Good beef is best enjoyed as sukiyaki

  If my memory serves me correctly, this was a gift from my wife’s parents’ home―I believe it was sukiyaki beef from Mishima-tei in Kyoto. The marbling was beautiful, and I could tell just by looking at it that it was high-quality, but I was stunned when I later heard the price. Since I’d never eaten such fine beef before, I took this photo as a keepsake. 

  As you know, the way sukiyaki is eaten differs between the Kansai and Kanto regions. This time, we cooked it with just sugar, soy sauce, and sake, then dipped it in raw egg. In other words, it was the Kansai-style. The Kanto-style involves simmering the meat in a broth called “warishita” until cooked through, so it feels more like a hot pot dish, whereas the Kansai-style is closer to yakiniku (grilled meat). Yet, unlike grilled meat, it still becomes a distinct dish known as sukiyaki―which is quite remarkable.

  It was beyond just “delicious.” My wife is from Kansai and I’m from Tohoku, so our eating habits differ in many ways, but we’ve never clashed over such trivial matters. We bicker over far more trivial things from time to time. Our young stomachs were sturdy and voracious, brimming with the vitality needed to absorb the robust energy of this marbled beef.

  In the gourmet manga Oishinbo, the food connoisseur Yuzan Kaibara once said that “sukiyaki is a dish for those who don’t understand the taste of meat” and that it has a dull, heavy flavor. But no matter what he says, good beef is best enjoyed as sukiyaki. There’s probably no other Japanese dish that’s such an unambiguously delicious treat.

・MISHIMA TEI

   405 Sakurano-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto

三嶋亭の牛肉

　記憶が正しければ、これは家内の実家からいただいたもので、たしか京都にある三嶋亭のすき焼用の牛肉だった。脂の入り方が美しくて、見るからに高級なのはわかったが、あとで値段を聞いて唖然とした。こういう上等な牛肉を食べたことがなかったので、それで記念に撮ったものだ。ご存じのとおり、すき焼きは関西と関東で食べ方がちがう。このときは砂糖と醤油と酒だけで焼いて生卵を絡めて食べた。つまりは関西風の食べ方である。関東風は割下というツユで煮て火を通すわけだから、鍋物という感じがあるが、関西風の食べ方は、どちらかというと焼肉に近い。でも焼肉とは違って、ちゃんとすき焼きという別の食べ物になるのだから不思議である。

　うまいなんてもんじゃなかった。東北出身の私と、関西出身の家内とで、いろいろと食習慣はちがうのだが、そんなつまらないことで衝突したことはない。もっともっとくだらないことでときどき噛みつき合う。まだ若い私たちの胃袋は頑丈で貪欲で、こういう霜降り肉の精悍なエネルギーを受け止めるだけの生気に満ちていた。

　『美味しんぼ』というグルメ漫画に出てくる美食家、海原雄山が「すき焼きは肉の味のわからぬ者の料理」であり、鈍重な味がすると言っていた。しかし彼がなんと言おうが、いい牛肉はすき焼きで食うに限る。和食の中でこんなにわかりやすいご馳走はほかにないでしょう。

・三嶋亭　京都府京都市中京区桜之町４０５