A speciality in Eastern Japanese cuisine is Natto, that is fermented beans, you mix with soy-sauce, mustard and scallions and then pour it over your rice. It is said that foreigners and even kansai people cant eat it. In fact it smells rather funny, and is often compared in its taste to mould cheese, which is somehow fitting and then again not. I tried it sometimes, and could eat it without problems (surprise, surprise), nevertheless its consistence is rather hard to get over, because it is really sticky (“newa newa” as this type of food is called in Japanese) and the look of it is just gross! Despite it is considered uneatable, there seem to be even more smelly foodproducts in this country.
All in all, food is very important here. I first realised that when turning on the tv, and there you have at least 2-3 channels, where there is some food related show. This doesnt stop with all the dull cooking shows, i know back from home, but includes presentations of the current seasons specialities, or those of the different regions, or from all over the world (This years rice, hokkaido clambs, beaujolais nouveau). The very unusual about it, you can watch people eating the most diverse things on screen and yelling “oishii” or “umai” to confirm its tastiness, which can also go wrong from time to time (like with one show, where the showmaster had to taste dishes prepared by fans of the show and just couldnt keep up his face...).And of course there are eating contests, its contestants having some sort of celebrity status.
But this goes right into daily life. After having been dared by my iaido sensei with strange types of sushi, like wasashi (raw horsemeat), yuke (sliced raw beef topped with a small raw egg) and last but not least the infamous shirako (sperm filled fish testicles), which i had to eat while being oservated by him as well as the shopkeeper, i could proudly yell “oishii” at the next occasion, whereas the members of the dojo really had a hard time swallowing!
Food related Fotos.
Couple who just had to carry the natto-experience to excess.
Another newanewa dish: Me eating Sticky Seaweed soup at Nokogiriyama
