Lessons Learned from Tamagoyaki
To say that I love tamagoyaki is an understatement. What is tamagoyaki you ask? Tamagoyaki (たまごやき or 卵焼き) is basically a Japanese style omelet. The difference being one; Japanese ingredients like sake, dashi soup stock and soy sauce, and two; the fact you roll the egg to give the defining cylindrical appearance. It's giving very 'Swiss Rolls by Little Debbie.'
Other ingredients include sugar and mirin which make this dish sweet and pleasant to enjoy not only for breakfast but lunch and snacks as well. You'll often find tamagoyaki as one of the items in Japanese bento boxes. And its true, Japanese do love their eggs. According to worldpopulationreview.com, Japan is the number one consumer of eggs in the world, averaging 320 eggs per person every year. This is not surprising to me as my husband and I have drastically increased our egg consumption since moving to Japan. In the US, we struggled to finish a dozen eggs in the given shelf life but here in Japan, we easily go through 20 eggs in one week. Dang, that's a lot of eggs. Short tangent: I find it hilarious and ironic that there is a new trend right now that is encouraging people to stop eating eggs to help lose weight or be more healthy or whatever... The weightloss fads will never cease to amaze me.
If that's not enough to convince you of Japan's infatuation with eggs, they made an animation show called, 'Gudetama,' which centers its story around a cracked egg and a baby chick. It treads the boarder of cute and disturbing, though I am not still not sure which it is more of.
So why are we talking about Japanese eggs? Well, my husband, Thomas, and I moved to Japan about six months ago (more about that for another day) and Thom had the wonderful insight to buy us a Japanese cookbook. Conveniently written in both Japanese and English, it has tons of traditional and customary Japanese recipes. (This is the cookbook https://honto.jp/netstore/pd-book_30381453.html if you are interested in learning how to cook some amazing Japanese dishes!) In that cookbook is a recipe for tamagoyaki and we have been making and eating tamagoyaki for breakfast almost everyday since.
It is not easy to do though. To make tamagoyaki correctly requires a great deal of skill. Though not technically required, it suggests using a special square or rectangular shaped frying pan to help roll thin layers of egg. You do this 3-5 times, rolling the egg in itself like a little egg-burrito. The process is a delicate balancing act of trying not to burn or brown the egg while trying to cook it enough that it doesn't slide around like a slippery seal. I also felt it necessary to make it even harder by cooking tamagoyaki using chopsticks, or ohashi (it is NOT necessary).
Attempting to learn this new recipe while also learning to cook with chopsticks was tough to say the least. In the beginning, I often had to use a spatula in order to preserve the cylindrical shape. Many mornings you could hear me whisper under my breath, "F*cking piece of sh*t," "Come on, you wh*re," as I desperately tried to keep my budding egg roll from turning into scrambled eggs.
Despite the difficulty, despite the inconvenience, every morning I always started with using my chopsticks to cook. When it became too difficult then I would switch to the spatula. Eventually, I found I was using my spatula less and less. Then, I could make most of the tamagoyaki without it! And finally, it happened. The morning that I did not use my spatula once. I was so nervous that it was a fluke that I did not even tell my husband about it. In fact, I don't think I started mentioning to people that I could cook tamagoyaki using only chopsticks until the fourth or fifth time I made ~perfect~ tamagoyaki. This is partly because I understand that using chopsticks is NOT a prerequisite to cooking tamagoyaki and I was terrified it was just an accident.
Keep in mind, this process happened well over the course of six months. For six months I have been cooking eggs in this very specific way, trying to only use chopsticks. It was agonizing. Annoying. Terribly hard. And, a bit ridiculous because only I was placing this pressure on myself. But, for some reason this was important to me. To be able to make tamagoyaki using chopsticks. And now, over six months later, I can confidently say that I can do just that. I have the recipe memorized by heart and even adjust it morning to morning as I see fit.
The immense about of accomplishment I feel in achieving this goal might seem foolish to some but I really do feel a lot of pride in this feat. Which got me thinking...how do we learn new things as adults? How do we develop new skills? If you are anything like me, you probably dive in head first, wanting to be the best immediately. If this doesn't sound like you, I will try to describe what it's like for me. I take on new hobbies and interests with a particular vigor. When I set my sight on a new activity, it is likely that I have already spent many hours ruminating on my role in that activity. I already see myself succeeding and being praised for my success. On top of that, I tend to be "better than average" on my first couple attempts when trying new things. This is not too brag. Maybe I have a slight ability to 'pick things up' quickly? I don't know. However, what I've come to realize is this is mistaken for actual expertise when in reality I have no foundation to build real techniques on. This inevitably leads me to become frustrated when I quickly grasp I have no idea what I am doing, I am not the hero of my daydreams and I don't know how to move forward.
What I have also come to understand since my six month rendezvous with tamagoyaki is that we, as adults, are often not giving ourselves spatulas. While I made it a point to try to use the chopsticks at least once every time I cooked tamagoyaki, I always had my trusty spatula next to me to rescue me when things took a turn for the worst. At first, I was using the spatula 80-90% of the time. But gradually, the need to use my spatula reduced over time. It was easy for me to justify the spatula as 'training wheels' with such a small task like cooking eggs but what about bigger things in life? Starting a new career? New relationships? Working on ourselves? Are we giving ourselves a spatula to help us in these new endeavors?
I know I was not. My ever-stubborn personality said that I had to do everything on my own. I had to be the best immediately. It had to be right the first time. But, the fact of the matter is that everything learned takes time. And, most importantly, it is OK to have a spatula to help in the beginning stages. And every stage after that! Use what you already know to help you learn something new!
That's what tamagoyaki has taught me. I hope that you find some insight in the art of cooking tamagoyaki too! Let me know what you think and 'spatulas' you use for learning new things!
Until next time...and if you've made it this far, enjoy this extra treat of one of my more epic tamagoyaki fails:
