Hell Ramen, Umami, and Chocolate of the East

Just so we're clear, I did not write "hellish ramen" or "ramen from hell."  Hell ramen is a type of ramen available in Ofunato up in Tohoku.  I'd heard the rumors, something about the tongues of those who eat this burning off, or some hell-like analogy of hotness and pain and fire.  One night last week I ended up at the restaurant serving this boiling, steaming, red broth of noodles.  The gang I am with was determined to eat this famed dish. 

There are rankings.  The hotness starts at one and goes to fifty.  Yuji has tried the fifty, and because he is drunk tells us, pointing to his crotch and bottom, "It's worse coming out."  This is, of course, way too much information, except I completely believe him.  "Only three people have tried the fifty," he says.  He is one of those three and his pride in this accomplishment in ludicrousness defies me.

For the record, I did not order the hell ramen.  We had already eaten dinner together previously.  Ramen was an add-on, a second dinner and a large one at that.  I do not need more carbs right before bed, and I certainly don't need carbs on fire in my stomach taking me into a dream world of burning spice.  Conjuring up Sean Connery to rescue me would do no good on nights like this.

Hiro orders a five.  We all chide, cajole, tease, and throw mock-insults at him.  When the bowl arrives, the broth indeed a deep red (never a good sign), he quickly breaks his chopsticks and heads straight for what will surely be a night he will later regret.  Other bowls of ramen arrive and soon those eating are busy with their own milder versions of Japanese comfort food.  Hiro is forgotten for a few minutes. 

Someone looks up and starts laughing.  Heads rise to see what's funny, and soon it's obvious.  Hiro's head is completely wet with sweat.  I can only see the back of his head but I see small streams of water pouring down his neck and back. 
"How are you doing there, Hiro?" Yuji asks. 
No answer.
Another question is thrown out which I don't hear because I'm marveling at the amount of sweat on Hiro's head.  I hear Hiro reply, "Leave me alone," and we all laugh again.

Even after 25 years with my husband and quite a few years of dating before that I have decided I will never understand what it is about men who must one-up.  I bring this up because I hear Yuji say, "I'm ordering a twenty."  Everyone stops talking.  This is crazy.  "I ate the fifty," he says.  "I can do twenty."  Then we all start talking at once.  "You won't sleep," and "You're already having stomach problems," and "I thought you were hung over," and "Won't it interfere with your meds?"  During all this I look back at Hiro whose shirt is now wet, the streams having turned into a river which is soaked.
"You okay?" I ask him.
"Leave me alone.  I'm concentrating."
We all laugh again.
The server who took Yuji's order is still standing in the same spot, pen and pad in hand.  "Are you sure about the twenty?" he asks.  This upsets Yuji who even when not drunk is already temperamental and prone to speaking his mind.  "Just do it," he snaps, and the man shuffles back into the kitchen.  Very soon another bowl comes out and I now alternate between watching the back of Hiro's head and Yuji's profile.  Hiro finally puts down his chopsticks and holds up his bowl, a trophy of triumph.  We all cheer and continue to laugh at him.  When he finally stands I see his crotch is wet, but he says right away, "This is from the sweat pouring down my face.  I didn't pee my pants."

Yuji does not finish the broth.  As we all stand outside in the cold night air Yuji sucks air through his teeth and tells us it's like dry ice on his tongue.  Whatever.

All this focus on Japanese food reminds me of the conversation I had recently with a couple who run one of the largest an producing companies in Japan.  An is the sweet bean paste made from azuki (aduki) beans--something so full of nutrients that it should be the new staple in all diets--or so the president tells me.  They both tell me anko is the chocolate of the east, sweet and delicate, potent and mild, nutritious but still a candy.  Having grown up eating this fine food product, I do agree.  If I had to choose between chocolate and anko I would spend a good deal of time on the decision.

The president likes to talk about umami, the fifth flavor ingredient in Japanese cooking.  The five are: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami.  Often translated as savory, it's essentially what MSG does to food:  it tastes better with it.  With the campaign touting the evils of MSG there's been a push to find a non-chemical and more holistic method of creating this distinct taste (the way it was originally).  All I can say about umami is that while I like the other four and find myself craving chocolate, french fries, salt-and-vinegar potato chips and the like, there comes a point where I've had enough of any of these tastes.  I would never eat an entire chocolate cake no matter how good it was.  Umami, however, is a flavor I will not tire of.  It's like my taste buds are doing a slow tango.  I don't want it to end, but when it does I'm entirely satisfied.

I have to wonder about the hell ramen, if umami is some how a part of this broth that makes men do crazy things.  I will never try this dish, umami or not.  If I die with this regret so be it.  I'll find my excitement elsewhere, thank you. 

