Time to write about Japanese food.
Long ago, the Chinese taught the Japanese to grow rice. Not exactly out of the goodness of their hearts. History, as always, was driven by economics. So the first rice the Japanese grew wasn’t for eating — it was to pay tribute to China. China wouldn’t accept payment in any other currency back then.
And then rice sort of caught on. Along with Chinese chopsticks and soy sauce.
But you’ll remember that Japan was always a very separate country. Which is why a lot of things arrived from the mainland several centuries late. Eggs, for example, weren’t eaten until the 15th century. They say there was even a legend about a man who ate an egg and went to hell. That’s how it was.
The first sweets appeared in the 14th century. Apparently European missionaries used hard candy to spread Christianity fairly successfully.
When the Japanese were shown, in 1854, that you could drink milk, it shocked a lot of them. Roughly the way you’d feel if someone in front of you downed two glasses of warm blood with nothing to chase it. Though in 1915 they invented Calpis, a milky soda, and things got moving somehow.
In 1870, in Yokohama, the first Japanese bread was baked. Before that, nobody on the islands had ever seen bread. And bread, too, never really caught on.
Anyway, you could tell a lot of stories about the history of Japanese cuisine. There’s a good long-read on it out there — if you’re into this stuff, definitely look it up.
So what about now?
In Japan it’s fairly hard to buy decent bread. Only in the big stores. Same with milk and cheese. A properly stinky blue cheese is far harder to find there than back in Russia. And it’ll cost far more, too.
On the other hand, Japan buys up 70% of the most expensive coffee varieties. And a whole lot of that proper, pedigree Australian beef.
But really, the everyday food is still rice. Every store has onigiri — little rice balls stuffed with all sorts of things. About a dollar, maybe a dollar and a half.
And noodles. Ramen, I mean. Funny enough, ramen at my usual spot back home is about a third cheaper than in Tokyo. There it starts at around five bucks for the smallest portion in its most basic form.
Now let me clear up a couple of misconceptions.
Do the Japanese eat spicy food? No, they don’t. Spicy food is eaten in Southeast Asia, which Japan has nothing to do with.
Do the Japanese eat strange or strange-smelling things? No. Japanese cuisine is about as free of perversions as it gets. Everyone is obsessed with freshness and natural flavor. You can confidently point at any spot on the menu and you’re guaranteed to be served something tasty and fresh.
So if you’re heading to Japan to eat something “weird and out there,” this is not the country for it.
The one genuinely strange dish, I’d say, is natto. Fermented soybeans. Tastes like fermented soybeans. And the texture is like snot. But that’s probably just because I’m not used to it.