Job Discussion Forums

[cornishmuppet]

My kids are absolutely appalled when I explain rice pudding to them. That I sometimes have it for breakfast and that you can get it in tins back in England only seems to terrify them more. When I tell them its quite nice with jam or maple syrup and suggest they try it sometime, I'm met with a host of rapidly shaking heads and shocked expressions.

Anyone got any others that freak the Japanese out?

[furiousmilksheikali]

Mushy peas. Bread and dripping. Black pudding. Deep-fried Mars Bars.

Anyone not freaked out by those things are odd.

Also, although not food related, have you ever explained what Guy Fawkes Day is? It's not a very nice thing when you look at it objectively.

[Gordon]

In Korea, my younger students were grossed out at the thought of spaghetti and meat sauce. I guess it could look a bit strange. Still ... far tastier than dog (I imagine).

[cornishmuppet]

I love mushy peas, but the others scare me.

I did a class on Guy Fawkes with some old ladies once. I got right into it, read all about it on the BBC website, found out all this stuff I'd never realised. They didn't really like it once they realised it was a celebration of attempted terrorism. I left out the bit about the torture, probably just as well.

[casual]

I once explained the old English hung, drawn and quartered punishment method to my junior high students when they were talking about Braveheart. The bloodthirsty gets loved every second of it.

They seem quite freaked out that rabbit is ocassionally eaten in Europe though.

[Dipso]

Liquorice Allsorts- my colleagues were actually spitting them into the gomi, so horrified were they. Poor old Bertie Basset.

[callmesim]

Guy Fawkes Day was fun to explain but so far my favourite is explaining Easter.

"According to the Christians, there was this guy called Jesus and he was crucified on the Friday and we call that Good Friday. On the Sunday he rose again and that's Easter Sunday. So we celebrate with chocolate eggs, chocolate rabbits and easter egg hunts."

Only once have I attempted to explain the pagan side of it but I lost them very quickly.

As for food..... Vegemite! But that grosses out most of the mere mortals.

[wolfman]

My English friends, I'm afraid most of the stuff you guys eat grosses out the entire world, not just Japan.

[Dipso]

There does seem to be a preponderance of British people posting in this thread. Must be a coincidence, eh?! When I worked in Italy, my students were disgusted by the concept of tinned spaghetti. *opens can*

There was actually a feature on NHK News Nine last night about Japanese restaurants abroad, with lots of tut-tutting about some of the unorthodox combinations of foods served in foreign eateries. While watching this rather sanctimonious report, I couldn't help but think of some of the ,erm, unusual dishes I have been served in Japan - spaghetti with seaweed and mayonnaise springs immediately to mind. Yeah, that's authentic!

[callmesim]

I had an argument with a Japanese friend once because when we went to an Italian restaurant, the dishes were presented as "sharing" and with chopsticks!

"But this is Japan" was the reply.
"But if you eat Japanese in a western country, you don't eat with a fork! If you go to a Chinese restaurant you eat with chopsticks and you share! It's normal to eat in the style of that country"

Though I admit, I was feeling a little homesick at the time and was irritated by nearly everything.

Speaking of bastardisations of Japanese food - hambagu sushi. sushi with a meat pattie on top. Ate that in Asahikawa last week.

[JimDunlop2]

[cornishmuppet]

When I lived in Italy I once had the pleasure of having a peach pizza. That was pretty wrong. Strangely enough, the thought of pineapple on a pizza freaks out most Italians. The peach pizza was in a restaurant in Milan, and the staff were Chinese. Don't know if that had anything to do with it. Incidently, one of the best pizzas I ever had in Italy was in a place in Florence, where the chef was Chinese.

My dad used to be in merchant navy, and he told me they always employed Chinese people as chefs, because they were the best. This is going back twenty years, though.

Back to Japan, and somewhat inversely, I'm always surprised by the number of people who tell me they LOVE mashed potato, as though its some great British cultural invention. When you think about it, its basically just a potato that's been crushed. Nothing particularly special about that.

[furiousmilksheikali]

[japanman]

But if dishes aren't mixed then nothing ever changes and things get boring. Same with dull music purists who believe that their type of music is pure and should never be tampered with, not realising that it was the result of many different fusions a few hundered years ago. The same goes for food, I like a bit of mixing, even if it does appear strange.

Regarding British food, ever tried explaning a pastie? Everyone keeps saying "oh, you mean pasta?" then you reply "no, not pasta, it's a pastie" etc until you get irritated and give up, or just go to wikipedia and show them a photo, which still has little impact. nani aji, nani aji? etc, well it just tastes of whatever you put inside it, faces look deeply uniterested and we change the topic of conversation.

[cornishmuppet]

Being from Cornwall, the home of the pasty, I've tried at times to explain them. A year or so ago I got some tea towels from home with pasty recipes on them, and one of my older students cooked some up. They weren't half bad, but nothing like the real thing. I'd have a stab at them myself but I'm lazy and my convec oven is too small to cook more than a couple at a time.

One of the great things I miss from home, along with baked beans.