Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking That Red Stuff on My Burger

Made my first ever trip to Japan with four other Americans from my company. Met by locals when we arrived late evening and had tour guides for the hotel checkin and dinner. But come breakfast, we were on our own; five American techies with no knowledge of useful language in a distant province where English was most unusual. Rather hungry, we began looking for food we might recognize; saw a Dunkin' Donuts and (being Americans) headed across the square.

That fantastic looking jelly or cream filled donut was screaming out for me to bit into it. So I did! Talk about a shock: filled with bean kurd! And no ketchup in site!

'

One of the few disquieting things I found about living in Japan was going to a restaurant that specialized in foreign food. That spirit of sadism which was displayed in the Rape of Nanjing has been sublimated into torturing and mutilating foreign cuisine. One must consider this sublimation a good thing, of course, but oh! what they do to food I dearly love!

Japanese gyoza (small dumplings filled with meat and vegetables) are sad simulacra of their Chinese originals, [jìáuzi]. And what they do to Mexican food is enough to make a grown man cry!