Food!

What does one think of on a foggy rainy day? Food! Of course! And there is quite a large choice here in Japan, provided you have a broad enough definition of food.

Fish there is plenty of, of all shapes and sizes. There are even little dried and salted fish in the japanese mix you can get here. If you look closely you can see them on the packet. There are in fact small packets of little dried (but not salted, I assume) fish hanging in the dog and cat food section too, but I am sure a true Japanese can tell the difference.

Also in the fish section, but this time on the "gourmet" side (next to the sushi), is were this is sold :

Now this photo is of seaweed washed up on a beach, but they sell it all washed and wrapped in plastic, and quite expensive. Looks a bit tough and seaweedy for my taste, so will pass on that.

Another wonderful find are the shops that sell hot potato pats, fried potato-on-a-stick and tempura pats. These are not very expensive and are extremely popular with businessmen and school children. There also sell little pies in the shape of fish but I'm not really that fond of fish yet.

It is very important to accept gifts, of course, and so when you are offered a little green pat with black specks, you just hope it's not too gooey. It turns out they are not bad at all (in fact I bought myself a small packet). They are sweet, and filled with jam, and coated in sugar. And THEY are the famous sweet bean cakes! And as we have the recipe I can try making them someday....

The other food I kind of reluctantly tasted was the sashimi they had at the JAMSTEC party on Thursday. I still have not gotten over the experience on the boat. However it proved to be excellent and I joined right in the fan club around the sashimi table. This also allowed me to chat with Florence Pradillon, the only other french-speaker there. She has been in Japan for 3 years now and still can hardly understand the language (bad news), and said that she still has trouble with ship food too (good news in a way, as I don't feel so wimpy about not liking the food).