STRANGE JAPANESE FOOD ITEMS

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My name is Hiroki Nabashu and I am attending University Of Washington and many time people have ask about the foods I miss from living in Osaka, Japan. I don't miss much of them as I can shop at local Asian markets for cultural Japanese foods. But the queestion got me to think, what are some of the unusual foods from Japan. So below enjoy some descriptions of the food, this is no joking, its all actual food from Japan. You cannot invent things this odd!

Raw eggs.

I didn't know that American people don't eat raw eggs. When my friends and I enjoyed dinner, we talked about cooking eggs. I said that in Japan people usually eat raw eggs every morning. We often make simple food which is hot rice topped with a raw egg. My friend was surprised, and said "No, thanks." In Japan, we often eat curry and rice with a raw egg. And when we eat the Japanese food, Sukiyaki, we use a raw egg in the dish to prevent scalding. Usually a Japanese style hotel provides a raw egg in every breakfast. I like most kinds of eggs such as soft fried eggs, soft boiled eggs and raw eggs. We also eat old duck eggs which are fermented by buying them underground for 10 months and soaking them in vinegar. Especially when I swallow only an egg yolk, I feel a happy moment. Eggs are great food. They are nutritious, low priced, and easy to cook in a variety of ways. In Japan, most mothers who have a child of junior high school age make a lunch of an egg every morning. A fried egg is the most popular lunch in Japan. I am sorry that American people can't eat raw eggs for fear of the Salmonella bacteria.

Octopus called devilfish

I found frozen squid sold at near supermarket. This package was made in China. Squid is a popular fish in Japan. From long ago people have used the fish with diverse processing, such as tempura, boiling, baking, canning and dehydrating. Especially dehydrated squid is called "Surume" which is a typical dried fish in Japan. From long ago people have offered to their gods a surume with other seafood in the new year. Surume can be preserved for a long time like beef jerky. It's a typical snack food in Japan. Octopus is also a popular fish in Japan. It's not considered strange, but it is a familiar fish used for sushi, boiling and baking. There is a Japanese phrase "Like a boiled octopus" which means an angry person with a red face. Usually the phrase is used humorously. Squid & octopus consist of pure protein and no fat. They are healthy foods. They will not kill you. I recommend selling more of them in America. People should cook them in their homes. Fortunately octopuses live only at sea. If they would have lived on shore, people would fear them because their appearance is grotesque.

Terrible sour food "Umeboshi"

Japanese pickled plum "Umeboshi" is the food with the most sour in all the world. If American people eat an umeboshi, they will say with a distorted face, "I will never eat again." But in Japan an umeboshi is a popular and useful food in all seasons and everywhere. It is also a very healthy food. The Japanese plum "Ume" is very different from a general plum or an apricot. It is not sweet. People never eat a raw ume because it contains poison. I will explain umeboshi which is made with raw umes and salt. The raw umes are salted for about two months. Ume vinegar seeps out of them. Next, the umes are taken out and dehydrated by sunlight. Then, the dried umes are soaked in ume vinegar. Sometimes perilla leaves are added. The process is repeated at least twice. From long ago umeboshi has been used to prevent the spoiling of rice. people pack an umeboshi in rice for lunch. When people lose their appetites, they eat umeboshi with their meals. The acid maked the stomach work actively. Umeboshi is a strong acid, but it makes alkaline in the body. In Japan umeboshi is used in some foods, such as gum, candy, snacks and others. Umeboshi is a great invention of Japanese people from long ago. In March we can see pretty blossoming of Ume trees. There are three colors pink, red and white. If your stomach not used to eating Umeboshi your belly and anus will blossom red, pink and white also, ho ho!

REALLY Fresh Sushi (still alive?)

This is when you select a fish, swimming in a tank and show your choice to the chef. He will net the fish, and crack it on the head with the handle of his knife to stun it. He then cuts it open and cleans out the guts, but the fish still moves. He pour saki down the throat and this activates nerves that make the tail and head wiggle even if fish die. The taste is sweet from rice wine, and serve over rice.

Pickled Sea Cucumbers

Some American will say "It looks like a giant grey booger" but when you taste them, it is yummy. Its pickled and sliced on a plate with seaweed garnish. It is very expensive however but you can try a sample in most place, before ordering!

Horse Sashimi

Horse meat, yes its so. Steamed to kill germs, then cooled and brushed with raw egg and sprinkled with seasame seeds. Sometimes creamed with raw egg and cheese and served inside hollowed out horse hoof with shallots. Most American will not eat, thinking "I am to eat Mr Ed!!"

