My Earliest Memory of Gyoza Is the Cheerful Bustle of Wrapping Them
Getting ready for a gyoza party one day
I'm one of four siblings, and while we usually did our own thing, on gyoza days our mother's rallying cry — "Anyone who doesn't wrap gyoza doesn't get to eat!" — had us all diligently wrapping gyoza together. My dependable older sister obsessed over the beauty of her pleats; my little sister and I, the class clowns, made weird gyoza of our own and got scolded; and my little brother, who couldn't make pleats, would stick two wrappers together into something like an Adamski-type UFO. Wrapping gyoza amid all that cheerful bustle is my earliest memory of gyoza.
Culture, Food, Memory, and Love
Why is sukiyaki so exciting, anyway?
Aren't there a lot of households that eat sukiyaki at New Year's? I think the reason it gets chosen is that it has a touch of luxury and a sense of occasion, and it's something the whole family can eat together. I suspect this is the result of the Japanese cultural notion that New Year's is a time to spend with the whole family becoming tied to food. Osechi (New Year's dishes) are the same, of course. That bond of food, memory, and the love flowing beneath it doesn't really fade even as you grow up — even as an adult, it seems to come back to you every time you eat it. For some people it's the home-style omurice that only shows up on weekends, or the koppepan (and the scramble for it) that only appears in Friday school lunches, or the fried rice you made with your siblings when your mother was busy — each of us has our own relationship between memory and love.
For Me, Memory and Love Are…
Tuck a shiso leaf between the wrapper and the filling and the filling's juices won't seep into the wrapper!
The one that still runs most vividly through me is the gyoza memory I described at the start. Wrapping them together, chatting cheerfully together, eating them together. That child who loved all of this grew up into an adult who loves gyoza parties.
In Praise of Gyoza Parties
February 2024's subscription delivery was frozen gyoza from Yoshiharu!
These days it's become a style of grilling, together with everyone, the frozen mail-order gyoza from all over Japan that the Grilled Gyoza Association's subscription delivery sends every month — but as always, we enjoy gyoza cheerfully together.
Gyoza is mysterious: even though everyone surely doesn't share the same original experience, not just me but all the participants can enjoy it — a mysterious kind of gathering where, every time, every single participant has a cheerful, good time. Is this the power of gyoza, written as "where food comes together"?
Grilling Together Doubles the Fun!
I was pretty drunk, but they grilled up beautifully!
If there are 10 participants, my gyoza-party style is to have all 10 take a turn grilling the gyoza at least once, so that everyone becomes a provider. Rather than just eating gyoza that someone else grilled, grilling it yourself makes you feel more attached to that gyoza — this is a teaching from Onodera of the Grilled Gyoza Association, but it may also be influenced by my own earliest memory of "no wrapping, no eating!" Do try hosting a gyoza party with people you love!
#Gyoza #GyozaParty #ILoveGyoza
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