It’s interesting how each of us has a set of special “cultural buttons” which bring up different images when pressed. As an American, when I think of going camping my brain conjures a mental image of sitting around a campfire and eating S’mores, which are delicious sandwiches made with two graham crackers, Hershey’s chocolate and a marshmallow you’ve just toasted over the fire. But when the Japanese think of camping, the first on their mind is…making curry? Yes, the Japanese idea of “roughing it” involves peeling potatoes, washing pots and building a fire so they can boil up some first-rate curry rice, complete with a special kind of rice cooker for steaming rice over a flame called a hango. Making curry rice in the great outdoors requires a lot of cooperation from different members of a group, and when it all comes together it’s not only a delicious meal, but it brings people together. When my daughter was doing Girl Scouts, the scout leader used to bring ingredients so the girls could eat S’mores just like they do in America. But since there are no graham crackers here in Japan, she brought Saltines, which isn’t the same thing at all…
When the Japanese think of camping, they think of a big pot of steaming curry.
