Sashimi and things you may be expected to eat with chopsticks…

 Before I arrived in Japan, I thought that, as chopsticks were used to eat most meals except curry rice, things would be cut into bite sized pieces first. I swiftly realised that in Japan, it is not rude to have half your meal hanging out of your mouth between your chopsticks as you bite into it. Nor is it rude to slurp tea or noodles - just the opposite, in fact, as it shows appreciation of the meal. At office enkais (drinking parties) my coworkers were always exhorting me to slurp - something which, brought up in England, I just can't do!

Some things I have attempted to eat with chopsticks

  •  Spaghetti (Japan has to be the only country in the world where I feel okay about eating spaghetti in public…)

  • Cold fried egg

  • Mochi. This is a chunky rice cake about the size of a small bar of chocolate. It is eaten at many times of year, but particularly at New Year.

  • Meat

  • Pancakes

  • Tofu

     Some things which are not quite as I knew them back home…

    Japanese food always looks beautiful. The colours are carefully chosen, the tastes are very subtle, and the textures are somewhat glutinous. The idea that food actually tastes better while hot didn't really seem to have caught on in Japan. I fondly remember watching the Christmas dinner some friends and I made our first Christmas in Japan congeal, getting colder and colder as our host family walked around the table to take photographs from every angle possible.

  • Fried eggs - often served cold.

  • Potato fries - often served still with their skin on and with a big dollop of butter on top.

  • Omelettes - often served filled with rice and with a huge dollop of tomato sauce (US=ketchup) on top

  • Apples - as well as being five times the price of an apple back home, they were also about twice the size. If you REALLY want to shock a Japanese person, try eating an apple with the skin still on. *|*

  • Crisps (US=potato chips). In Japan they come in fun flavours like chicken consomme, vegetable, tomato, shrimp, steak, cheese fondue, and seaweed.

  • Sausages. I didn't quite know what went into sausages in Japan and was much too scared to ask.

  • Bacon. Ditto the above (though my money was on at least 75% water). I presume the rest was some part of a pig…

  • Sandwiches. Convenience store sandwiches came in the following varieties: tuna and cucumber. Potato salad and ham. Cheese. Salami. Pasta salad. Meat cutlet. At restaurants, sandwiches may also include fillings such as omelette.

  • Bread. Bread was almost uniformly white and very sweet.

  • Spaghetti. As well as meat sauce, in Japan it came with interesting toppings like seafood, curry and the Japanese version of carbonara.

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