Dagwood Sandwich, Japanese Style

No one should be expected to cook for his own birthday, but our buddy John did the cooking for his, because he wanted to share with us one of his special treats from the years he spent as a child living with his grandparents in Japan. After sampling his okonomiyaki, I’m ready to move in with them myself. Or to insist he make it for me at least once a week!

Okonomi in the yaki process...

He explained that “yaki” means grilled, which I recognize from all those corner yakitori stands we have in L.A., and “okonomi” means “whatever you want.” So okonomiyaki essentially means, “cook what you like.” Sort of a Japanese version of the Dagwood sandwich, I guess.

The base is made of pancake batter (not sweet, though) with shredded cabbage stirred into it, and the top is a mass of soba noodles. In between the pancake and noodles he piled layers of shredded carrots, sautéed onions, pickled ginger and lots of thinly sliced pork and then cooked it in a large iron skillet. It came out looking like a giant sandwich, one that fed a roomful of people. Apparently, when you order this in Japan, you get an entire one all to yourself, which I can’t even imagine. That’s craazy stuff!

Nagaimo: the secret ingredient?

Into the pancake batter John stirred some shredded nagaimo, which is a Japanese mountain yam. You might be able to tell from what’s on the grater that this stuff is slimy, as much as I hate to use this word when talking about good food. Okay, technically it’s mucilaginous, although I don’t know that that sounds a whole lot better. It has no flavor that I could discern from sampling what remained on the grater. But he said the Japanese love this stuff cooked into their food–or eaten raw. Maybe it helps this monster of a fried sandwich slide down more easily. I think it did, actually.

chopsticks & cast iron

It was a kick watching John make the okonomiyaki, a crashing together of our very different culinary pasts as he cooked this Japanese dish, building and manipulating it all with chopsticks, in a cast iron skillet that was just like one I brought to Los Angeles when we moved here from Tennessee.

Switching to a spatula to flip the okonomiyaki

You’d think from the way I hovered around John as he cooked, taking pictures all the while, that I’d have managed to get a photo of the final product. But no, by the time it was finished, I’d abandoned the camera to be the first in line for a serving, my documentary impulses gone with the flick of a spatula. We each got a thick, steaming hot wedge of the okonomiyaki and topped it with bonito flakes (made of dried tuna), aonori flakes (made of dried seaweed), more pickled ginger and two sauces, a light, sweet-n-savory sauce and a Japanese-style mayo. It was heavenly, a great blending of flavors and textures. This is not the kind of thing any sensible person would eat every day of the week–to me it seemed more like party food, something to make and share while everyone stands around eating, drinking and chatting. Just like we did.

We all brought food to share as well. Phil made what we called “spamshi,” that is, sushi rolls made of spam. John was delighted by this contribution to the party. He declared it his main Japanese-American fusion comfort food, akin to musubi, layers of rice and grilled spam bound together with a strip of nori. Stephanie brought her black-eyed pea salad, which was magical in evoking the flavors of home in a spicy, entirely West Coast way. (Brava, girlfriend!) The rest of us brought an array of homemade desserts including apple pie made with wonderfully tart apples, a decadent bread pudding with blueberries and whiskey sauce and my Southern Coca-Cola cake. And to really mix things up geographically, we had an array of Belgian ales on hand to wash it all down.

It was a room filled with writers who all love travel and food. We talked writing and literature, food and our experiences on the road. My kind of crowd. I’d say this describes a successful party. I knew a handful of people when I got there. But when I left I had a whole new pack of friends, united over one amazing Dagwood sandwich, Japanese style.