Uroyuo Gamaai "Eyeball Treats"

These most often are pickled fish eyes, served on a cracker or flatbread. Some eat right from plastic pouch for a light snack. For an entree Eyeball Treats are also made from boiled and pickled cow eyes, horse eyes, or sometimes shark eyes. Can also be floated in soups or serve on a toothpick at cocktail party.

Otsumami "Beer Snacks"

These are called so because they are often served in bars, clubs and taverns with your beer as a compliment. There are dozens of kinds, including above mentioned fish eyeballs. Some others include Sardines in boiled milk and honey, whole baby octopus im rum paste sauce, cow nose or horse nose soup, rice crackers with salmon eggs and milk, dried soy nuts with wasabi powder, soft shelled crab with cherries, and squid hoods stuffed with olive paste.

Natto "Fermented Soybean Surprise"

The natto test: Many AmerIcan has been rated according to whether he or she could eat natto. Natto is made from fermented soybeans and has a sticky, slimy texture that produces lots of fine strings between clumps and makes the whole mess hard to eat. Some people are gross out by the texture, others by the bad smell. About 50% of Japanese--especially those residing in the Kanto region--don't like either! The Smell is sometime like old socks or bad feet smell.

Cornu Pizzu "Corn Pizza"

This is a rice cracker crust, with oyster sauce and topped with corn, plums, and crickets. Then a layer of bean curd and cheese is applied to the top and it is broiled and served with lemon wedges. Most Americans again will eat, if you do not let them know what is made from!

Rapu Satuma

These look like a potato chip, but flavor is of tuna, shrimp, or crab, and glazed with sugar coating. Not made from potato but slices of carrot, yam, beet or cucumber then heavily coated in fish flavored powder and sealed with the sugar glaze. The taste of salty fish combined with sugar is actually delicious and again try before you turn away because of the desciption.

Pocari Sweat "Refreshment Water"

This is supposed to be a gatorade type drink but the label has English on it stating "This is sweet like a reproduction of human sweat, to nourish you and make you hydrate" and also "styled with the appropriate density that is close to human body fluid, it can soak inside you immediately. The can then advises you: Enjoy this taste at work, when play a sport, after sex, or during a bath. It is maufacture by a drugcompany called Otsuka Pharmaceutical Chemicals, Ltd. and the ingredients are listed as: Water, sugar, corn juice, citric acid, lactose, sucrose, glucose, vitamin c, potassium, and "various human liquid simulations".

Guang Zao "Yellow Grass Jelly Drink"

This smells like amonia only not so strong. Lemon flavor but you also taste plants. You must shake before serving, or the jelly will not mix with the fluid and you will have a slime at the bottom of the bottle. You also see blades of lemon grass floating inside.

Yan Yan Cream Snacks

Wheat cracker sticks that are greasy with coconut and palm oil. So naturally they taste great. They come with this strawberry creamy stuff that you must dip the sticks into. there's not nearly enough creamy stuff. The packaging is very deceptive that way. Also comes in chocolate and vanilla-flavored. The chocolate kind isn't so great as the chocolate isn't of the best quality.

Pocky

Again a wheat cracker stick, in America you can find Strawberry coated, cherry, vanilla and chocolate. This chocolate is great not like the Yan Yan chocolate. In Japan they have more variety of flavor such as pineapple, mango, seaweed, celery, and shrimp Pocky.

Ho-Maid Snaku Crush

I do not know why these are called "Crush" since they are soft cakes, much like American Twinkie cakes, but filled with pineapple jelly and contains sunflower seeds, raisens and seaweed mixed to make a crisp shell around the outside. They taste salty when you first bite, and then you taste the pineapple sugar sauce inside. Good!

Go! Coku Super Candy "The Super Cola Lift Up"

Very sour! They are individually-wrapped candies that are the sourest things ever eaten. More sour than War Heads or Sour Patch Kids. When you put one in your mouth you're okay at first and then all the sudden you're convulsing. (I was leaning against a wall when I ate one, and hit my head on the wall by accident.) Your mouth shrinks like a lemon face. Your jaw will hurt and eyes can water. They come in blue plastic pouches with many warnings and a picture of a little girl screaming "Oh! Go! Coku!" with a little blast shooting from her mouth. I am not kidding these are like nothing you have ever had!

