Tokyo Blond: Do I Have to Gut It First?

Last Friday Russell and I went out to dinner with our friend, the baker. Not only did he bring his daughter, a rare privilege, but he also brought a cake and a bottle of wine. I brought Russell. I was feeling a little empty handed.

The baker is so incredibly nice. We are so lucky to know him. I was so honored to meet his daughter. People have told us never to expect to meet a Japanese person's family or be invited to their house. It just doesn't happen. So you can imagine my surprise when he asked if he could bring her to dinner.

She turned out to be the highlight of the dinner. Still at University (that's what they call it here), but graduating next May, she wants to have a career in International Security. Russell thought she meant like at a rock concert. Just kidding, he really thought it was selling securities for Morgan Stanley or the like. No, more like writing security policy for different countries - slightly different. It was such a great experience to have the opportunity to talk to a young person about their perspective on the possibilities of life here in Japan versus the U.S.. Like her father, she spent one year as a High School exchange student in America. She stayed with a family in Maine.

According to her, unlike the U.S. where you can have several jobs in your career, so it's OK if you don't have it all figured out when you graduate, in Japan you usually only have one job in your lifetime, so you better know what you want to do. Talk about pressure. She said they pretty much have to have it figured out by high school. High school, apparently, is where all the studying takes place, not college. This is the absolute opposite from the U.S.. I never studied in High School. Well I didn't really study in college either. Just partied. Another major difference, I suspect.

She was so bright and warm and gracious, it was yet another subtle reminder of how crass and obnoxious Americans are.

We ate at a place called "Bird Land." At first, I thought maybe "Bird Land" was code for KFC. But no, it's code for great chicken yakitori. They serve pretty much every part of the chicken on a stick, including chicken oysters, which at first I thought was going to be a clever name for something really atrocious like chicken testicles or stomach. But actually it turned out to be the best meat on the chicken, you know, that small ball of meat on the back of the chicken. Yummy! We agreed it would be best for us to eat each morsel before identifying it. This way we couldn't apply any prejudices to the food before we ate it. And since it was all chicken - I thought we'd be safe. If someone had told me I was eating calf glands before I tried sweet breads, I never would have tasted it. Everything was delicious.

Naturally, this induced a conversation about my ignorance in shopping for Japanese ingredients at the grocery store. Every week I make a point to buy a Japanese ingredient and cook with it. I usually have no idea what it is. It's part of the fun. I buy it. I bring it home. I taste it first, usually with a large glass of wine as a chaser, just in case it's nasty. And then I cook with it. Garlic and butter will make anything tasty. I mentioned how I had something in my refrigerator right now that is a total mystery but wrapped in pretty pink paper.

The baker offered to take us to the grocery store and educate me. We agreed to meet the next morning at the International Supermarket. If I hadn't been slightly tipsy and slightly intimidated by his offer I might have stopped to think twice about the International Supermarket. If I really wanted to understand Japanese products, wouldn't it be better to go to a Japanese supermarket?

But it turned out to be one of the best educational experiences for all of us. Turns out the international supermarket has a lot of Japanese products. The baker patiently explained each product, its uses and even offered suggestions on how to cook it. The fish section was especially interesting. I don't usually shop at the international super market - it's too expensive. I shop at the Wholesale local market where almost nothing is in English. The fish section is always the most intimidating. Lots of whole fish or fish heads or live fish. While I actually know how to scale and gut a fish, I'm not going to do it for Tuesday night dinner, when I can buy something already filleted. I can just imagine it now. "Honey, what did you do today?" "Oh, you know, the usual, gutted a fish. I saved the eyeballs for you."

The baker showed me several kinds of fish that don't require gutting. He explained which ones were great for BBQ and which ones were best cooked in the oven and even how to eat each of them. I was feeling much more confident now. I can do this!

He solved several mysteries for me too. Like the fact they don't have half & half in Japan. Bummer. Like which packages contain the infamous Japanese stinky beans. Every time I meet a new Japanese person and talk about food they ask me if I've tried them. Like how to tell which soy sauce is low salt. I can tell you staring at the labels for several minutes never garnered the answer. Turns out the mystery product in my refrigerator in the pretty pink wrapper is fish paste. Glad I knew that before I tried it.

He recommended specific products and brands. He even showed me the plethora of products with no calories. Apparently they're made with a special potato the human body cannot digest. They're very popular. They clean your system out. Uh, I'll save that for another time.

By the end of our tour I had a basket filled with Japanese products to try at home and a head full of knowledge. He had a can of Hansen's natural soda, my one contribution. I bought him this. Tangerine-lime - my favorite.

I was so thankful he would take the time to teach me all that. I wished we had more time so we could take him to lunch or something. But we already had other plans. I thanked him profusely, gave him a hug and gushed on about how fun this was and how much I learned. Russell agreed.

The baker said he learned a lot too. Where he lives, Nagano, they don't have the depth of products found at the International Supermarket. He was impressed by the variety, and probably by the number of ex-pats. He said he didn't feel like he was in Japan. The last time he'd been to this neighborhood was when he was a student, probably over twenty years ago. I'm guessing it's a little different now.