Japanese Solution to Foods Gone Old

Say you've just prepared a meal. There it is, lying out on the table: fresh rice, hot and steaming, a selection of spinach and other leafy greens with some sauce, and some fish or meat, straight from the oven. Mouthwateringly delicious. You take your seat, pick up your chopsticks, and start to say, "いただきまぁ-- "

The phone rings. In a rush you drop the chopsticks and grab the phone. And who is it but your best friend from college, finally calling you after all these years? You start talking for a few minutes, still wanting to get back to your dinner before it goes cold. But a few minutes drags into a few hours, and before you know it your food has gone dry, nasty, and not cold, but worse- room temperature.

You hang up and sigh. What to do? Talking was fun, but you've gotta eat somehow.

In comes the Japanese solution!! You run to the fridge and grab 2-3 eggs, then go to the cabinet to grab a bowl. After cracking the eggs into the bowl and mixing it just a bit, you sit back down at the table, finally ready to enjoy your meal. "Itadakimasu!" you say, and then dive in. Everything on the plate gets dipped in the raw egg before you eat it, even the rice. And it's all quite delicious and good (though no doubt it would have been better hot and dipped in raw egg). Another meal saved by the Japanese solution to foods gone old.

This was something that really freaked me out when I first got here. The first time was at a yakiniku restaurant (meat grilled on a hot plate in the middle of a table- think Kanki's). When you eat little pieces of grilled meat like such, it's custom to dip it in raw egg before eating it. I was all like, "Salmonella! Food poisoning! Bird flu!", but my host family convinced me to try it. It was really good, surprisingly. Raw egg is actually sorta sweet, making it good for meats (or so I think). It's also easy to eat because, um, it's raw egg. You won't choke on anything coated in something that slippery. And I think it's good for your skin. But that was maybe something I read in a spa pamphlet, so don't quote me on it.

So because of all that, the Japanese really like to sometimes add raw eggs with their food. And if you can get over the potential illness threats ("This is a Japanese egg, so you don't need to worry!" they said. I think an egg is an egg, no matter where you are), then it's really quite delicious. And if you wanted to take it further, you could eat raw meat dipped in raw egg ("Mad Cow! Tapeworm! E. Coli!" = double whammy), which I've done before, but that's because I was tricked into eating it by my first host dad. Haha, very funny, host pappy- lucky for him, it was amazingly delicious.

That's all for now, just thought this was a fun thing to share ^-^

Talk to ya'lls later!