Barbarian Food

Nanban-zuke is a marinaded fish dish popular in Japan. Bit of a surprise then to find something almost identical in Vitoria's restaurant just around the corner...

Or perhaps not so surprising. While the Japanese 'zuke' (???) means marinade, 'nanban' (????) literally translates as southern barbarian. The term comes from China, where it refers to peoples lacking culture -- barbarians, in other words, or all non-Chinese peoples. The character for 'ban' includes the element of a snake -- of which you can make what you wish. In Japan, the meaning is somewhat different. Somehow the term came to refer to people from the Iberian peninsular (and who arrived in Japan from the south), or more particularly the Portuguese (the first recorded Europeans to make it to Japan). So, in effect, nanban-zuke means marinade in the Portuguese style.

Here's a photo of Vitoria's nanban-zuke. (Sorry about the picture quality -- see my previous entry for an excuse.)

Anyone in Japan will recognize this. Small fried or deep fried fish (not sure what they are) marinaded together with onion in vinegar, chillies, and oil. In Japan, there'd probably also be soy sauce and mirin, but otherwise we are talking about almost exactly the same dish. I'd say Vitoria's flavour is milder (less vinegar, less salt) than is typical in Japan. But otherwise it is quite remarkable how alike the dishes have remained in the two countries for hundreds of years. In fact, it's almost incredible they haven't diverged further unless, perhaps, there has been some kind of ongoing exchange of information between the two lineages.

There are quite a number of foods that Japan and Portugal have in common. Even bread (pao in Portuguese) was first taken to Japan from here, and the Japanese word (pan) reflects this. But no dishes I have come across so far are quite so similar as nanban-zuke.