Nabe is often translated as "Japanese hotpot" which is pretty much accurate but it's the actual cooking dish (a pot that cooks in the middle of the table (usually it's a cast iron or clay pot) so that everyone can eat from it) and can range from soups to stews depending on what you throw in it. Nabe is generally considered a sociable dish and is supposed to be the sort of meal that brings everyone together because they eat from the same pot. In most media nabe is featured as a stew cooked in broth with noodles, vegetables and sometimes crab, tofu or meat.
The nabe shogun (nabe general) bit comes from Gintama (though I do not know if the phrase existed before that) where the diners strategically fight over who will conquer the best spoils of the nabe (in Gintama's case the meat) since part of eating it involves picking out the bits you want with your chopsticks. This being Gintama it got as crazy and convoluted as possible.
It can be salty depending on the broth used. (There are two particular types of nabe: lightly flavored stock variety and strongly flavored stock variety.
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sforzinda
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Date: 2012-01-19 10:44 pm (UTC)The nabe shogun (nabe general) bit comes from Gintama (though I do not know if the phrase existed before that) where the diners strategically fight over who will conquer the best spoils of the nabe (in Gintama's case the meat) since part of eating it involves picking out the bits you want with your chopsticks. This being Gintama it got as crazy and convoluted as possible.
It can be salty depending on the broth used. (There are two particular types of nabe: lightly flavored stock variety and strongly flavored stock variety.