The Price of Fruit in Japan

A mango is a mango.  The price between two mangoes should not differ by a whole digit.  In other words, the cost of a mango displayed on a neatly-typed card should not include a zero at the end of three numbers.  I should be long past the shock over the price of fruit in Japan.  I've grown up marveling at $100 watermelons, cube-shaped cantaloupe with $50 price-tags, and $10 apples with calligraphy shadowed onto the skin.  So, why, on this particular day am I shocked by and scoff at a mango that costs 1980 yen (approximately US$20)?  Perhaps because as a child I never had to worry about paying for such fruit.  Now that I'm on my own, no parents to remind me they simply were not going to dish out that kind of cash I'm shocked all over again.  It's a piece of fruit.  Some food is worth the cash we dole out.  Sushi, yes.  For that, I'll pay.  Watermelons, no.

There was no way in hell I was spending $20 on a mango. Which is why when I spied the orange balls on a shelf at my neighborhood grocery, I did a double-take at the price.  The tag read 198 yen.  That I assumed this was wrong, that the missing zero made me wonder whether it was pried correctly, this is what troubles me.

On a recent trip home, I stopped in at Whole Foods and seeing the chalked sign, "Five mangoes, $5" I did just about did a cartwheel for all to see.  That's about right.  A mango should not cost much more than a dollar in the US.  In the country of cubed melons, there may be a reason a mango costs $20.  In the States, a mango at that price better remove my wrinkles, add ten years of bliss to my life, and make chocolate a necessity in losing weight.

I bought two of the 198 yen mangoes.  It's the principle of the pricing.  That it was missing the elusive zero was cause for allowing myself to splurge.  I brought them home and promptly dug into the orange fleshy sweetness.

Sadly, it tasted like it cost 198 yen.  The color of the meat inside was more yellow than orange (never a good sign), and in spooning out the substance I so looked forward to I noticed it resembled something stringy and nothing the pudding-like softness I had assumed would be inside.

Sticking with principle (always a good excuse) I decide to splurge.  The 1980 yen mango must justify the cost.  Yes?  I tell myself I'm doing this for science, or if that reasoning doesn't work, in order to have good writing material, and with these thoughts in mind make the trek back out to find this over-priced piece of fruit.  I'm giddy as I anticipate.  Its flavor must be magical.  Delving into unchartered territory, I have never paid this much for fruit but convinced this all makes sense I plunk down my card.  (Note:  I'm confessing here my husband actually paid for this mango--credit card bills go straight to him and not me.  Thanks, luv.)

Whether this mango warrants the price tag is questionable.  Certainly, it was much better than the 198 yen piece I brought home.  Good as it was, it wasn't $20-good.  It was a mango.  The one-dollar Whole Foods mangoes were better.  I find myself bothered by the fact Japan's fruit-sellers can get away with charging these prices.  I miss buying a bag of nectarines for $4.00, the box of blackberries I buy for almost nothing and then scarf down, fingers stained and teeth purple.

Alas, the price of fruit in Japan.  A mango is a mango.  One piece of fruit should not contain four or more digits in yen.  With no reason to believe my objection will be heard, I wonder what must happen here in Japan for me to buy fruit without completely emptying my wallet.

The ramen dilemma

Having eaten ramen since I was a child, my version of macaroni and cheese in Japan, you'd think I'd know how to eat it by now.  Not so.  The problem?  Broth, the cheese equivalent, part of what makes or breaks the meal, this I manage to spatter all over my shirt.  I've long since given up wearing white when I eat ramen.  I leave the restaurant with little brown stains all over myself.  I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Or, perhaps I do.  A simple answer would be the fact I don't slurp the noodles.  Any type of noodle in Japan--ramen, pasta, soba, udon--these are eaten with a loud slurp.  I just can't bring myself to do this.  I get away with it because I'm foreign.  People who don't know me assume I don't know the rules.  People who do know me often ask, "You don't slurp?  It's considered bad manners in America, right?"  I nod and sneak a glance down at my shirt.  Have I stained it yet?

I decide to ask for advice.  I'm with two men, one the owner of a restaurant, another a friend.  I bring up my dilemma.

"What am I doing wrong?  I notice all these businessmen in crisp white shirts eating ramen over the lunch hour and I never see stains on their shirts.  I know I don't slurp, but doesn't slurping actually make the noodles wiggle more?  Why don't you guys have stains on your shirts?"

They contemplate this for awhile and decide women decidedly have a more difficult time with noddle-based meals because surely breasts must get in the way.

