Robata (Robatayaki); First cookbook?

Wed May 4 05:22:56 UTC 2005

OT: FIRST COOKBOOK?
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Last week, the New York Daily News "Big Town Songbook" discussed the song "Fame." The article stated that famous graduates of the High School for Performing Arts include Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and Freddie Prinze.
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I knew that was wrong. Barbra Streisand went to Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, as did my mother. Liza Minnelli and Freddie Prinze both attended the "Fame" school but dropped out and didn't graduate.
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So I wrote a letter to the Daily News. And it wasn't published. And there was no correction. And this stuff goes on forever, and they know you're not going to sue, so they can just cover it up and treat you like a piece of shit.
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So maybe Andy Smith can tell the New York TImes that Amelia Simmons didn't write "the first American cookbook." I give up.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/dining/04libr.html
FOR anyone intrigued by the history of food on this continent, it is a collection of staggering richness and diversity: well over 20,000 items, from books to magazines to menus to advertisements, from the first American cookbook, "American Cookery," by Amelia Simmons, published in Hartford, Conn., in 1796, to a century of advertisements for Pillsbury flour, to a copy of every issue of Good Housekeeping.
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ROBATA
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This is the top story. "Robata" has been recorded before.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/dining/04roba.html
The robata grill at Ono in Manhattan at its most impressive.

By JULIA MOSKIN

Published: May 4, 2005
SOME American cooks believe that grilling is the national pastime. But it's also a passion in Korea and Japan, where cooks enjoy a particularly cozy relationship with the fire. In Korean restaurants the grill is in the middle of the table, where everyone can reach it.  "Cooking together and serving other people are part of the barbecue experience," said Max Han, who runs an online guide to Korean-American culture at newyorkseoul.com. "It's one of the ways we Koreans feel jeong, a bonding, a connection that's very important in our culture."
New Yorkers already choose Korean barbecue when they want to go from the frying pan to the fire. When Nobu Matsuhisa opens Nobu 57 this summer, it will have a 12-seat table around a Korean-style charcoal grill.
More and more, though, New Yorkers are seeing takes on a Japanese version of grilling, robatayaki (or robata for short) in refined but rustic Japanese restaurants where food is cooked in front of the customer and served with excruciating simplicity. Tokyo robatas - as restaurants that specialize in this food are also called - are nostalgic upscale places like Daigomi and Inakaya. They grill ingredients including prime Matsusaka beef and Australian prawns over a premium charcoal called bincho-tan, which costs $4 for a single stick. In New York the recently opened Japanese restaurants Ono, Megu and Komegashi all have robata selections.
"Right now in Tokyo robata is very elegant, very trendy," said Jun Hashimoto, a sales associate at the Korin Japanese Trading Corporation, a restaurant supplier in TriBeCa. "That's why all the Japanese chefs here want to do it."
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(OED)("nightclubby")
1993 Toronto Life July 82/3 Lively sushi and robata bars, nightclubby (a tad smoky from open grills); decor mixes downtown chic and traditional clean lines.
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(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
Restaurant Reviews; A Neotraditional Japanese 'Farmhouse' That Delights in Good Food and Service
By JOHN CANADAY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Dec 5, 1975. p. 55 (1 page):
The premises have been taken over by a new Japanese restaurant, Robata. (...) Inside the farmhouse the entire family gathers around the open fire--(robata means open-fire cooking)--for the evening meal.
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Feaster's Choice in Tokyo
New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Apr 1, 1984. p. XX15 (1 page) :
For a cheaper version of grilled food (robatayaki), try _Noyaki_ on the corner of a block in mid-Akasaka ($12).
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Tokyo
T.R. BOYS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 5, 1984. p. XX24 (1 page) :
The Noyaki featured excellent robatayki, a pleasant atmosphere and inexpensive prices.
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(FACTIVA)
FOOD
THE BUTCHER
Japanese grill_"robata' _ is unique barbecuing method

MERLE ELLIS
CHRONICLE PUBLISHING CO.; COPYRIGHT
429 words
30 May 1985
The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate
2-G
English
(Copyright 1985 by Capital City Press)

The barbecue season is almost upon us, and I can hardly wait. From the time I was a kid cooking out over campfires on canoe trips in Canada, I have loved cooking over coals. This year, I'm looking forward to adding a whole new dimension to my repertoire _ Japanese-style grilling.
A new restaurant opened in my neighborhood recently called "Goro's Robata," a Japanese grill. I've been studying their techniques. According to Goro Kato who, along with his partners, Jim Tusley and Jane Lai, opened the restaurant just over a year ago, grilling is the most popular form of cooking in many parts of Japan.
In Japanese, Kato told me, robata means "by the fireside" and refers to the centuries-old country-style cooking of northern Japan's fishermen.
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(FACTIVA)
ROB SPECIAL REPORT
FOOD AND DRINK

Financial Times
Japan's culinary tradition needs no emphasis. What may be less well understood is the extent to which Tokyo has become one of the world's truly great eating capitals, at both the low and high ends of the expense market.
Purists may quibble about the Japanization of some of the more robust foreign cuisines (especially the spicier Chinese varieties), but it is no exaggeration to say that it is probably harder to get a truly awful meal in Tokyo than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. And good ones do not have to cost a fortune, though they may.
To recommend individual restaurants in Tokyo is a bit of a problem. Among those which are reasonably easy to find and where language is no barrier are:
Zakuro, opposite the U.S. Embassy, excellent for meat dishes.
Yabu-Soba, in Kanda, the cream of old noodle establishments.
Shabu-sen, in Ginza, for cheap shabu-shabu (meat in broth).
Nambantei, in Roppongi and Shibuya, yakitori, skewered chicken.
Tori-gen, in Roppongi, yakitori again.
Suisha, in Akasaka, robatayaki, assorted grilled foods.