One of my favourite dishes is the famous oyakodon, known by the metaphor of father and son - chicken and egg.
RestaurantLol. 🤣 This is true. Not something I thought about as a Japanese person until now. Interesting that it comes up in a place like this.
To get a little technical though, the majority of eggs used for cooking are unfertilized so no (male) rooster involved at any point. The rooster only has a chance to be a 'parent' to the egg when it fertilizes the egg.
So the dish is just an egg and the (mother) hen that produced it. No male involved. So I can't fault people for thinking 'mother and son' for oyakodon.
But yes, I agree that the word 'oyako' just means parent and child.
Some trivia. You can also have sake (salmon) and ikura (salmon caviar) oyakodon. 😄
It's mother and son. But yes pretty tasty
Oyako simply means parent and child, it doesn't distinguish between mother or father, nor son or daughter.
Well the chicken breast you're getting isn't from a rooster. Males are killed as chicks. It might as well be 'Mother'
Not all males are killed as chicks. There must be grown males to produce next year's chickens. There are adult males and they are slaughtered when their time comes. The overwhelming majority of chicken meat you find is female but not all of it.
You're probably right I don't speak it. My first introduction to it was final fantasy 15 lol that's what it was called, I goggled to try and cook it figured that's what it was and assumed it because people usually eat hens over roosters.
The breast definitely isn't from a rooster. The otaku weebs must be downvoting getting all gung-ho with the translation.
Or maybe people know Japanese and you're straight up wrong, but you then resort to name calling when you're corrected?
Yes, it's chicken breast and must come from a female chicken, but there is literally nothing in the word Oyako that is gender specific. There are words for mother and father and son and daughter in Japanese, just like in English, but those are not being used here.
There are other sources that say mother too if you google it so idk what issue people have. Even if parent is the "true" meaning, doesn't it make sense to assume the parent would be the mother? Since we are talking about the egg coming from the chicken, the chicken would have to be female...
My only source is that I'm Japanese, Google gives me the same answer anyways. Sources that say that oyakodon = mother and daughter are likely related to the slang you see in porn or pop culture, its not referencing the food. OP made an incorrect translation, which was corrected by another user with another incorrect translation.
It doesn't make sense to make your assumption when the word has a specific meaning, and when there are also words like boshi (母子 mother-child) and fushi (父子 father-child) for what you are trying to describe. It's just what it is.
Good to know I like learning. Thank you for that I will keep that in mind. One day universal translators will be as good as star trek or stargate sg1 lol
Do you know how cooked the eggs should be for oyakodon? I thought it was meant to be runny, but I've more often seen them completely cooked.
You want them to be a little runny. Custardy, not runny but definitely not like scrambled eggs.
Thanks 🤙.
I don't understand this mentality. Why do you want your information to be based on assumptions and falsehoods?
“Random Google searches say so,” is a wild approach to knowledge.
I’ve found Google’s search summaries to be extremely wrong sometimes, and I imagine humans aren’t that much better at synthesizing information at a glance.
Paul Simon's song "Mother and Child Reunion" was about his favorite local NYC Chinese restaurant version of this dish.
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9d
Obviously it’s a Japanese dish. The commenter is referring to how Paul Simon saw it on a Chinese restaurant’s menu, hence “NYC Chinese restaurant version”.
Oyakodon is, yes, but u/Darryl_Lict’s comment is correct. From the Rolling Stone interview with PS:
Know where the words came from on that? You never would have guessed. I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called “Mother and Child Reunion.” It’s chicken and eggs. And I said, “Oh, I love that title. I gotta use that one.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/paul-simon-the-rolling-stone-interview-2-231656/
I've only heard of Mother and Child, basically chicken and egg fried rice.
Steamed rice, not fried.
Sure, either way. When I got a dish called Mother and Child it came with fried rice. Is steamed the usual method for that dish?
Mother and child reunion is similar to oyakodon but the execution is very different.
The former looks like standard fried rice with a higher proportion of scrambled egg and diced chicken with everything mixed together. Oyakodon is served over a bed of steamed rice with custardy egg and larger chicken chunks cooked in dashi.
Oh, that sounds amazing.
To be honest,
The first time I ordered it, was a mistake on my part as I thought I was ordering something else; but boy am I glad I ordered it. Now it's one of my go to take out orders whenever I go to my favorite Japanese restaurant
Love oyakodon. The Japanese know how to simmer simple onion and eggs in dashi and make something incredible.
'Oyakodon' doesn't hint at any gender. It's literally parent and child.