Will Miss - #493 drinking soup from a bowl

Since coming to America, my husband has refused to eat soup with a spoon. This is the result of having been "spoiled" by the Japanese custom of conveniently tipping the bowl up to ones mouth and taking a slurp. Though I have no problem at all with his doing this at home, I feel a little strange about the possibility of doing it in public. I'm going to blame the Europeans for creating nonsensical rules about soup rather than following the more pragmatic way of the Japanese (and likely other parts of Asia). As someone who is actually better with chopsticks than a spoon (I often manage to spill things on my shirt), it would save me a few stains to just up-end the bowl.

The Japanese way of drinking soup from the bowl rather than precariously ladling it up to our mouths with a spoon makes a good deal of sense, and I'll miss living in a culture in which this is considered correct manners.

Won't Miss #478 - kameboko

The kamaboko is on the left.

The most exciting time in Japan is at the beginning when all is new and wondrous. It's also the most dangerous from various points of view because you can't read or understand much of what is around you. You wander into a store and see all sorts of curiosities and wonder what is actually food and what might be a cleaning product or marital aid in disguise.

There are plastic tubes cinched with little metal ties at either end which look a lot like cheese, or, to be more accurate, "cheez", available in many shops including markets and convenience stores. If you buy one and take it home to accompany that box that clearly looked like salty crackers but ends up being some bizarrely sweet crispy thing, you're in for a shock. Kamaboko is fish paste. It is supposedly akin to gefilte fish, which I will never sample knowing that it is a ethnically diverse cousin to kamaboko. My, admittedly limited, experience with it, was that it not only tasted like fish that had expired on the beach and left lying there for quite some time. It also had a rubbery and unappealing texture.

When kamaboko was served with a meal, especially the pink and white type which looks so cute and candy-like, it was always something which was an unwelcome addition and I won't miss it.

Will Miss #455 - cut-up food

Among the many failings that American's possess in the eyes of their European and Euro-centric neighbors is the manner in which they cut their food up. We fail in one of two ways. The primary way is that we swap hands to use the knife and fork so that we are eating with the dominant hand. This is apparently inferior to the European manner in which one keeps the knife attached in one hand and the fork in the other throughout the meal. The secondary, and apparently far more reprehensible way, is that some people (horror or horrors) cut up all of their food before tucking in so that they can simply eat without pausing to slice each bite one at a time. When an American cuts everything up before eating, they are behaving like incompetent infants who lack proper eating skills. In Japan, well, they also cut up all of their food before they eat it and that is just fine because they're doing it in the service of eating with two sticks. The Japanese, unsurprisingly, don't look down on Americans based on how they use a knife and fork.

The fact that all of the food in Japan is served cut into pieces that can be easily manipulated with chopsticks not only makes the experience of eating easier, but it also takes the tiresome and petty judgment of how one cuts ones food as an indication of cultural superiority off the table, and I will miss it.

Won't Miss #440 - soup slurping

This is Soup Curry from Dominika in Shinjuku. It is awesome, and unslurpable... at least until you eat all the big pieces. 

Ethnocentrism makes itself most obvious at the dinner table. It's one of the few places that people can feel 100% justified in their disapproval. It seems that humans decided a long time ago that the consumption of food must be full of rules and every culture has different rules. From the time of childhood, we're told not to put our elbows on the table, not to play with our food, not to talk with our mouth full, and what to do with our utensils. With all of that open and often finger-wagging from the day we could sit at a table and eat, is it any wonder we feel it's okay to disapprove of the way others are eating? One of the big things we're encouraged not to do in the West is eat noisily and then you come to Japan and people are supposed to slurp their soup.

This is an utterly ethnocentric and small thing and I know that I should be bigger than that, but the bottom line is that I really don't enjoy the sound of other people loudly consuming their food and I won't miss soup slurping. 

Will Miss #433 - tsukune

As part of my goodbye socializing, I went to a teppanyaki resturant with a few of my former students, now my friends. Teppanyaki, incidentally, is when meat and vegetables are prepared on a large flat grill in front of you by a skilled chef. I think it tends to be rather theatrical in America and is merely carried out with great skill in Japan. However, I'm not a big meat eater so I have limited experience with teppanyaki. At this restaurant (a great place in Takadanobaba called Daitokai Honkan which I heartily recommend), I ordered a tofu chicken "healthy lunch" and one of my former students remarked that burgers in Japan are different from those in the West because the usual burger of pressed meat is too dense and strong for Japanese tastes. Nowhere is the ability to dilute ground meat in a flavorful manner present for me than in tsukune, a chicken meatball which is grilled yakitori-style. 

Tsukune is one of my favorite items when I go to yakitori-ya (grilled chicken restaurants/shops), and I will miss the flavor and texture. While I can make a good chicken meatball, I'm sure I could never recapture the flavor imparted by the grilling process nor could I easily get the "tare" sauce that it is served or prepared with that is sold in Japan. 

Won't Miss #267 - "clean your plate" manners

One of my students did a home stay in a mid-western state and made a simple Japanese-style meal for her host family. She said that she thought they didn't like it and felt bad because they didn't eat everything that she served them. Another one of my students visited a former boss and he served her a huge quantity of rather oily eel which was far more food than she could comfortably eat, but she forced it all down anyway. In Japan, the host or hostess will feel bad or that you didn't enjoy the food if you don't clean your plate, even when the issue may be that your stomach isn't big enough or that you aren't keen on the type of food in general. It's good manners in Japan to eat everything you are served so as not to insult the cook.*

I won't miss the way in which one is obliged to eat more than one wants in order to spare the host's feelings or ensure that no insult has been given.

*Note: This situation is complicated by the fact that most people do not serve themselves from a central plate or bowl but tend to be served pre-proportioned sizes individually. In the U.S., we can often fill our own plates with portions of our own choosing. Generally your host will portion the food out for you in many social situations (though not all) in Japan.