Homemade plum vinegar, rice vinegar, pure rice vinegar and black rice vinegar.

I must admit I have never been a huge fan of televised sports. Most holidays, growing up in the eastern United States, I was in the kitchen, either cooking or dispensing advice on food and otherwise.

Homemade plum vinegar, rice vinegar, pure rice vinegar and black rice vinegar.

Yet, for some reason, I always enjoyed watching the Thanksgiving Day football games. Once the turkey and other preparations are under way, and things in the kitchen have settled down, there is nothing like plopping down on the family-room sofa, surrounded by relatives and friends, to watch one of the holiday games while drinking the first eggnog of the season.

Now, I am sure that you are wondering, how is he going to segue into a column about Japanese food? I am getting there, just wait.

In most team-sport competition there is a halftime -- a time for the athletes to rest up for the rest of the game. We, as eaters, are much like athletes. We need stops, starts and contrasts in a really fine meal to enjoy it completely. If you have ever enjoyed a wine tasting, you will know that between wines, in order to clear and refresh the palate, you are usually offered bread to nosh.

A tasting menu in a restaurant experience will also, often, be broken up into sections with palate cleansers served in between. These could be little sorbets and ices, small salads or simple breads. Japanese chefs understand this principle well, and a good washoku meal reflects this.

About halfway through a tasting menu -- after a particularly heavy course, such as a grilled fatty fish or a fried dish -- a respite is offered. It usually comes in the guise of a sunomono, a vinegared dish. Su (vinegar) and mono ("thing," or, in this case, "dish") describe a fairly large category of food that is very popular in Japan.

The secret to these dishes is rice vinegar. True rice vinegar is less acidic -- around 4 percent acidity -- than many fruit-based vinegars. It is rounder with sweet notes.

The majority of vinegar used in Japan today is, however, a blend of wheat, corn and rice vinegars with sake lees and alcohol added in the process. The Japanese rice vinegars from mass producers available in the West -- the Marukan brand, for one -- are examples of these blended vinegars. True, handmade, aged rice vinegar, like very good balsamic, is in a completely different class.

Widely available rice vinegar blends are acceptable. They are very consistent, and many chefs in the West already use them in dressings and sauces. Several different kinds of vinegar and vinegar sauces may be used in sunomono preparations.

The various kinds of rice vinegars -- white, red and black -- stand alongside other pure-grain vinegars. There is a dark vinegar made from sugarcane as well in the southern prefectures of Japan as well. Fruit vinegars are used too, but generally made at home -- plum, tart cherry and persimmon, to name a few. Vinegared dishes are also seasoned with flavored vinegars such as ponzu -- a combination of citrus juice and soy -- or Tosazu -- a vinegar fortified with bonito flakes

While seen in restaurants as a palate cleanser, sunomono may also be used as an accompaniment to sake, as a light snack, or to help recover a poor appetite. In the following recipe, the crunch of the lotus root works very well with the tart acharazu sauce. Acharazu is simply rice vinegar sweetened and then seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and small red peppers to give it some heat. If you can't find the myoga, a bud in the ginger family, use blanched thin slices of ginger. Use fresh lotus root, not canned. Good pure rice vinegar is preferred (ask for junmai komezu).

Renkon no acharazu

Ingredients:

renkon (lotus root) 10-15 cm long
4 myoga pinch salt
Acharazu sauce
1 1/2 cup rice vinegar
1 cup water
2 1/2 tablespoons usukuchi shoyu (light soy sauce)
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar small dried red peppers, seeded and sliced into small rings

Procedure:

1. Cut the renkon in three pieces and peel the skin. Run the peeled renkon under cold water for several minutes to remove some of the starch.
2. Drain the renkon and plunge it into boiling water for one minute and then drain again.
3. Now that the renkon is easier to cut, cut it into 5-mm pieces. Once more, plunge into boiling water for one minute and then drain and cool.
4. Trim the myoga ends and cut in half. Plunge into boiling water for 30 seconds, drain and, while still hot, sprinkle very lightly with salt.
5. Combine in a small sauce pan all the ingredients for the acharazu and heat gently to melt the sugar. Do not boil.
6. Remove from heat when sugar is melted and cool.
7. Combine the renkon, myoga and acharazu in a nonreactive (not aluminum) bowl and let it sit for at least three hours before serving.
8. Serve in individual bowls, draining off most of the vinegar. Garnish with the red pepper. Serves four.

Rick Lapointe can be reached at lapointecooking@hotmail.com