Tabemasho!!!

Food is so interesting. I love how different cultures are able utilize the plants and animals which are able to grow and live within respective regions. I love how necessary it is to eat, and how everyone needs to eat in order to stay alive. Some very interesting types of dishes have come out of this necessity of daily living, and experiencing the delicacies and unusualities (new word?) that come out of different countries is one aspect of culture that is so much fun to experience. With all the traveling that I’ve done so far, and all the different types of foods that I’ve been fortunate enough to experience, I feel that I can stomach just about anything. From eating raw seal liver to over seasoned dog meat (no, I don’t know what kind of dog it was, but for the sake of this story, we’ll say he wasn’t a very nice dog who probably had it coming), I feel that a part of me has become immune to eating new and strange foods. I really have to remind myself once in a while what I’m actually eating.

This weekend, my friend Hitoshi and I had gone to Otaru, a quaint little port city on the west coast of Hokkaido. Lunch was the first stop, and sushi was on our minds. Hitoshi and his family seem to know everyone who has lived or been to Shimizu. The sushi chef at the restaurant used to live in Shimizu, so Hitoshi and the chef had a long talk. As they were talking, pieces of sushi kept magically appearing in front of me, delicately placed on a long green leaf. I’ve eaten sushi a good number of times, and anytime I go for sushi, I love to have the real thing; slabs of raw fish placed on rice held together by thin sheets of seaweed. Most of what I had eaten, I knew what it was, and could easily enjoy, yet there were a couple that I had know idea what it was I was eating. One piece of sushi, which I was particularly curious about, really made me question if I actually liked this delicacy or not. Seeing that Hitoshi and the chef were still very engaged in conversation, I decided to eat it anyways. After finishing the last piece of sushi, which must have taken at least 10 minutes to chew, (hey, you try swallowing a huge piece of raw octopus under a minute) I had asked Hitoshi about the strange sushi with the white goopy stuff. He was a little reluctant to tell me, but after I relentlessly persisted for an answer, he informed me it was fish sperm that I had eaten. Hmmm…. Another one to cross off the list, I suppose? I would be really interested in meeting the person to invent this sushi and know what he was thinking.

I really enjoy coming to my desk after classes are finished, and finding little Japanese snacks garnishing my books and papers. After someone has been on a business trip, its customary to bring back some treats from different parts of Japan, and present them to the people you work with. Some days I have 4 well-wrapped treats on my desk from who knows where, and from who knows who. The other day after class, one of my students came up to me and presented a dried flattened squid in a small clear plastic bag. I’ve gotten cookies from students before, but this squid was definitely a first. I will have it later.