Tare…
Meanwhile more you read, meanwhile more you eat… You start to understand more a more how Universal is the fact of cooking. Off course is a pure human act attached to our DNA, and since I don’t know when, we been traveling everywhere and back, exchanging our flavours and techniques for foreign ones.
2020 was the year when Japan and I will met… Let’s don’t talk about why didn’t happen, we all know. So I was deep researching about the culture and off course the food. Where to go, what to eat, etc. One month will be not enough.
When I almost forget about it, I met Luc, a chaotic Padawan who is really into Ramen and really passionate about cooking and eating. Working together takes me back to Japan, what makes me buy a couple of extra books, eat them, and have some nice talks about Ramen to softened the stress from each service. He is more into the Classical Japanese Way; I found complicated to call a noodle soup “Ramen” when you are not Japanese, Never have real Ramen in Japan, Never Been There, Etc. But I think like that with everything, How you can aim to make great Tacos, if you never been in Mexico? Am I Right?
I am more into the fact of how we can make a decent “Ramen” here, or a super good Noodles Soup, and actually just the fact of calling it in this last way, put down the expectations of those that try already the real deal or mastered all the techniques behind, that are a lot.
And here, was the first time that hear about Tare, Translate literally can be Sauces or Dipping Sauces, not only use on Ramen, but in Sushi, Yakitori, etc. The Infamous Teriyaki Sauce it is indeed a Tare. At the beginning didn’t understand why the broths need it to be so pure and clean, In need of a Tare to be finished and elevated to Umaminess Glory.
Till one day, thinking about it in the way that we eat in Venezuela, a questions pop up in my mind… Are we, Venezuelans, a sort of Kings of the Tare? And well, yes! A Venezuelan kitchen pantry is full of this whatever you want to call it… Dipping Sauces, Condiments, Crazy Grandma Jars, that spicy sauce that you buy in that trip and off course, the holy cheap trinity, Soja Sauce, which is something else, few days ago I ask someone at home to send me the ingredients, and is not soja sauce at all, Salsa Inglesa, sort of English Worcester Sauce, more accurate, and Garlic Sauce, used almost every time in the same way.
Back at home, when people make Soup , nothing delicate as ramen, on the table will be few sauces to finish your dish… And what about “Parrilla” our BBQ and all its condiment, and if Teriyaki Sauce is a tare for Yakitori… Well! Our Hot Dogs Food Trucks in Venezuela are definitely leading the race, they will compete for who has the must sauces to deep, so every bite or your hot dog or hamburger you can topped with something different.
But the same will happen in other cultures, and at this point at least for me, it doesn’t really matter who was first, Maybe Japanese Culture, but I learn in the Venezuelan Amazon, that natives, due to the lack of salt in the Jungle, make their own Spicy sort of tare to flavour food, so it taste like something. Maybe as I said, is in our DNA, maybe we were one long time ago…
But one thing is true… We all make Tare!
Comments