Japanese Food Bites: Indulging in the Taste of Summer

My name is Kelly Chen, and I started my day off not on the best foot (feeling groggy and frantically grabbing at a Covid test on my bedside due to my dampened state). To my and everyone else’s relief, I was negative!

Our Dialogue of Civilizations group ventured out to Ochanomizu University just a little after the embarkment of sunrise. Most of us shared a collectively difficult time waking up this particular morning, but we perked up at the presence of the lovely Yukari Sakamoto-san and her array of reusable, sustainable shopping bags! We were greeted by the overwhelming assortment of department store, coined depato in Japanese, goodies. From a plethora of pour over drip coffee packets, a morning staple of which Japan excels at, to delicately packaged tins of canned seafood, the classroom table’s spread was a sight to behold. It appeared as though we had all scrambled into the formation of a group of looters and violently raided the depato‘s wide selection of unique grocery inventory ourselves. Pretty typical foreigner move, I must say.

Sakamoto-san accredited much of what she learned to her background as an employee of a depato‘s sake shop, the knowledge she derived from culinary school, her fish mongerer husband, time served as an interpreter for regional chefs, a tour guide, and most importantly a student of Andoh-san herself. Talk about a jack-of-all-trades! Phew.

There were ingredients and aspects of the grocery spread which were reminiscent of what I experienced during my pleasant stay at Elizabeth Andoh-san’s humble abode. Generous bags of flavorful konbu of all types (ie. freeze-dried, tea bags for steeping, snacks to suck and chew on like a cow) grazed the surface of the classroom table, bringing me back to Andoh-san’s extensive lecture on how konbu is essential and vital to Japanese cuisine, quite like the primary foundation of an architectural building. A pocket-sized bottle of yuzu paste akin to the appearance of travel-sized toothpaste was also presented to us like a jewel at a beauty pageant, reminding me of the delicate garlic paste condiment that stole our hearts and tastebuds at Andoh-san’s dining room table.

It was a great honor to have an expert’s insider scoop on how to dissect the magical land of depato stores, a rather unfamiliar and intimidating territory for us unassuming foreigners who are eager to emulate her decades’ worth of experience. It was rather heartwarming to listen to Sakamoto-san’s recollection of navigating these grocery stores with her beloved son at the forefront of her mind, and I could only imagine how much trial-and-error must’ve gone in to satisfy his palette, especially with Japan’s myriad of unique depato finds! Aside from the guest lecture, we presented our own personal findings from the subway basement antenna shops, with diversified answers of what went well versus what was totally unexpected for us. I touched base on my energy expenditure going towards selfishly devouring scoops and scoops of ice cream at record speed, deciding to test the limits of my lactose intolerance. Let’s just say that my intestines were not very pleased with me later…

Sakamoto-san also had us play rounds of a trivia game, indicating maru (O) and batsu (X) with our hands. The abundantly floral chopsticks that corresponded with Valentina’s hand size was my top pick among all of the prizes!

Moving on from the classroom, Mao Fukuda from CIEE hospitably brought our lively, bustling group over to Kiyosumi Shirakawa, a district more eastward of what we’re normally accustomed to. The Fukugawa Edo Museum provided us the interactive opportunity of living in Japan’s Edo Period through a series of participation in role-playing. And no, we did not seriously lay dung in the communal toilets.

A snippet of Kerem polishing brown rice with a grinding mortar contraption, referred to as kara-usu, a labor intensive feat which would surely expand anyone’s calves

I thoroughly enjoyed this experiential learning environment where I truly got the essence of living in a time period where feudalism still existed. Some facts I derived from aimlessly walking through the townhouses in oblivion stood out to me, such as the notion of a freshly harvested egg costing the equivalent of a whopping ¥400. And here I thought we were already done with our international egg shortage! Sora (our wonderful Program Assistant) chimed in about how the village’s accumulation of stinky fecal matter would be sold to desperate farmers at a profit of approximately $6,000 USD for the purpose of enriching the soil as natural fertilizer, the best kind, am I right?

I believe it was at this point of the museum trip that I decided to put a halt to my tour, alongside the graphics of villagers making their rounds to the toilet house whilst hastily covering their nostrils from the emanating pungent odor.

The finale of my day was spent doing what I love the most, which is aimlessly exploring unfamiliar areas in tangents of circles until I stumble upon something compelling to my tastebuds. Like the profoundly impactful moment of placing a dollop of Andoh-san’s garlic paste enclosed in a cutely-designed condiment bottle into our mouths, my first sip of this tiramisu oat milk latte that I purchased from this outdoor coffee stand was a moment which will linger in my memory for weeks on end. I ended my day with what I do best.