Culture: Food For Thought
Speaking of culture, I heard this random quote over the American radio station here in Japan: "Do not clean the bathroom. Bacteria are the only culture some people have." I laughed out loud. Must be my science background. Or the fact that I was once again procrastinating about cleaning my bathroom. Of course, I assume it was meant to be a joke. Otherwise it's just gross. But there may be some truth to it...

The longer we live here, the more I realize how lucky we are because many people don't ever have the chance to experience other cultures through travel, let alone through the experience of living abroad. And one of my favorite ways to learn about culture is to try different foods, of course. I'm not saying I eat everything (for example, I drew the line at raw crab in Sapporo), but I've come a long, long way from my picky-eating behaviors of childhood. Maybe there's hope for Sydney. She does already love edamame.



Of course, I'd eaten at a Japanese steakhouse and I'd learned to love sushi, miso soup, edamame (soybeans) and tempura before I moved here. But I have tried many other Japanese foods (listed below) since moving to Yokosuka and rarely find one I don't like!

• Sushi
  
• Miso soup
  
• Edamame
  
• Tempura
  
• Yakitori
  
• Soba and Udon
  
• Tonkatsu
  
• Sukiyaki
  
• Shabu Shabu
  
• Gyoza (Chinese)
  
• Ramen (Chinese)
  

I'm just beginning to try my hand at making some of these dishes at home. I'm not exactly sure I'd win any authenticity contests with my cooking, but we enjoy it! As complicated as Japanese cooking may seem, most Japanese foods can be made with 4 ingredients: dashi broth (a fish broth made with dried bonito flakes and dried kelp), soy sauce, mirin (Japanese sweet wine) and a type of sake made for cooking. The proportions just change depending on the dish. Of course, I haven't figured out how to determine those proportions...but I do have 2 more years.