Tofu Champroo （豆腐チャンプルー）

As it happens once in a while, I have been out 5 days in a row and  my liver and stomach are probably tired. It's probably a good idea to eat something healthy, maybe fish?

I suddenly became so hungry I didn't want to spend any extra time on cooking. OK, stir fried something today. It is is Tofu Champroo today.

Goya (Karela)

Champroo (not sure if the spelling is right, but sounds like it) is in fact Okinawan style stir fry. Most famous Champroo dish is Goya Champroo. Goya is what is called Karela. This is another thing I was surprised to find at suburban Tesco long time ago. Because I thought Goya (Karela) was original in Okinawa.

Goya Champroo is often made with pork (or spam), egg and I am not sure. Often bonito flakes are sprinkled on the dish, I think. I might be wrong though.


Probably Tofu Champroo is the second or the third famous Champroo dish and I don't think I have ever had it in Okinawa but never mind. The spirit is important! I just stir fried Tofu with courgette and carrot (probably wrong sort of vegetables too) and some spices, seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and it's done. 

Since I didn't have time to cook Japanese rice because I was so hungry, I microwaved the frozen basmati rice to serve together. It was all right, well actually it was good. Basmati rice sucks the flavour of Champroo and I found it quite pleasant. I like basmati rice anyway as well as Japanese sticky rice.

While eating my basmati rice it reminded me of the time when Japan was short of domestic rice in the mid 90s following the cold summer.

That time,  Food Agency of Japan decided to import rice from overseas out of desperation. This was a super extraordinary decision because rice is protected farm product of Japan and the country never allowed any foreign rice to be imported. Sales of rice was 100% controlled by Food Agency as well so it was almost impossible to buy any other rice apart from Japanese rice at the rice shop or super market. I might have seen Thai rice or basmati rice only at Thai or Indian restaurants but not too often back then.

Now the agency decided to import foreign rice, mainly from Thailand (I think) and I was quite happy because I could buy them at the ordinary shop. It wasn't actually as good as the ones I had in Thailand but I still enjoyed it. But I was one of the rare people who were enjoying this phenomenon.

As I later found out, Thai government also had to spend an effort to export rice to Japan because it wasn't the right time for the harvest in Thailand which means the short of quality Thai rice, so they collected any kind of rice from the nation in order to save hungry Japanese people. It was definitely better than no rice at all!

On the other hand, people who had been eating Japanese rice all the time didn't welcome Thai rice very much. I can understand because it is very different from Japanese rice and some dishes especially traditionally cooked home food don't go well with Thai rice. Thai food in general wasn't very popular back then either.

Some funny control was put in place (in my opinion) as well. Food Agency also decided to mix Thai rice in Japanese rice for retail supply. This means that we couldn't buy 100% Japanese rice but mixed ones or 100% Thai rice. I thought it was something wrong because the consumer didn't have freedom of choice. I thought it would have been more reasonable if someone wants to pay more for 100% Japanese rice, they should be allowed to do so.

Because my granddad was a  rice farmer, our family got hold of 100% Japanese rice and we didn't have to suffer all that much. We were eating Japanese rice for Japanese food, and enjoyed Thai rice for ethnic (ish) food. My parents still didn't like Thai rice much though. But restaurants or processed food suppliers, families without any farmer connection didn't have a choice but to buy mixed rice. I remember some people were avoiding eating rice as well.

I can't remember how long it lasted but probably until the following late summer or autumn when the new crop harvested. Thai rice again vanished under the government's control. I wonder if we have even said thanks to Thai government. I remembered reading an article they were quite angry about Japanese people having decided Thai rice was awful back then.