tradition of obtaining Kentucky Fried Chicken meals as a Christmas dish, in part because turkey is an absolute unknown in Japan. A 1974 advertising campaign started a tradition, and now a bucket of KFC "Christmas Chicken" (with salad and a cake) is typical fare on Christmas, often ordered months in advance to beat the lines.
• Osechi ryori: An umbrella term for food prepared specially for the New Year's period, these dishes come in a huge range of ingredients that are meant to encourage good luck and fortune for the upcoming year. They are typically sweet, sour, dried or otherwise preserved, as they come from a time before refrigeration was common, and when many markets would be closed for some time. Traditionally, nothing should be cooked on New Year's Day, so the preparation of osechi is finished before New Year's Eve. Osechi ryori is arguably the most important meal of the year, with each dish serving as a symbol or wish for the coming year. The food is even eaten in a special way by using chopsticks that are rounded on both ends; one side for the humans to use, one side for the gods. There are so many varieties that space would prohibit easy discussion. A more detailed discussion is present at Wikipedia including a plan for a three-tiered "jubako" box.
• Toshikoshi soba: This is eaten at night on New Year's Eve. A simple meal with buckwheat soba with toppings such as seaweed, fried tofu, or vegetables. The long noodles are said to symbolize a long life, their consumption representing "crossing over from one year to the next," the meaning of toshi-koshi. Another theory is that it is very simple to make - a relief after preparing several days' worth of osechi for the upcoming celebrations! It is often considered bad luck to leave any of your toshikoshi soba uneaten.
• O-zoni: A soup eaten during on the morning of New Year's Day, considered very lucky, featuring local ingredients and lots of mochi. While many areas have their own specialties, the typical Kanto-area meal uses a soy sauce/dashi broth, squared and grilled mochi, and meat and vegetables to preference.
• Nanakusu gayu: Eaten on January 7th, this is a collection of seven wild edible herbs eaten with rice in order to ease the stomach after all of the things listed above, which have been eaten over the course of several weeks.

For more information, please see: Holidays and Events, Culture