The Great Natto Famine of 2007

One of the weirder, more disgusting Japanese foods that I actually eat is called natto; in English we'd call it fermented soy bean. The health benefits of natto outweigh the fact that it smells like feet, doesn't taste much better than feet, and is a total pain in the a** to eat. Natto comes in a small package, with a little pack of soy sauce and spicy mustard, which you commonly whip up with you chopsticks before eating. When you try to eat the natto, it becomes all stringy and starts drooping all over the place, and when you finally get it into your mouth, the act of bringing your chosen eating implement away from you mouth takes the web of natto with it. So generally, you end up with wisps of natto web floating around the room, or attached to your face or in in your hair. I usually eat it with a spoon because that way I can eat the whole pack in 2 or 3 bites, which cuts down on the amount of natto debris left not in my mouth.

So, last week there was a TV show that highlighted the benefits of eating natto, in particular that if you eat natto in the morning and at night, you will lose weight. That set of a buying frenzy (in which my wife was most definitely involved), and has left supermarket and convenience store shelves sadly lacking in natto. The natto industry itself is at a loss, as they can't produce natto fast enough to meet demand. Our fridge is full of it, consequently, but Chieko won't let me touch it. It's HER natto. So we'll see in 2 weeks (that's how long it's supposed to take) if all the hoopla is warranted or not.

Since there's no natto to be had, we ate lunch at a sushi restaurant this afternoon. I've showcased the conveyor-belt sushi thing here before, but this place was a little different. It was like a $1 sushi shop, which is completely sketchy if you think about it. Not sure I want to eat RAW fish that being sold that cheaply, but I did, and I'm alive, for now at least. And not only was this place cheap, but they had a secondary conveyor belt upon which any special-order food would come to your table. And the kicker, it arrived on a mini bullet train. It was very amusing, but as cool as it was I'm not sure I'll be heading back to the $1 sushi shop any time soon. I'm more than willing to kick down some extra yen for some fresher, fatter slabs of fish.

So that's the bulk of excitement that came my way this weekend. Back to school tomorrow, bright and early. I'll be monitoring the Patriots game in between classes, as it starts around 9 a.m. here. I'm bummed that I won't be able to devote my full attention to it, as I think it will be a great game, but such is life. I was able to catch two games today, so that's some kind of solace. So go Pats!! Hope you all had a nice weekend.