After I wrote about the influences for our meal concept at O gawa shou, I asked myself when I was becoming interested in Japanese vegan cuisine.
When I was a tour conductor in my early twenties, I had the opportunity to taste Japanese vegan cuisine. The most memorable place for me was Takedera (the Bamboo Temple), located deep in the mountains in Saitama Prefecture. I was curious if it is still there, and if they are still serving Japanese vegan cuisine. Here's a link to their website:
Since the temple is surrounded by bamboo, all their tableware was made from bamboo. The seasonal dishes on the bamboo tableware looked very cool and beautiful. They also served sake from a bamboo server, which imparted its scent to the sake.
The head monk explained the tableware and dishes with his special humor, which the tour group really enjoyed. I thought their most impressive dish was vegan sweet & sour "pork", made from wheat gluten. It was my first experience to taste a “modoki”-style dish (pretending to be something else by using vegan ingredients). I was so surprised that the texture and flavor was just like pork - it was very mysterious to me!
Fast forward, and over the years our guests have had the opportunity to enjoy things like:
Mushrooms pretending to be abalone
Eggplant pretending to be eel
Konjac starch pretending to be whitefish sashimi
Lotus root pretending to be...lotus root
In the end, it's a profound respect for the ingredients (and the environment that provides them), as well as techniques refined over time, that allow Japanese vegan and other cooking styles to be a transformative pursuit.
Enjoy!