Comments on: I’m saying no to natto

By: Q

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 03:54:53 +0000

Natto is one of my favorite foods. I understand why people would not like it, and I know most people don’t. The thing is, most of those “real” Asian traditional staple foods are yucky to most westerners.

I know there are plenty pricy so called authentic Asian restaurants, especially in the New York city, but I am yet to find to a great one that captures the authenticity of asian foods and taste superb. They are mostly “okay” and taste close enough, but they aren’t just the same.

I’ve been to China, Japan, and Korea, and actually I find authentic Chinese cuisine hardest to enjoy. You should have in mind that Chinese cuisine has undergone most severe westernization. Even those served in high-end Chinese restaurants are nothing like what Chinese people eat.

Asian foods in general are very hard to enjoy for westerners. Period. I know this since I’m Asian-American and most of my friends don’t enjoy them, the real Asian foods I mean.

By: Sydney

Sydney — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:24:09 +0000

I can understand why you would not want to try Natto since it is something a lot of Americans probably would not try, but how can you knock it so much if you’ve never even tried it? If more Americans ate like the Japanese we would all be in so much better health. That’s why I like Natto for the health benefits and I love the blue cheese flavor.

By: Sol

Sol — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:26:25 +0000

Enjoyed you comments. Hey, there’s even a podcast about natto (“The Japanofiles”, Episode #28):

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-japanofiles-podcast/id331131569

http://www.zencast.com/channels/showchannel.asp?mc=3&cid=12352

By: waltj

waltj — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:59:30 +0000

Tatyana: sounds like a good read. I’ll have to get it,

By: Tatyana

Tatyana — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:11:29 +0000

Walt - see this post @Isegoria.

By: waltj

waltj — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:09:43 +0000

Ah. Got it. I did hear a version of this before, but it was a job applicant vs. staff. There’s a lot to like about many third-world places, to include Indonesia. Nice people, good cuisine, relatively low prices on many things. But there’s a reason they’re third-world. Corruption is probably the number-one reason, with most other reasons a function of that. The infrastructure is inadequate and crumbling because the foreign investment money to improve it disappeared into someone’s Swiss bank account. The rain forest’s trees are being harvested illegally because a politician sold logging permits to one of his buddies. The kids drop out of school because their parents can’t afford to buy the textbooks that are supposed to be free, but that the teachers are selling anyways. Criminals walk Scot-free because a lawyer hands a judge a brown envelope stuffed with cash. And so on.

By: Tatyana

Tatyana — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:35:42 +0000

waltj,

here it is (one of variations)

A man dies and gets to heaven. Angels’ choirs, hymns,&&&. Time passes, nothing new happens, he gets bored. Once, there is an invitation to visit hell. He’s escorted there with big pomp, met with fanfare, entertained, dined and wined, provided all kinds of service and pleasure. He gets back to heaven very impressed.
Time passes, and he gets bored. He decides to leave heaven and to move to hell forever. But when he enters it this time, he’s thrown into pot with boiling tar, tortured and tormented. “Why?” cries the unfortunate. “It was so great last time I was here.”

“That was tourism, and now – immigration!”

By: waltj

waltj — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:21:55 +0000

you reminded me of a very old joke, “the difference between emigration and tourism”.

And that would be…? It may be old, and I’m not exactly a spring chicken, but I seem to have missed this one. Please enlighten me (and the rest of us that might not have heard it).

By: LS

LS — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:31:10 +0000

To some westerners, a lot of Japanese cooking is hit or miss. (I love it all personally.)
Next time, try yakitori.
Can’t go wrong with grilled meat on a stick.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:50:03 +0000

That taste perception can be partly genetically based, is at least plausible. Not that I know any direct evidence for that, but genetic is almost always has something to do with characters that differ significantly across populations. One tendency can be traced: in any country where some people live in northern parts, and some in southern, nordic people like more bland foods, and southern people more spiced ones.