Japanese cuisine is one of the world's healthiest and most dietetic. Except that, every meal is very nicely arranged and looks almost like an artwork. Japanese are very proud of that.
Basic ingredients are fish, rice, vegetable and several kinds of noodles. But it doesn't mean that they don't know other ingredients. On the contrary, their cousin is filled with a large variety of different meals and with wide options of their combinations. Japanese cuisine displays an unbelievable number of flavours. Vegetables, which are an important part of their cuisine, are available in many kinds and large amounts all year round.
Regarding beverages, drinks and soft drinks: they are sold everywhere in the streets as well as in many vending machines. The widely spread vending machines offer a variety of soft drinks, tea, coffee and drinks from beer to sake.
Recently, Japanese cuisine has been attacked by U.S. ways of boarding. Especially young Japanese fancy restaurants such as MC Donald, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts, which have been growing in Japanese cities very quickly. Their popularity is probably due to low prices, opening hours and time of food preparation.
Some interesting facts about Japanese cuisine:
Rice is a part of almost every meal, including breakfast.
It\B4s a fact that a rice cooker is a part of each household.
Ramen noodles are a very popular meal. Large training courses on how to make a brilliant soup broth are held in Japan.
When eating noodles you should slurp them loudly as it means that you like the food.
Tokyo's Tsukiji market is the largest fish market in the world.
In spite of the fact that whaling is banned, Japanese chase whales under a false pretence of scientific research while meat that very whale meat ends up in supermarkets and restaurants.
In spite of widespread opinion that Japanese love whale meat, many of them dislike the taste and older generations even consider that meat as a reminder of the post World War II period when whale meat was one of the few cheap protein sources.
Raw horse meat is a favourite dish in Japan.
Japanese food is based upon the principle of health and longevity. They focus on extracting the health benefits from their foods. Natto, Tofu, Soy sauce etc. are a regular part of the Japanese food as they provide sufficient proteins without cholesterol and saturated fats. Soy is a popular food item in the Japanese menu and it's known to reduce the risk heart disease and blood pressure. Soy is also food high in Protein.