Japanese Food
Before my trip, I was familiar with some Japanese dishes—you guessed it—sushi and ramen. I also knew there was more to Japanese food, but life did not prepare me for what I experienced.
To set the stage, let me start by recapping my gastronomic background. I grew up vegetarian, eating my mom's Indian cooking for most of my childhood. Although I had tried some chicken as a kid, I started eating meat out of necessity when heading to college (in my humble opinion, vegetarian meals at dining halls were repetitive and lacked nutrition). The journey was and continues to be challenging. I still struggle with some smells, tastes, and textures of meat. My favorite dishes usually have chicken, a specific pork preparation (thank god for pepperoni), or salmon, while I struggle with chewy and "fishy" meals (such as beef, oysters, mussels, etc.). I've spent a large portion of my 20s traveling and continue to value the culinary adventure in new places. All these experiences have left me in the middle of the food spectrum. My Indian cousins would say I'm one of the most adventurous people they know regarding food, while my American friends would say I'm the most picky.
Japan with my American friends is as close as possible to my worst food nightmare.
Lucky for me, I arrive one day before everyone else. I'm exploring the food left and right and getting a sense of what I can eat. Twenty-four hours into Japan, I've had three meals of ramen, a pizza, and an egg sandwich. Yes, I'm aware I'm not very adventurous out of the gate. As soon as I thought I would be alright, my friends took me out to eat. My first meal with the larger group was at a fish market, where I was knee-deep in saltwater smells. I found some solace in getting a tuna, salmon, and salmon roe bowl, 90% of which tasted pleasant. My second meal with them is a 12(ish) course Kaiseki Ryori-esque meal (a high-end dining format where they serve a ton of small plates prepared with the freshest ingredients). My takeaway? There's such a thing as ingredients being too fresh.
Most of the meal is blacked-out images from the trauma, but there are some things I learned that will always stick with me.
First and foremost, I'm lucky to be there with a large group of friends. As the chef served us new foods, I was able to take a break and watch someone demonstrate how to eat the dish. I have a problem with navigating bones/shells and am very uncertain about what is edible and what is not.
Second, eating raw shrimp is a lot. I learned that when you break and pull out the head, something black starts to drip. I'd like to say it's just cooking juices, but I think it's shrimp brain. Like many courses, I gulped it down with a healthy amount of beer.
Third, if a restaurant has a squid in a bag on the table at the entrance, I should avoid getting attached to it. Also, squids have a reflex mechanism that causes them to wiggle and move even when dead. Squidward was not going down without a fight. As you can guess, that course was a bit traumatic for most of the group. The other squid, Jerry, was still changing colors when the chef placed it on the other table. Despite all these challenges, I'm pleased to say the taste of the squid was better than I thought it would be, but the texture was not.
Fourth, the sights and smells of fried chicken will make any meal okay. The trauma from the previous systems caused me to hesitate when the chef served a piece of fried chicken thigh. I was not entirely convinced it was chicken or that I would like it. As soon as I took a bite of the perfectly fried chicken, the crispy outside, the juicy and tender inside, and the comfort of something I had tasted before restored my confidence in my ability to finish the meal strong.
Looking back at the meal and the rest of my trip through Japan, I'm starting to appreciate the shared experience. Food is something that I'm conscious about because of my (at times) picky preferences. I'm the only one in my friend group with dietary restrictions that are not allergies. Seeing my friends react so similarly to me and hesitate on some of the courses, I was no longer afraid of being the only one out regarding food. For every food situation after that, I was not scared to express my opinion as I knew that there would be someone in the larger group who would appreciate and share my perspective.
Without Karin's planning and my friends' willingness to push me to try new things, I would never have had these culinary experiences. While this was one of our scariest meals, it was not the last adventurous one. The ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn) we stayed at offered many courses of traditional and adventurous dishes. I'm super happy I got to try all these new things and even happier that I returned to India, where the flavors and spices are much more comfortable.