Foreign Friendly Japanese Food

When East Meets West With Foreign Friendly Japanese Food!

Commentary by Hank F. Miller Jr.

A Current campaign for foreigners to visit Japan, with a slogan of, \”eat Japanese
friendly food in hopes, \”to promote foreign tourist traffic to Japan.\”

I would like to do my part in the campaign by suggesting changes to the country to make it more attractive to foreigners.
More foreigners would come to Japan if, for example, the food were a little more international-friendly. After the Americans invented the California roll-a sushi roll made more palatable to their taste by adding avocado. Every country changes international food to some extent to fit their people\’s tastes.

The U.S.has done the same with Tex-Mex (Texas influenced Mexican food), and in Japan, you\’re likely to find raw fish among your Italian food. This is called \”fusion\” food, where seemingly incompatible foods are fused together, creating an explosion that people from outside of the country of the food\’s origin find pleasing but which the people from the country of origin find appalling.

So here are some ideas to introduce fusion Japanese-Western food to make it more foreigners friendly. But first we must talk about eating methods. Although most Westerners can use chopsticks nowadays, there are still a good number of the \”totally hopeless\”(such as my meat-and- potatoes family) who can\’t make the change from flatware to stick ware.

Who came up with the idea of using two parallel twigs to pick up food, anyway? And why hasn’t the concept changed over the years to something more modern-for example, wire coat hangers, wire coat hangers that could bend to shape according to the food you\’re trying to eat? Have you ever tried t pick up a boiled egg with chopsticks?

How about soft tofu? With a coat hanger, you could bend it into a scoop to pick up a boiled egg, or you could make a miniature forklift to lift out pieces of soft tofu.
Eating a salad with chopsticks can be very tedious for the totally hopeless. At least a variation of chopsticks would be useful.\”Udon\”noodles are way too long for most Westerners, who don\’t really enjoy having food trailing out of their mouths. Besides grabbing slippery noodles is an art and requires repeated attempts by the totally hopeless. Short round noodles, where both ends of the noodle connect to make a circle, would be much more foreigner-friendly. Then we could use the chopstick to ring the noodles one by one.
Some Japanese food is better disguised.

If fish heads and\”natto\”(fermented soybeans) were concealed inside a ravioli pocket, we’d have a chance to taste the food before seeing what it really is. While \”okonomiyaki\” is one the foreigners\’ favorite Japanese foods, it’s a type of pancake where customers select the ingredients from the menu, such ingredients consist of ebi(prawns),ika (squid),flour,water,egg,pork,shredded cabbage tenkasu(also called agedama which are small pieces of fried tempura batter.)
These ingredients are than all mixed together and poured on a grill and fried. Some people are put off by the dried bonito shavings served on top, which make it look like someone left the okonomiyaki under an electric saw at a construction site.
To me, however, what is far more threatening is that lob of mayonnaise on top. The servings of mayonnaise in this country are big enough to be served a la cart.

For first time visitors to Japan, go easy on the mayo and wood shavings. Some food is just too small to be taken seriously by foreigners that are used to large thick steaks and mammoth baked potatoes. Japanese foods are served in microscopic portions and can be, well disappointing. Even\”Yakitori\”(barbecued chicken served on wooden scures,) can appear downright punny.If they could get those chickens to increase their bust size a little, it would yield chunkier yakitori.

Big food is to impress a foreigner, so the Japanese could really take this idea and fly. I’m thinking \”turkey-tori\”: Turkeys on bamboo poles.
But anyway when the influxes of expected foreigners do finally come they\’ll really enjoy all the healthy food available to them.

Warm Regards from Kitakyushu City, Japan,

Hank F. Miller Jr.