Meshi: What Does It Mean In Japanese?
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Read for freeIn Japanese, meshi means “meal.” It’s a common word used in all sorts of contexts, from someone talking about what they had for lunch to a chef describing a dish they’re preparing.
More accurately, meshi means a simple food, food that is boiled or steamed until all of the water has left from cooking, like with rice, grains, or wheat. Because almost all meals will have one of these elements, meshi is almost synonymous with meal.
Meshi is also one of the ingredients of maki sushi, the rice inner layer of the roll. When meshi is made with sushi vinegar and sugar, it’s called sumeshi or sushi meshi.
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What does Meshi ya mean?
In Japanese, meshi ya means “eating house.” Rice shops are common in Japan and specialize in selling rice. They usually also sell other staples like flour and beans, but the true meaning of meshi ya is a restaurant that serves simple food.
What’s the difference between meshi and gohan?
Both meshi and gohan can refer to cooked rice (uncooked rice is kome), but meshi can refer to any simple dish that’s cooked, gohan can only refer to cooked rice or a dish with cooked rice.
A lot of Japanese dishes have cooked rice so they can almost seem to be used interchangeably, but are not completely.
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Bitemybun's family recipes with complete meal planner and recipe guide.
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Joost Nusselder, the founder of Bite My Bun is a content marketer, dad and loves trying out new food with Japanese food at the heart of his passion, and together with his team he's been creating in-depth blog articles since 2016 to help loyal readers with recipes and cooking tips.
