nikujaga: eat like an admiral.

there is a special place in my heart for what i call “errant foods.”

i find that when a food manages to make its way across national borders (and sometimes oceans) to establish itself in a new locale, is worth giving a try once or twice at the very least.

i firmly believe that there should be a division of anthropology devoted to the study of errant food.  errant food never develops in a vacuum; it is the result of cultural interaction, which means the resulting recipes can be used as a sort of historic landmark for when, where, and how culinary traditions from different cultures collided.

sesame-covered tebasaki: just winging it.

as babies, most of us regularly ate and bathed in our food at the same time.  and even though we are all adults (some more than others), i think a small morsel of that glorious messy-eater mentality remains in each and every one of us, regardless of how cultured, well-preened, and properly educated we may be.  somewhere deep inside, we all have a soft spot for getting really super messy at meal time.

it follows, therefore, that there are very few people in this world who don’t enjoy a good chicken wing.

poor man prepped a plate of pan-fried piiman.

when my japanese elementary schoolers list off the foods they detest, there are three which top the list without fail.  eggplant and mushrooms are neck and neck at number two, but so far, the undisputed winner is piiman.  the following is a brief list of reactions i have observed at the mere mention of the word piiman:

1. vigorous shaking of the head
2. two thumbs down
3. face-palm
4. face expression reminiscent of edvard munch’s “the scream”
5. ten solid seconds of fake barfing noises

japanese tuna salad rolls: a bound salad set free.

if you were to wander into one of the estimated 46,000 convenience stores in japan, you would eventually come upon a section of the refrigerated shelving designated for rice balls.  some of them contain extravagent ingredients, like spiced cod roe, chopped green onions, and fresh wasabi.  others are decidedly non-japanese in flavor, such as the surreptitiously bright yellow dry curry rice balls.

but no matter where you go, regardless of whether you are in a 7-11, familymart, circle k, daily yamazaki, or lawson, you will undoubtedly find a rice ball labeled “sea chicken.”

it contains, as you might guess, a 1:1 mixture of tuna and mayonnaise.  they are the cheapest for a reason. namely, because they are just awful.

kimchi fried rice: waste not, want not.

how do those iron chefs do it?

super chefs have some sort of sixth sense that allows them to recognize the exact weight of each ingredient required to prepare a single portion of their dish.  when they pull the curtain off the secret ingredient in kitchen stadium, i like to think the iron chefs are thinking “ok, i’ve got this licked.  i’m going to need one scallop, two figs, 3 grams of cheese, 5 ml of wine, and a 20cm strip of phyllo dough per plate.”  i think maybe it is a gland or extrasensory organ we normal humans just don’t have.

regardless, the portions come out perfect every time.  nobody has leftovers on iron chef.  the members of the celebrity scoring panel never take home extra black truffle and snow crab terrine to microwave the next day.

or do they?