Comprehensive list of all the bizarre foods I have encountered in Japan

I thought that this might interest some of you, or maybe make your stomach turn.

Sashimi: sliced raw fish. not really that weird, since you can get this in the states, but I'm starting small. This also includes octopus, squid and clams

Ikura: Raw salmon eggs. Yuk.

Hot Sake with Fish: Already mentioned in previous post.

Sea Lantern: Some sort of urchin like thing that tastes like ocean water

Jellyfish: Texture is what you would expect, chewy. Technically not Japanese food since I had it at a Taiwanese place. Pretty tasty actually.

Chicken cartilage: You know when you eat a drumstick, theres that chewy stuff around the joint. They put that on a skewer and serve it as yakitori here. I'm not wild about it.

Raw egg over Japanese sweet potato: Raw egg is slimy. The sweet potatoes here are slimy. What's not to love?

Fermented bonito flakes: Bonito is a type of fish. They ferment it with a fungus that dries it out and allows it to remain edible for a long time. Looks like the shavings you put in a hamster cage, tastes pretty good.

Natto: Fermented soybeans. Eaten for breakfast with mustard and onions. Taste depends on where it is from.

Grilled pregnant fish: I can't remember the name of these right now, but they look kinda like sardines, except they are full of eggs. When served you get the entire fish; head, tail and all.

Sea snake: not so great

Tripe stew: Also available in the states. However the weirdness was accentuated by having it for breakfast.

Onsen egg: An egg, cooked in hot water direct from the earth. In theory this is an appealing idea. In practice, it isn't that far away from a raw egg. I can't stand to have my omelette runny, so I am not impressed in the least.

Lichen wrapped sushi: Not sure of the species, I think that it's a Leptogium, but definately some sort of cyanolichen. This was also served by itself as a side dish with a sesame sauce. Good.

Dried seafoods of various kinds: Popular as snack foods here.

I had the next four things all at one sitting while at an izakaya (Japanese style bar) in Kyoto.

Extremely fresh shellfish of some sort: One of the pieces contracted when I touched it with my chopsticks. Kinda chewy.

Fried crocodile: Not sure what else it tastes like, or why they were serving it for that matter. I guess because they can.

Frog legs: It really does taste like chicken.

And the winner for weirdest Japanese food....

Raw horse meat: It's served frozen. You dip it in soysauce with ginger and garlic. Pretty good, although it feels a little weird to admit that. It's going to be hard to say "I'm a vegetarian" when I get back to the states, although I do plan to resume that practice. They put meat in just about everything here, and I am a little tired of it.

For the record, I was offered and turned down whale at this izakaya by my host in Kyoto. I have a line that I won't cross, and that is it. Primates are also on the same side, as well as anything else that could potentially be an endangered species. I asked to see where whale was on the menu, so that I would know the kanji for future reference. It wasn't on the menu. You have to be able to ask for it. This is a highly political issue, and I suspect that maybe they shouldn't have been serving that particular item.

So there you have it. My adventures in Japanese food. Somehow, non of this has given me any sort of upset stomache. Although after the izakaya experience, I thought that I might. Probably more a psychological thing than effect of any food that I ate.

some long overdue pictures

This is the guy who was selling the toad oil up on Tsukuba mountain. I actually got to see the sales pitch(performance) on another visit and snapped this photo.


One example of the interesting mix of people that Tokyo creates: Very proper businessman shoulder to shoulder with some party girls who were nodding off. If you look closely at the one on the right I think you can see some drool.


The Northern Japanese Alps.


The obligatory dead insect photo. Not sure how I made it this far into the summer without putting one of these on here. This is Tilachlidiopsis nigra for those of you interested in such things. For those of you not interested just call it Neal.


The Hanabi fireworks. I don't know if you have tried or not, but it is quite hard to take good pictures of fireworks. Anyway.....


The pine islands of Matsushima.

In a weird twist, sushi used to be anything but raw fish. It was actually (yet another) fermented product. So instead of it being super fresh, with nothing done to it aside from the slicing, it was intentionally "rotted". Ahhhh Japan. Consequently it is quite tasty. The fish is on the other side of the rice cake, but that is a dried shrimp you see, not sure what the blue stuff is. Since this is Japan we are talking about it is probably something like flakes of dried sea slugs or the diced plumes of pheasant feathers. This was from the foray with the Amateur Cordyceps Club in Aomori.

Coming soon (hopefully) some pictures of Kyoto, the city I want to spend the last of my days in.

a quick one

Wow, two posts in the same day..... Anyway.

On my way back from Chiba yesterday, I was switching trains at Akihabara station. Yes, the same one where I encountered the drag queens. They weren't there this time, but there was some music going on outside that came drifting into the station. Now, I am a sucker for music in general, and street musicians in particular, so I wandered over and gave them a listen. It was a trio, two guitars and an upright bass. As I listened, I realized that I knew the song that they were playing. It was something by the David Grisman Quintet, from their first album. I was impressed and surprised, and it made my day in a small way, to find something familiar in a faraway land. I noted in the previous post that my time was rapidly coming to a close. The flip side of that is I have been here awhile, and the icy tendrils of homesickness have made the inevitable inroads on my heart. Not that I long to leave (far from it!!!) but I do miss the people and places that have shaped me and brought me here now. So, gentle reader (and some of you not so gentle. You know who you are!), know that you are in my thoughts and I look forward to our next meeting, where and whenever that may be.

Oh yeah, you can check out the band that was jamming here