"Hang on," I protest.  "That can't be right."
"You're right," the restaurant owner says.  "If this were true, we'd have stains all over our stomachs."  We all laugh as he pats his larger-than-average Japanese gut.
"I don't know," my friend says.  "Clearly you're doing something wrong.  Maybe you need to slurp."

Now we contemplate Japanese slurping methods.  I argue the noodles must flip back and forth as they get sucked in.  "Doesn't that make the noodles jiggle, and doesn't that make them spatter the broth?"
"No," my friend argues.  "You slurp straight up."  Ah.  Straight up.  I mentally picture this and wonder to myself how much my mouth can hold at one time.  I decide to put it out there.

"I think my mouth is smaller.  I don't think I can put that much into my mouth at one time."
"Oh, come on," the owner isn't buying this.
"Try it sometime," my friend pushes.

I will, but until then I vow to wear black until I master the art of stain-free slurping.

Food Buying Etiquette

The upside of being one of the very few foreigners in town (wherever I am in Tohoku) is that people stop me on the street.  We chat.  They share stories.  Dates are set for tea.  The downside of sticking out is that my actions are noted, observed, scrutinized.  A recent dinner invitation is proof.

"Where shall I meet you?"  I'm given the name of a restaurant.
"Where you had lunch yesterday," my friend says.  Just like that I want to ask, "And, how did you know?" but I already have the answer.  I said hello to the chef.  He said "Welcome back."  Word spreads.

So, I'm being watched.  This isn't anything new.  Growing up in Japan, there was a long stretch of time where I could count the foreigners in our town of 150,000.  I knew all of them, because there were less than twenty.

I'm not bothered by the fact I need to watch my step.  Most of the time, that is.  Oddly enough, buying groceries is when I find the eyes following me most troubling.  Take today for example.  There's no supermarket within walking distance to my friend's apartment where I stay.  There is, however, a convenience store.  They sell pretty much everything.  I walked down to buy lunch, and was thrilled (!) to find they had cucumbers in stock today.

I should point out here while there's nothing wrong with American cucumbers, there is something beautiful about Japanese cukes.  Crunchy and sweet, they are the perfect afternoon snack.  They are even better dipped in sesame dressing.  Life is perfect if I can smother them in sesame dressing made by Onizaki.  Truly.

I see cucumbers.  I grin.  I put them in my cart.  They come two to a bag.  This will be my snack today.  Then I see another packet.  Do I buy these, too?  I can surely eat two more cucumbers, say, tomorrow.  Yes?  Yes.  I put those in my cart, too.  There's one remaining bag.

Herein lies my dilemma.  It's not as if food is scarce.  People pretty much have access to transportation now, although maybe not consistently if they don't have a car or can't drive.  The supermarkets are stocked.  It's a very different scene from when I arrived back in Japan after the tsunami, last March.  Shelves in Tokyo even were sparse.  They weren't empty, but they certainly weren't filled with the usual merchandise I was accustomed to seeing.  Coming up north, the scene was even more stark.  The frozen food section had no ice cream.  The fish counter had more ice than fish.  The produce isle didn't shine with the colors of vegetables and fruit usually seen.

Throughout this time, the general sentiment in Japan was "don't hoard."  People didn't stock up on toilet paper or buy out the bottles of water.  The expectation was to "leave something behind for the next family."  Certainly, there were exceptions.  Japan's equivalent to FedEx drivers stealing relief supplies, people selling relief goods meant for others are only some of the stories I've heard.  This is not the norm, however.  Bad behavior, especially in a time of crisis, is a violation of the most basic of courtesy and manners.  People known to have done this are not well received, and that's putting it mildly.

Back to my cucumbers, then.  Surely, I'm allowed to take the last bag, right?  Or, am I?  The store hasn't had cucumbers in stock since Monday.  I've looked.  I bought carrots to dip into my sesame dressing (not Onizaki, alas), but it's just not the same.  They're carrots.  They're still uneaten.

On a totally different note, on Saturday when I was shopping for dinner in Fukushima I found a huge pile of cucumbers.  "¥45 each" the sign read.  That's cheap!  I then read on further.  "Grown in Fukushima."  Produce labels now show where the food was grown.  Anything grown or raised in Fukushima doesn't sell.  This explains why they were so cheap.  I didn't buy cucumbers on Saturday.

I didn't buy the last bag of cucumbers.  I wanted to.  I really did.  If they're there tomorrow, I might.  Then again, maybe I won't.  Or, maybe this a dilemma I no longer need wrestle with?  Am I too sensitive to the fact my every move seems to be noted?  I will mull this over while I eat my cucumbers.  Perhaps this will provide me with clarify.