Tweet of the Week #36: Keep Calm and Curry On

If we were to ask you what comes to mind when thinking of Japanese food, curry would probably not be your first answer. At least not before sushi, ramen, udon or okonomiyaki—all very famous Japanese dishes known, and available, worldwide.

But the truth is curry and rice (カレーライス) is a dish so widely consumed by Japanese people that it’s actually considered a national specialty. You’ll find that there are countless recipes and regional variations, and tons of restaurants specializing in curry cuisine. Even your average fami-resu (family restaurant) or traditional kissaten (coffee shop) will probably have curry somewhere on the menu—people love it that much.

However, there is one thing that all Japanese curry dishes have in common: if curry was introduced via Indian cuisine, its Japanese adaptation is an entirely different dish. Japanese curry is typically sweet, thick and mild-tasting, and includes potatoes, carrots, onions, and meat all mixed in with what’s called a “curry roux,” a blend of spices that you add to make the sauce base of your curry.

Spicing things up

Dinner time, finally! But as you hurry home from work, you’re struck by the eternal I’m–so-hungry-but-what-to-eat dilemma. Whether you cook your own meals (curry), like to Uber-eat (curry) or go to the (curry) place next door, there’s nothing like a busy life to sap all of your creativity when it comes to choosing a meal.

What if instead of racking your brain to come up with what food to eat, you played around with how you eat it? That’s exactly what Twitter user @ARuFa did when he decided to invent a game of chance to help him spice up his mealtimes.

最近カレーばっかりで飽きてきたので、カレーを構成する『カレールー』『白米』『スプーン』の位置と分量をサイコロで決めて食べました pic.twitter.com/e7ApVsRek4

— ARuFa (@ARuFa_FARu) June 11, 2019

最近（さいきん）カレーばっかりで飽（あ）きてきたので、カレーを構成（こうせい）する『カレールー』『白米（はくまい）』『スプーン』の位置（いち）と分量（ぶんりょう）をサイコロで決（き）めて食（た）べました

Recently I got fed up with only eating curry, so I came up with a new way to prepare it where I decide the placement and quantity of the curry (roux), the rice, and the spoon with dice.

Here’s the “board game” @ARuFa came up with:

After the first two rolls of the dice, he’ll have only one option left which will be selected automatically. Thus:

消去法（しょうきょほう）で確定（かくてい） = by process of elimination

He really thought of everything!

Game of Spoons

In the tweet, @ARuFa shows how the first throw of the dice told him what to do with the curry. In this case, it meant a very small quantity of curry on the right side of his plate.

The second throw was to decide what to do with the rice and things started to get weird. According to his rules, it meant that he had to hold in his hand a small quantity of rice.

Then, came the time to decide what to do with the spoon (yes, really) and, well, this ended up being their placement on the left side of the plate in a very big quantity… Yum.

Still, while his meal didn’t end up looking exactly edible, we like to think that the game was satisfying in its own way!

How to use ので in Japanese

The expression ので translates to “because,” “since,” and “so,” and has basically the same function as the particle から. However, ので sounds both softer and more formal, so you should prefer ので in a business setting. Also, ので explains a situation, while から explicitly gives causation.

Keep in mind that when combining ので with a noun or a na-adjective, you’ll have to add な.

• 明日（あした）は試験（しけん）なので、早（はや）めに寝（ね）ます。= Since the test is tomorrow, I’ll go to sleep early.
• 危険（きけん）なので、入（はい）らないでください。= Please do not enter because it is dangerous.

Vocabulary

For more on learning Japanese

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