Okonomiyaki! You Cook It By Yourself...

I’ve been on a cabbage roll lately…If you’ve been following on IG, you know this. I’ve been going deep on cabbage. I did a video about seared cabbage, and then one on sautéed. And knowing how much I love a good deal, and considering that this week, post-St. Patrick’s day some nice big heads were only .39/lb. at my local store, you may be seeing even more cabbage videos in the next round of reels. So much cabbage, so much to say about it. Ironically nothing on cabbage rolls, though. But maybe…

It’s just that cabbage is such a versatile vegetable, and so full of nutrition that I really can’t stop talking about it. What else can you buy that gives you so much bang for your food buck? I paid $2 for a six-pound head this week, and that head will make all sorts of delish things for weeks to come. Plus cabbage can have more vitamin C than citrus fruit, and is super fiberrific, so it helps keep the plumbing inside shiny and clean. In pre-industrialized food times, before long-distance refrigerated shipping allowed us to eat globally, 24/7 all year round, cabbage was the survival food of winter for the entire northern half Europe and Asia. It grows well in poor soils, then stores in cool places forever, ferments beautifully (hello, sauerkraut and kimchi!) and keeps people alive and scurvy free in cold climates where citrus wasn’t even a thing until the early 20th century. My Ukraine-born immigrant mother said she ate her first orange at age twelve in 1949, on the army ship that brought them to the US after the war. If it’s winter in a cold place, you know there’s cabbage, likely fermented, being eaten.

Okonomiyaki means “cook it yourself” as I said in the video. In Japan, particularly in Osaka and Hiroshima, where it a local specialty, there are restaurants where you sit at a table with a built-in flat top grill, powered by gas. There’s a ventilation hood above you, and you order based on the protein you desire. The server brings the protein, puts it on the grill, then you mix the cabbage and batter yourself and spread it over the cooking protein. It’s assumed you know how to do it, but you can ask for help if you don’t. Then the whole thing is flipped and finished, and then you add as much Okonomi sauce and sweet Japanese mayo as you like, plus garnishes. It’s like Korean BBQ or Hot Pot, where you kind of have to take responsibility for your own meal, cooking it to your own liking. If you mess it up, too bad. You still pay for it, you still eat it. It’s not very American, where we try to blame everyone else for everything, it’s very much about you, taking charge of your dinner. I’ve gone for hot pot and added too much chili, or sesame oil or something, and not loved my final soupy results, but I eat it anyway, because I made it. Personal responsibility is very underrated these days. If you screw up your okonomiyaki, who are you gonna sue? Only yourself. Better call Saul.