My Lovely Blogaki

This morning, I woke up to see this view. It was at 6 o'clock.



This is our garden. Check out how deep is the snow.



This is about one hour later.



Ok. UK is cold, but it is rare that it snows so much in Central England in April.

And on the other hand, we have also this.



How crazy is this?

How to eat Japanese fermented soy beans (Nattō)

If you have Japanese friends, probably you have heard about Nattō.

It is fermented soy beans that one part of the Japanese people love so much that they cannot live without. And the other part, however, hates it. It is popular food in eastern part of Japan, but less so in the western part.

The reason of this deep divide is mainly the small of Nattō. As all the fermented foods, Nattō has a very particular and strong smell which is, if you are not used to it, a bad odour. Some say that the Chinese black beans are smelly, but there is no comparison with Nattō.

Also the non-Japanese people find this food disgusting. For foreigners, the problem is not only the smell, but also its sliminess. The Japanese people in general love slimy foods, but it is not the case for other nations. I have met only a couple of non-Japanese who said they like these fermented soy beans.

I heard that the Indonesians have something similar called "tempe", but they cook in a way that it does not smell as much as its Japanese cousin.

As I belong to the group that love Nattō, I enjoy enjoy eating it. Fortunately in Birmingham, we can find frozen Nattō in Chinese or Korean grocery stores. It costs three times more expensive than in Japan, but, I won't complain as it is probably brought frozen by air cargo (but it makes me feel guilty of carbon foot printing).

This is a packet of Nattō. I paid £1.40.




This packet contains 4 small containers of Nattō, as you see below. In a container, there are also a small packet of soy sauce based sauce and another of mustard.




I eat Nattō with raw egg. I put also some Japanese seven flavour chili. The white thing beneath is steamed rice.



And mix mix mix. Then I get this.



It is almost soupy because I did not put much rice, but normally there is more rice and it looks more dry. The mixture of Nattō odour and raw egg smell is almost obscene. It is sooooo good.

I would not recommend this to anybody, as it is not for feint hearted, but if you happen to be lover of smelly food, this is the one for you.

The Japanese love the food with slimy consistency. Think marinated sea cucumber, mozuku sea weed, and name-take mushrooms. I don't know any other nation so fond of slimyness in food. Even among our neighbours, I don't know any slimy Korean or Chinese dish.

So I want to introduce you to Japanese slimy potato called Yamato-imo （大和芋）. Yamato is one of the old names of Japan, and Imo means potato in Japanese.



This is how it looks like on supermarket shelf. In nature it is covered with mud and brown. When it is washed, its cream white skin appears.

We have also a similar potato called Naga-imo （長芋）, meaning long potato. Which is thinner and long, less slimy and less sticky, best eaten as salad, in my opinion.



To eat it, we remove the skin and grate it. This is how it looks when grated. Cloud-like mass of stickyness and slimyness. It does not have particularly strong flavour, althought the potato itself has potato-ey smell. If you mix this with Japanese Dashi stock, it becomes a nice slimy soup, which can be eaten with steamed rice mixed with pressed barkey.



This is one of many ways of eating it. I cooked udon noodles in soup and put a drop of slimy potato in it. The potato disolves in the soup and it gives sticky, slimy texture to the soup which makes the noodles to be slimy.

I missed so much Yamato-imo, as I could not find it in England. It makes me feel at home, Japanese home.

Am almost in Christmas vacation already. I have been off since Friday and will be off until 7th January, except for the coming Tuesday. I have accumulated annual leave until the last moment, and I had to use them up until 31 December. I prefered to use the leave to go to travels but the circmumstanced did not permit me to do so. I hope for the better next year. Really.

Long since I had a plan to go back to Japan for Christmas holidays; I will be there from 20th Dec. to 6th Jan. But before that, I decided to go to London for a day. Officially to collect some forms from the Japanese Consulate and to accompany my husband to the Greek Consulate to make a new passport. As the lazy Greeks of the consulate work only in the morning (!!!), we have to get the coach at 6 in the morning, meaning we have to leave home at 5 in the morming! Damn. We will be back then at midnight. Will be a tough day, but I am looking forward to see London in festive mood, maybe to do some shopping, and to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant that I booked a week ago already. There is a Vietnamese restaurant also in Birmingham, but it is more Chinese than authentic Vietnamese.

I have to do some Christmas shopping today. Money really flying away. I lead usually very very frugal life, and this flow of money makes me feel crazy.

Well, and after all, I am going to the Church, too. For the last time before the Christmas. It is not easy to go to Orthodox churches in Japan, so the next time will be the next year.

I am getting started. Now.

I love organic milk, as it tastes distinctly different from the normal milk. It has sweeter, deeper taste. It worths paying double the price.

But this Sainsburys Organic Milk I bought last week does not taste organic enough How come?

What did they do? Did they mix normal milk, or have they invented intensive organic milk farming, or do they just lying

Very disappointed, not so much because of mere 70p or so that I paid as extra, but because it just does not taste organic! Bloody Sainsburys.