Mmmm Mmmm Good

One thing we were looking forward to when we knew we were coming back to Japan was all the delicious food.  But I have to admit, there are some Japanese foods that we are not such big fans of, and here are a few of them.  Enjoy:

The first one that comes to mind as almost universally detested by non-Japanese is natto. Natto is fermented soy beans (I'd say rancid).  They are stinky, brown and gooey.  When you pick them up with your chopsticks they trail strings like melted mozzarella.  They are most commonly eaten at breakfast with a little soy sauce and spicy mustard.  It is not uncommon to see kids at the preschools with little threads around their mouths (and a nasty smell on their breath) as a hint of what they had for breakfast.  Terence actually will eat natto, but it has the distinction of being one of the first foods we've found that Willem does not like (although some of the following have since fallen into that category).

Tororo (or as we like to call it, Tengu snot) - Tororo is a grated mountain yam.  A few weeks ago we visited Mt. Takao, a popular nature area near here.  Tororo is a specialty, and especially during the winter it features in many of the dishes.  Takao is also famous for long nosed goblins called tengu, so when we were served a dish of Tororo at the restaurant, we lovingly renamed it.

Eel guts and tiny squid - Last weekend we stayed at a traditional Japanese inn in Narita while visiting friends from our first time in Japan.  These inns serve kaiseki ryori, a traditional meal of many small dishes of different things.  One dish we got included two tiny (as in about 1 1/2 inches long) simmered squids and some eel guts on a stick.  This second one was especially appealing as on our walk through Narita to the inn we stopped by an eel restaurant to watch two workers preparing live eels at a table outside. 

Continuing in the vein of small seafood, a very popular item, especially with kids at the preschools, is shirasu, tiny, tiny little fish (perhaps 1/4 inch long, not much more than a white thread with two black eyespots).  The preschool kids like them mixed into their rice.  The boys' breakfast at the inn included a dish with just the fish topped with what appeared to be soy sauce.

Now realize that these are just a couple of things we find hard to swallow (literally) here in Japan.  A majority of the food here is great.  For example, even the most mediocre sushi from a convenience store here is as good or better that what we can get back home.