Go! Alive Baby Juice

This name sounds disgusting and it is. Clear "cherry" flavored jellied drink, with 2 to 3 whole baby squids suspended in it, and multi colored (purple, green, orange) geletin balls floating in it also. It tastes like cough medicine flavor and has warnings to not serve to children because they can choke on the baby squids if they swallow the without chewing them first. There is also a "lime" flavor with baby crickets and "blueberry" (I put in quotes as it tastes not like fruity but as medicine tastes!) which contains baby shrimp. You do not taste the seafood just a slimy medicine taste that crunches when you chew the "babies" in the liquid.

Kokku Creamy Stew Chips

These chips are soggy, supposed to taste like "clam onion stew" but the taste is more like old sour milk. They are chewy and smell like fermented vegetables. They also come in Chicken Stew (tastes like eating wet grass) and Pork Stew (tastes like rancid bacon) which are equally bad tasting!

Takoyaki "Burnt Octopus Ball"

These taste good, they are sphere shaped pancake batter with lots of octopus tentacles, ginger, fish scales, and garlic and deep fried, and coated with a delicious sauce which I do not know the origins of. Sometimes they are served flaming to your table and garnished with lavender flower petals and rice cakes.

Flavory food "Kashiwa-gohan"

In Japan, we usually eat boiled rice which is simple white rice. But sometimes we cook boiled rice mixed with other ingredients, for example meat, beans, mushrooms and chestnuts. I will explain the typical mixed rice "Kashiwa-gohan" which is made with chicken, vegetables and rice. About 40years ago, when many Japanese were living in poverty. "Kashiwa-gohan" was a special food used only for a celebration. Now we cook it often, because we can buy chicken all the time. "Kasiwa" means chicken and "Gohan" means boiled rice. The mixed vegetable is green onions, mushrooms and carrots. The recipe says to cut all vegetables to the size of small beans, and boil until they are soft. Cut raw chicken, including skin and liver, to the same size, and boil until they are cooked through. Add the chicken to the vegetables, along with some soy sauce and sugar. Boil again until they are richly flavored. Put them on hot rice and mix them until the rice turns brown. In the old days, usually people who cooked "Kashiwa-gohan" used a hen, which was too old to produce eggs, as the meat for this recipe.

Fried Pork "Tonkatsu"

The Japanese food "Tonkatsu" came into being throughout Japan after the 2nd World War. The word consist of two parts, "ton" means pork and "katsu" means cutlet. My dictionary defined as "a breaded and fried pork cutlet." In Japan tonkatsu are sold in most supermarkets with tempura of several kinds. Many popular restaurants provide a tonkatsu with rice. We sometimes cook tonkatsu in our kitchen because the tonkatsu which is cooked there is better tasting than that sold at the store. We cook tonkatsu by this process. Prepare thin cut pork, and take out the bone. Pound it with a wooden pestle until it is very thin. Sprinkle salt, pepper and flour on the pork and rub them in. Coat with beaten eggs to make the breading stick, then dip the pork in bread crumbs. Fry it in hot oil. When it is brown, the process is done. You should be eat it with shredded cabbage because this is healthy. I can easily cook tonkatsu at my apartment because I can buy the ingredients at a nearby supermarket.

Healthy Rubber "Tofu"

Soybean is one of the most important foods for Japanese people. From long ago people produced some foods from soybeans, such as soy sauce, soy bean paste, tofu and natto. Now soy sauce has spread also to America. We can buy it at nearby supermarkets. Tofu is a popular food in Japan, but it was introduced from China about 1,000 years ago. Tofu is produced by this method. Soybeans are ground, next they are steamed. Then they are pressed with a cloth filter. The soy's nutrient goes out into the liquid which is called "soy milk." Soy milk is a nutritious drink. Old people found a method for congealing it. The milk is changed to tofu because the liquid of chloridize magnesium is added. From long ago tofu was sold only at the shop where it was produced from soybeans, because it is eaten raw and is easily spoiled. But due to the progress of packaging methods, now we can buy it everywhere at supermarkets. Tofu is called a meat of the field because it consists of high quality protein. Certainly it is a healthy food. When I enjoyed dinner with my American friends, I put tofu in the typical Japanese food, sukiyaki. But my friends ate only a little because it tasted too plain and was strangely soft and rubbery "like eating erasers" they said.

And there you have a strange sampling of Japanese Food!!! =============================================================================== [c] 2001+ Brain Damage Studios c/o icebrkr@eskimo.com (Andrew Krepela) Please E-Mail me if you have something to add here!!