Japanese kids don’t like piman…

Japanese kids don’t like Piman. Piman (ピーマン), for those of you who don’t know, is a type of green pepper. It looks like a small bell pepper. Funny how these same kids can eat things like natto (fermented soy beans, google it…) and raw squid, but feel disgusted at a pepper.

The reason I’m bringing this up? Being back in Japan I’ve started to notice a few eating habits of the Japanese, and I thought I’d share my findings.

1) The variety show

One of the first major differences you’ll notice when eating in Japan (aside from the different food), is the way the food comes. In England and most other western cultures, we tend to have our food in one container, usually in a bowl or on a plate.

Japan has a tendency to ship all it’s food to the connoisseur in small portions. Not only does this make an interesting change of pace (for us foreigners at least), but you soon realise how many different things are passed your way. Entrees, side dishes, pickled vegetables, salads, rice, all these come in small but carefully constructed portions. This happens in restaurants, and even in family homes. Most days you’ll get to try something new. It’s kind of like being at a permanent party buffet.

I suppose that despite being harder to manage if you live alone (lets face it, a simple donburi is much easier), its still a lot of fun, and it also allows (and encourages) more variety in your diet and probably more of the vitamins/minerals/vegetables and good stuff you need every day.

Mind you, I wouldn’t want to do the washing up…

2) Grapes of doom!

Your average Japanese Joe will happily scarf down a variety of foods with their outer layer on, whole shrimps with the shell and head still on, fish with the head/skin/bones et. al., octopus with the skin still attached (with it’s mucas-like membrane, yuk!). Nothing phases them.

Except grape skins of course.

Yes, it seems the Japanese populace cannot seem to devour a grape with the skin still attached. I have watched many a time, and probably close to 95% of the people I’ve seen take the grape and peel it until it is just the fleshy fruit, and then eat it, discarding the skin. It boggles the mind, I mean I know some people don’t like the skins, but this is a huge shift in numbers. You’d think with the things they eat, grape skins would be way down the list.

On a related note potato skins (sweet and normal) seem to be a no-no too. Yet, I’ve seen my students eat (to try and gross me out, mind) orange peel and banana skin. It’s strange to say the least.

3) Normal is as normal does

(Stolen from Peter Chong’s site via Google images!)

If you’re not familiar with Japan, you’ve probably no doubt heard of her ‘strange’ and ‘exotic’ cuisine. People will have no doubt said something along the lines of, “(eww), they eat raw fish all the time.” Whilst you do get raw fish sometimes with sushi and shashimi (as well as raw egg, raw beef, raw horse, raw vegetables, raw chicken to name a few), it’s not as common as some people think. However, these do make a part of the Japanese diet, and it’s interesting to note what is normal here compared to what is normal back home.

In a typical Japanese household, you’ll most likely get rice, miso soup and some kind of fish most days. The rice/miso soup combination is popular as breakfast. Yes, breakfast.

In fact, rice is usually a 3 times a day thing. On of the good things about the average Japanese diet is that despite all the crap that they have, they seem to balance it out with an incredibly balanced amount of veg and other healthy things.

4) Convieniently bad for you

OK, not so healthy stuff. Walk into any convenience store and you’ll find the magazines, toiletries and stuff. Everything after that is food and drink. Frozen ready-meal type food, soft drinks, beer, spirits, sweets, crisps (potato chips), pot noodles, beer snacks, canned coffee with enough sugar (real or fake) to kill a horse, cakes filled with cream, bread with chocolate, bread with strawberry cream, bread with cream, sandwiches with strawberries and cream in them, bread with fried foods in them, ready meals and bento, and a section of fried foods by the checkout.

The local convenience store is a dieters NIGHTMARE. With all this bad food at their disposal (and they buy it, I see them! I has proof!), it begs the question, “How do they stay so thin?”.

Aside from thinking the population of Japan has outgrown the need for food and merely puts this on for show, I’d say it’s a combination of other eating habits and factors of their lives. Always moving, exercising a lot, eating a lot of good stuff with the bad (vegatables and fruit for example), and most importantly (I think), a good dose of willpower (or upbringing) to not eat the junk food all the time.

5) Natto

I was hesitant to put a picture of natto on the site because it repels me so much. As one of my friends commented about natto, “believes natto is so terrible it awoke his mental powers and was then offensive to all six senses”. Never was a truer statement uttered.

Natto, for those with the stomach to learn more after seeing the picture, are fermented soy-beans.

Aside from the horrid look, they smell like an 17th century French cheese market, and have the texture of, well, you figure it out. It’s all sticky and stringy and, well ewww.

Aside from that, if you can get over the initial look/smell/texture, then natto is actually palatable. In fact, they can be pretty nice. I just can’t get over the whole look/smell/texture issue myself.

And what the hell is this? Ewww, no, no, no, no, no-no-no NO!

(for those who can’t read it [although it is in English as well], that says ‘natto ice cream’.

*shudder*