You know, as a child, reading essays and articles about Japan in the magazine "Around the World", I was most surprised at the patience of the Japanese - they chew rice from birth to the end of life, and do not buzz.
I didn't eat rice as a child. In the sense that it is voluntary. Did not love. But, let's say, in the USSR there was never a special culture of rice cooking. They cooked milk rice porridge or made pilaf. But as a side dish... No, rice was prepared for a side dish, but let's be even - rice for a side dish (plain rice) is like... chewing cardboard, or something. It is eaten only if there is a good gravy. At least that's how it was in my childhood.
And this is not a condemnation of the USSR, it is a statement of fact. For most territories, rice was not a "native" product, but brought from outside, and its cultivation was just beginning its history
Much has changed now. Both their own more or less decent varieties and imported ones have appeared.
For side dishes - fragrant jasmine, for boiled cereals - round grain, japonica or risotto, for pilaf - fermented gourmet devzira... There is simpler, more expensive. We also gradually learn to cook rice, it turned out that cooking rice is not such an easy task (that's why I don't like rice in cooking bags, it seems like it looks attractive, but it tastes like you eat it out of hunger).
But the riddle of the rice endurance of the Japanese for me was still relevant for a long time.
But the point is small - in seasonings.
Furikake is a classic rice seasoning, although it is hard to call it “ancient”. She is at most a hundred years old - I read that a certain doctor (or pharmacist) invented it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and not at all for taste (although the Japanese also took into account the taste), and to enrich the diet with calcium (it turns out that with nutritional value in Japan there were Problems).
The original furikake was based on dried fry to soften the fishy taste in them. added salt and sesame seeds, resulting in a seasoning that made the taste of unleavened boiled rice much better.
Over the course of a century, fukrikake has evolved into a separate type of seasoning. There are a great many types of it now, there is furikake with vegetables, there is furikake with salmon, there is - with tuna chips.
Its main distinctive features are that all the ingredients are dried to crispness and, as in all Japanese spices, for the most part, furikake has a balance of sweet, sour and salty.
In order for rice to become a full-fledged dish, it is enough just to sprinkle it with this seasoning. Moreover, different types give different tastes. Our favorite is with tuna shavings, and here, the main thing is not to eat her millet like that - without any rice.
By the way, furikake is an obligatory ingredient in the Russian (aha, already Russian) folk dish "lazy sushi" in Japan (I talked about it yesterday)