Is Brad Pitt’s favorite Japanese food really Japanese?

Japan often gets Hollywood movies later than the rest of the world, but F1, starring Brad Pitt, is fittingly, arriving in Japanese theaters as quickly as possible, premiering here on June 27, the same day as it does in the U.S. To promote the movie’s opening, the producers have released a promotional video in which Kenyu Horiuchi and Shintaro Morimoto, who serve as the dub actors for Pitt and co-star Damson Idris, ask Pitt, Idris, and director Joseph Kosinski some questions on behalf of Japanese fans.

The first question involves special training the on-screen cast undertook for their roles, and the next deal with special efforts made during filming and the cast’s most memorable scenes. The three interviewees also express regret that while F1 includes footage shot by a separate crew at Japan’s Suzuka Circuit, none of them were able to travel to the country themselves for filming.

The final question is a common one when overseas celebrities are making Japanese media appearances: What is you favorite Japanese food? Idris leads off with the predictable, but totally agreeable, answer of “sushi,” with an expression of bliss washing over his face as he fine-tunes his answer to “toro,” extra-fatty tuna. Kosinski goes a bit farther off the beaten path, saying “I love a good hot shishito pepper,” a side-dish often found at yakitori restaurants, where they’re usually grilled on a skewer over an open flame.

▼ Although, ironically, not every shishito is hot, as the number of seeds inside, which are where the heat comes from, can vary quite a bit from pepper to pepper.

But it’s Pitt’s answer that’s truly unique, as he replies, and very confidently, that his favorite Japanese food is:

“Whitefish with ponzu sauce. Always.”

Pitt’s answer was surprising to a lot of Japanese people. Yes, ponzu, a sauce made from mirin, bonito stock, and citrus juice (such as lemon, lime, or yuzu), and often mixed with soy sauce, is a popular condiment in Japan.

▼ Ponzu

However, ponzu is most commonly used as a condiment for hotpot or other simmered foods, or as a dipping sauce for sashimi or gyoza. It’s generally treated like a substitute for soy sauce, and thus isn’t something that Japanese people ordinarily pour on a slice of cooked fish. So not only is it unusual to hear someone say that whitefish with ponzu is their favorite Japanese food, the “always” is an unexpected emphasizer for an unorthodox combination that you’re not likely to encounter in Japanese restaurants or kitchens.

Because of that, online reactions to Pitt’s answer have largely been some sort of variation on the one embedded above: “I don’t think there are even many Japanese people who’d give that as their first choice.” Other have included:

“Now I wanna know where he tried that.”
“This is kind of like if someone asked ‘What’s your favorite American food?’ and you said ‘Alligator steak.’”
“Brad, someone pulled a fast one on you.”
“It’s so specific. Was the person who cooked it Japanese? I can’t ever remember eating whitefish with ponzu poured on it.”
“I wonder if the fish was grilled, steamed, or simmered.”
“It’s got to be something he had with sake.”
“This would be good for a ‘try not to laugh’ challenge.’”
“Ponzu really does taste good when the flavor seeps into the other ingredients you’re eating it with.”

More than a few commenters theorized that when Pitt said “whitefish” he was really talking about fugu, blowfish/pufferfish, which is often eaten with ponzu. That seems unlikely, though, since fugu’s international fame as a Japanese delicacy that can kill you if it’s not prepared correctly means that it rarely gets linguistically lumped in with whitefish by English-speakers.

So odds are that Pitt really has eaten and enjoyed whitefish with ponzu sauce, and on more than one occasion. As for where he ate it, there are a couple possibilities. First, while it’s not a standard or traditional combination, it is possible to find recipes, in Japanese, for whitefish with ponzu. There’s one here, for example, on Cookpad, a website where home chefs can share recipes with one another. On the website of the U.K division of soy sauce maker Kikkoman, which also produces ponzu, the company specifically recommends using ponzu “as a marinade for fish, meat and vegetables.” If you run a search for recipes on Kikkoman’s Japanese website for fish with ponzu, though, you won’t find any. Likewise, Mizkan, another major ponzu maker, has 220 recipes for ponzu on its Japanese website, but not a single one that uses it as a sauce for cooked fish.

With ponzu experiencing a recent surge in global popularity, it’s possible that Pitt orders whitefish with ponzu at a nominally Japanese restaurant he frequents outside Japan, or that he’s had it at restaurants in Japan with avant-garde sensibilities and a cosmopolitan, international clientele. “I bet he goes to some really fancy Japanese restaurants,” mused one commenter. Or it could be that he has a personal acquaintance or private chef who’s made whitefish with yuzu a part of their cooking repertoire and presented it to him as a kind of “Japanese food,” since ponzu is a Japanese condiment and whitefish is part of Japan’s culinary culture too. “I think more so than comparing it to many other kinds of Japanese foods that he’s tried, whitefish with ponzu sauce is the dish that has the strongest place in his memories,” said one commenter, and while just about everyone was surprised as Pitt’s pick for his favorite Japanese food, no one seems to think it’d taste bad, even if they’re not 100-percen sure it’s really Japanese.

Source: YouTube/ワーナー ブラザース 公式チャンネル via Hachima Kiko, Twitter/@zimkalee, Kikkoman (1, 2), Mizkan, Cookpad
Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24)
Insert images: Pakutaso, SoraNews24
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