Will Miss #523 - no "gluten-free"

The irony is that a lot of food in Japan is naturally gluten-free due to the "rice culture".

One of my former coworkers asked me what I was doing during the March 11, 2011 earthquake and I told him that I was baking muffins. He said, "I bet you were," in a way which patronizingly said, 'you prairie muffin housewife, you'. When men become chefs of all sorts, they are masters who are perfecting a craft. When women do it at home, they're good little wifeys fulfilling their role and duty. I wanted to let him know how unintentionally condescending he was being, but I'm convinced that people who are lacking in self-awareness cannot have it forced upon them by others. I let it go.

Nonetheless, I do like to cook and bake, and it's not to make my husband happy. It's an exercise in creativity. In fact, some of my most satisfying endeavors are inedible to him with his particular tastes and purely created for me or others. It's one of the reasons that vegetarians are interesting to cook for when we have them to our home as guests. The restrictions that are placed on you force you to think outside the box. And, then, there are the gluten-free types...

Since coming back to the U.S., I've witnessed firsthand the gluten-free fad, and it is a fad. Yes, there are people who have celiac disease and are actually made sick by gluten, but there are also people who just see a bandwagon and are jumping on it. Gluten-free is the carb-free and low-carb of the 2010's. Before that, we had low-fat and fat-free. While I've actually found the challenges of baking gluten-free somewhat interesting, I find all of the labels on products that never had gluten pronouncing their absence of evil wheat protein ridiculous.

I am glad that I was spared this sort of happy nonsense in Japan, and I doubt that they'll ever adopt this particular fad. In fact, the main food fad related to diet that I saw in Japan was about reduced cholesterol products or those with collagen enhancement. I miss the fact that this sort of dietary restriction was rare there, and never in my experience quite so broad as things like gluten-free.

Won't Miss #438 - "power spots"

I'm all for New Age spirituality. In fact, I'm really pretty good with any spiritual belief system folks want to embrace. The thing I'm not such a fan of (besides pushing your faith onto others) is blatant expansion of a belief system in order to make a quick buck. That would include things like velvet Jesus paintings and the virgin Mary nightlights as well as power spots. The notion of power spots is relatively new, but it's a craze that has exploded in Japan in the 21st century. Japan seems to have more power spots than it has people to visit them and time and again students would tell me they'd visit a place, hold a wedding there, or housebreak their dog at some particular place because it was a "power spot". The basic notion is that you can go to these places to collect energy (perhaps mystical, perhaps otherwise) and that being in such areas is better in some fashion, but it really does seem that this is about tourism and people swallowing the idea that a particular area has some special draw.

Japanese people can't see, smell, hear, taste, or feel the power in a power spot, but that doesn't stop them from going to them and advocating that I visit them as well and I won't miss that.

Will Miss #390 - food fads

Bagna Cauda on display, the big fad of 2011.

All countries have fads, and I'm sure many have food fads, though Japan's seem to occur with greater intensity and frequency than I recall experiencing back home. Many of them get started by a T.V. program which highlights a particular dish, restaurant or food. Sometimes it is impossible to trace, but once the ball gets rolling, everyone jumps on the fad with a passion and the tattered remnants remain for years afterward. Since coming here, among other food fads, I've experienced the ascendance of crepes, Belgian waffles, tiramisu and mangoes. These food fads are not like diet food fads, though the banana diet was all the rage a few years ago. They are simply everyone "discovering" a new dish or food and going nuts for it at the same time.

I'll miss these food fads, which come and go with a high frequency.

Will Miss #297 - obsession with "first/new"

The Japanese have a preoccupation with whatever is "new" which I find interesting (and sometimes amusing). It likely started with their own harvests and the value they attached to sampling the first rice crop of the year, but has since expanded to encompass the "new" comestibles from other countries. Around late November, signs will start going up everywhere about the Beaujolais Nouveau being at hand. You can even buy it in convenience stores.

I'll miss this obsession with getting ones hands on everything from "new rice" to the freshly-spawned sanma (a fish, Pacific Saury) to French wine.