Kyuushoku for 25 Jan

Monday

A taste of the Tajima area

White rice（ごはん）

Milk（牛乳）

Sukiyaki style stew（すきやき煮）

Fried dried Japanese whiting（キス干し揚げ）

Vinegared crab（カニの酢の物）

I was in a different kyuushoku area (like last Tuesday). This week, the theme is a tour around Hyogo where each school lunch takes on the theme of a different area in Hyogo.

It’s a fun idea for the kids to try the famous foods from areas around them. Japan loves its famous foods. People often travel to a place just to eat whatever it’s famous for and leave. I’m not all that convinced that bamboo shoots from Naninani prefecture are better than the rest, but I’ll still try it. What cracks me up is the amount of prepackaged “souvenirs” people buy from their holidays to give to friends back home. I find that most of the time when you go to a touristy place, you can only buy their “famous food” in a package. It’s not really something people eat.

Anyway, today was the first stop on the tour to the Tajima area. Tajima is to the north of me and the northernmost region in Hyogo. Since Tajima touches the Sea of Japan, they are famous for crabs. I’ve been up to the Sea of Japan just to eat the crabs like every other Japanese person. They are good crabs I have to say. Tajima is also famous for its beef. Since Tajima is very rural, that means lots of farmland and land dedicated to beef. Tajima beef is just like Kobe beef. It’s marbled and very very fatty. Tajima beef isn’t as expensive as Kobe beef though. You only have to pay $50 for a steak instead of the $100+ in Kobe.

Sukiyaki is a stew kind of soup thing that has a lot of different vegetables in it. Then you put in the fatty Japanese beef. Sukiyaki is usually served with an egg that you just dip your meat into. The egg is raw by the way. I had this the first time I came to Japan and was horrified. But I’ve grown to like it. It’s actually much better with the egg. The stew today was good enough though.

The crab thingy was ok. They just slopped together some seaweed and vinegar, added some crab to it and called it a day. I’m not even sure that it wasn’t fake crab.

And then there was the fish. Oh, the fish. Mr. Fish was dried and then deep-fried. Since Mr. Fish is mostly bones and barely any meat, this meant that Mr. Fish became deep fried oil. There was barely any fish taste, just oil soaked crackling. You could have told me that I was eating fried pork skin or fried chicken foot and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Well, except for that this fish was staring at me.

3 shishamo