Posted by Adam Kuban, December 15, 2003 at 9:00 AM
Mr. Feldman's photo of the Italian pizzaman in Stockholm prompted me to dig through my own photo archives for this picture. Taken in Kurashiki-shi, Japan, during my latest visit with a longtime friend who now lives there, it shows Mr. Sekizen Kohara at the prep table in his shop, La Cenetta.
Pizza in Japan actually isn't that hard to find (click the Pizza Royalhat image at right for a menu from a Japanese pizzeria). But good pizza is. Sekizen's pie falls squarely in the former camp, and it's what makes his shop popular with Western ex-pats living in the area as well as Japanese.
His skills come from time spent studying in Italy; numerous awards and certificates lining the walls prove it. And with his retro-ish black-framed glasses and jaunty cabbie hat (which he usually wears but wasn't the day I shot this), it's not hard to picture him in some post-War Italian cinema classic.
Sekizen-san uses a small wood-burning oven to make small (ten-inch) thin-crust Neapolitan-style pies. It's been too long (I was last there in March of this year) to give a thorough assessment, but I can say without hesitation that La Cenetta was better than most of the run-of-the-mill slice joints I've tried here in New York City.
I remember trying a plain pie (to use as a benchmark), one with peppers and onions, and one with sausage. All good, except the sausage that Sekizen used tasted less like a good sweet or hot Italian sausage and more like the breakfast sausage you'd find here in the States. Prices started at ¥1,000 (about US$8.50) for a basic plain pie and ranged upward to about ¥1,400.
A couple observations. First: La Cenetta does not slice its diminutive pies. You have to manage this task at table, with a fork and serrated knife. I'm not sure if that's common practice in Japan, as I didn't eat at any other pizzerias while there. Second: The Japanese there ate their pizza exclusively with knife and fork, no matter that the tiny slices were in no way unmanageable. Again: I don't know if that's standard practice everywhere, but it seemed to be the case at La Cenetta—and I got funny looks for eating with my hands. Oh well, sho ga nai!
Japan and Korea have pretty similar dining habits. I live in Korea, and when they eat western food, they use a knife and fork with EVERYthing! Food is rarely eaten with the hands; when eating sandwiches, the wrapping is kept on top of the bread for as long as possible. Also western cutlery is viewed as an exotic way to get food to your mouth, like chopsticks often are in the west. In Korea, it's often viewed as a kind of worldly status symbol, because western food is so damned expensive. Like good sushi in NY.
In my experience, it's not unusual to eat pizzas with your hand in Japan. Not in Tokyo anyway. I'm also surprised the pizza wasn't precut.
By the way, you have a small typo in your nihongo. Pizza-Pie is pizapai, not pizapii. If you got pizapii from Edict (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html), that entry is wrong. Also, pizapai is not used so frequently. You'd be more likely to hear piza kudasai.
Thanks, MC. I like your site. I did get the translation from Edict. I just changed the entry title. Would have changed it to piza kudasai, but I like the rhyme.
I think the pizza wasn't precut because Kohara studied in Naples, and that's how they eat it there, something I learned just a few months ago. So it seems that eating pizza with a knife and fork is less a Japanese thing than a Neapolitan thing.
I am really happy his work is appreciated in Japan too. He bought his Ceky wood-burning oven from my company in Italy more than 10 years ago. Sekizensan ganbatte!!!!
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Mr. Feldman's photo of the Italian pizzaman in Stockholm prompted me to dig through my own photo archives for this picture. Taken in Kurashiki-shi, Japan, during my latest visit with a longtime friend who now lives there, it shows Mr. Sekizen Kohara at the prep table in his shop, La Cenetta.
4 Comments:
Japan and Korea have pretty similar dining habits. I live in Korea, and when they eat western food, they use a knife and fork with EVERYthing! Food is rarely eaten with the hands; when eating sandwiches, the wrapping is kept on top of the bread for as long as possible. Also western cutlery is viewed as an exotic way to get food to your mouth, like chopsticks often are in the west. In Korea, it's often viewed as a kind of worldly status symbol, because western food is so damned expensive. Like good sushi in NY.
Slice elizabeth at 8:18PM on 04/29/04
In my experience, it's not unusual to eat pizzas with your hand in Japan. Not in Tokyo anyway. I'm also surprised the pizza wasn't precut.
By the way, you have a small typo in your nihongo. Pizza-Pie is pizapai, not pizapii. If you got pizapii from Edict (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html), that entry is wrong. Also, pizapai is not used so frequently. You'd be more likely to hear piza kudasai.
Slice mc at 11:45AM on 10/13/04
Thanks, MC. I like your site. I did get the translation from Edict. I just changed the entry title. Would have changed it to piza kudasai, but I like the rhyme.
I think the pizza wasn't precut because Kohara studied in Naples, and that's how they eat it there, something I learned just a few months ago. So it seems that eating pizza with a knife and fork is less a Japanese thing than a Neapolitan thing.
Adam Kuban at 12:27PM on 10/13/04
I am really happy his work is appreciated in Japan too. He bought his Ceky wood-burning oven from my company in Italy more than 10 years ago. Sekizensan ganbatte!!!!
Slice Ceky at 1:47PM on 12/13/06