Talk:Japanese cuisine

There's an odd recurring issue here as various people contribute to this entry. People want to write about the influence of Japanese cuisine on the cuisine of the U.S.A. People talk about when this or that term or dish or concept became common in the U.S.A.

I'd prefer that the page be about Japanese cuisine and not about the cuisine of the United States of America.

If we want these subsidiary issues (I personally--so far--think we don't), let's have LINKS to "Japanese influence on French cuisine", "Japanese influence on Haitian cuisine", "Japanese influence on Afghani cuisine", etc., but don't you think it'd be better if we kept them all at the end of the article?

user:Arthur3030 13-JAN-2003 00:43 UTC

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Art,

I know the English is very confusing when it comes to Szechuan pepper it is commonly referred to as Chinese Pepper but often it is also called Japanese Pepper. I myself thought that Sansho and Szechuan pepper were two diffrent kind of spices for quite some time. But Gernot Katzer's Spice Dictionary (see link below) set the record straight for me.

Please follow the link to Sansho (bot. Xanthoxylum piperitum) and read up on the definition of it. You will find that:

• The first sentence says "Szechuan peppercorn (Xanthoxylum piperitum) is not a member of the pepper family." The exact same thing you mentioned in your edit summary.
• That the Chinese characters for it are the same in Chinese and Japanese.

As stated above, when it comes to names of plants and animals, English is not exact enough and the only unique name is the botanical one in Latin. Please follow the links below and verify for yourself that Szechuan pepper is the same as Sansho:

[http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/generic_noframe.html?Zant_pip.html Gernot Katzer's Spice Dictionary for the Xanthoxylum piperitum]

Jeffrey's J/E Dictionary entry for Sansho (based on Jim Breem's jdict)

I'd really appreciate if you could change the link back to Szechuan pepper.

cheers,

--synthetik

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