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

curried pork belly: swined and dined.

humor me for a second here.

imagine, if you will, a pork belly.

now imagine not rubbing it generously with pink curing salt and/or nitrates.  imagine not curing or smoking it.  imagine not using it to make bacon or any bacon-esque food (e.g. pancetta, proscuitto, speck, canadian bacon, etc).

chicken cutlet sandwich: a cut above the rest.

some sandwich traditions are time-honored.  they whether the ages, beat the odds, and become immortalized in the proverbial sandwich hall of fame.  they become so famous we can no longer imagine a world without them.  everybody knows their names by heart.  names like blt,  reuben, hot ham and cheese, and club sandwich.

but this post isn’t about their stories.  this post is about the other guys.  the underdogs.  this post is about one of the sandwiches which is still fighting the good fight, climbing the ladder to infinite fame and eternal sandwich recognition.  this post is about a sandwich which has faced countless obstacles and still kept on keeping on.

this is the sad sad story of the chicken cutlet.