Job Discussion Forums

[Shonai Ben]

Thanks everyone for their posts.I have noticed that a lot of food in Japan has a slimy texture,which I cannot get used to.One of the reasons why I don't like natto besides the smell.
Here in Sendai we have a local food called hoya.It's actually a sea pineapple.Ugly little critter and the first time that I ate it I was totally disgusted.It was raw the first time.The next time I tried,it was steamed and it was really tasty.Now I can eat it either way,raw or steamed.Interesting how our tastes change if we try.
Maybe I should natto again? Nah,never!

[Guest]

That's true about how your tastes can change. I used to hate sashimi, especialy the texture, but now I love it. When I came back to England my palate had altered so much from eating different foods that I realised at Christmas I had developed a strong liking for stilton. I couldn't stand it before. Ironic really because I hardly ate any cheese at all in Japan.

[TokyoLiz]

I've found that, since living in Japan and travelling around the world a bit, my palate has matured. I try a lot of different foods and have learned to like things that I never thought I would eat.

However, when in Scotland I stopped short of eating Glasgow's famous deep-fried Mars bar. Bleh.

But I'll eat lots of things here in Jland. Natto, mochi, okra were all things I thought were unappealing, but I learned to like them. I tried yamaimo with tofu for the first time this weekend while in Roppongi Hills in Tokyo. It's great served cold on a hot day!

[Dr.J]

Apparently somewhere they eat live shrimp - they're called 'dancing shrimp' 'cause they 'dance' in your belly. (Here, 'dance' means 'wriggle in pain while slowly being dissolved by digestive juices').

Generally speaking, though, Westerners are pretty finicky when it comes to food.

[Generasian X]

KUMAMOTO PREFECTURE = BASASHI (RAW HORSE MEAT)
OITA PREFECTURE = FRESH RAW SEA URCHIN

KYUSHU is the land of scary food!!!

[khmerhit]

In Cambodia there is a cheese-like food called prahoc. It's made of fish, mulched and left in the sun to ferment, and pounded by foot as is done to wine grapes. It reeks. But they love it.

[rockwolf]

I've been away from Japan for about 3 years now, looking to return soon and join the ranks of the English Teachers, but I agree about the Natto, that stuff was just vile.

Until one extremely hungry day that I bought a roll of rice in seaweed paper, but to my surprise, also had a natto injection in the middle. Well, it wasn't too bad actually.



But as for really wonderful foods, I have to say there was this little steamed meat bun type food in the konbini that was served in the winter, that was filled with strawberries, rather than meat. That was the best snack food I could find, too bad it was seasonal.

Anyone else here a big fan of Melon Pan?

[kozo]

Ok, I'm obviously the minority here, but I absolutely LOVE natto. From the first moment I tried it I've never stopped eating it. I'm in the US now and have to travel over an hour to find a Mistuwa (former Yaohan) to buy the stuff...which I occasionally do. I'm usually a very picky eater (don't eat ANY fish) but for some reason this stuff is great. I figure I must be "weird" cuz even the Japanese are shocked that I like it.

KoZo

[Ange]

All I can say is that it is no coincidence that anko and unko (sp?) sound so similar!

[Speed]

Fried baby bees (hachi no ko)

Fried sparrow on a stick (suzume)

Crab brains (kani no nomiso)

I am what I eat.

[grampus]

Cool, I ate baby aparrow and now i know the Japanese name. Kani Miso is great!!!

natto, Umeboshi, Anko and Konyaku(sp?) are all foul.

[Vince]

Yama imo isn't for me either. I can eat natto, but I don't like dealing with the strands that stretch forever. Afterwards, I want to sit there wiping my chin with my shibori for the better part of an hour.

The worst thing I've ever eaten in Japan was some kind of blackened fish. I don't remember the name and try not to remember the taste. It was at an izakaya, and it reminded me of a horror story I read in which someone was put in a grave and could feel the decomposed corpse squishing between her toes. Seriously, it was that bad. I was nauseated for the rest of the night, and it took a lot of brushing and gargling to get that taste of out my mouth.

[TokyoLiz]

I'll eat a lot of things. As long as they're no longer animate.

I've never tried dancing shrimp and I'm not going to. The closest I came to eating something that was still alive was whole tai - the tail twitched a few times while I was eating the sliced fish off the plate.

But a lot of the things other people think is gross - natto, mochi, uni, whatever they call those roasted sardines - I really like. But these are things that don't go walkies while you're trying to eat them.

[As Das Fads]

Melon Pan is one of Japan's gifts to the world. I particularly like the ones where there is melon-flavoured goo inside. I don't even like cantaloupe that much either, but Melon Pan is divine.

mmmm melon-flavoured goo mmmmm

[Celeste]

I took a holiday in Okinawa, and there was a dish called Goya Champuru. Hmm. What could it be? Well I didn't have the guts to order it, but at one restaurant it came as a free side dish with my meal. So it turns out to be a sort of stirfry made mostly of bittermelon. Never tried bitter melon before. Wonder why it's called bittermelon? Hmmm.

Long story short, goya tastes either like ear wax or crunching down on aspirin. (And when I came back from my vacation, people were trying to serve me Goya here too - is this stuff the Japanese equivalent of surplus garden zucchini?)