Jump to content

  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Strange Foods and Gimmick Foods

_john

By _john
in Japan: Cooking & Baking

 Share

Recommended Posts

_john

_john

Posted
Posted

I have been fascinated by strange foods in Japan. A few have been mentioned in other threads but I thought I would make a thread to collect them all.

A Japanese online dictionary describes kishoku as (rough translation):

"strange food combinations and condiments used on food that up until now have never been used in such a way. Such as covering things in chocolate "

Here is the most popular site on google for 奇食: 奇食の館 (Hall of Strange Food) which has been linked to on egullet before.

I would also like to talk about gimmicks used in Japanese restaurant and food products. A good example is "extremely spicy hell ramen". A more general example would be "mens" pocky.

What strange and gimmick foods have you come across?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
torakris

torakris

Posted
Posted

Hey I was going to start this thread!! :raz:

That guy that does the 'hall of Strange Foods' is hysterical, he sure does find some interesting things.

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tantan

tantan

Posted
Posted

When I was studying in Taiwan, one of my Japanese friends would insist on ordering the strangest foods on the menu, just for fun. Usually he couldn't finish and ended up sharing ours.

We had some curry flavoured nabe, milk nabe, cheese sushi at a yakiniku restaurant - they were grilled on the plate (which I actually really liked), unknown weird concoctions of drinks - rose petal tea is the only thing I can remember right now.

From the Hall of Strange food, those banana-choco "takoyaki" look good (as long as they don't actually have tako in them!) I'd like to have them with chocolate sauce on top and maybe some coconut or something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
_john

_john

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
What are those things labeled "curry" and "red pepper" on the Hall of Strange Foods site? I'm almost afraid to know...

They are shredded dried squid, that is then topped with (white?) chocolate that is flavored with curry or red pepper. It sounds like a good drinking snack.

here is a machine translation of the "Hall of Strange Food". It is almost as funny as the original Japanese!

I am really interested in the kimchi milkshake. I read that Lotteria (a Japanese fast food chain) was pressured to release the kimchi milkshake after users of a popular Japanese message board, called 2ch, started flooding Loterria's website with requests for the item. It was a joke, but they actually released the kimchi milkshake at a few locations for a limited time!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hiroyuki

Hiroyuki

Posted
Posted
What's with the mentions of "Calais" in the machine translation?

A mistranslation of curry!!!

Wow!

I'm still trying to puzzle out the correct translation of "purine"!

Tha'ts easy enough. Purin, プリン, custard pudding?

I'm amazed at the low quality of the translation. Are we really in the 21st century?

My blog
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Culinista

Culinista

Posted
Posted

Darn, all the kanji look like gibberish on this browser. Newbie Luddite question, but does anybody know how I can see the page properly?

What is Fazer Salmiakki doing with all those Japanese foods? It's Finnish salty licorice. I actually learned to like it when I lived in Helsinki. And what are those boob-shaped things? :shock:

Weirdest thing I've had in Japan was iki-chi, a turtle blood cocktail. Although Calpis is pretty weird.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SuzySushi

SuzySushi

Posted
Posted
Tha'ts easy enough.  Purin, プリン, custard pudding?

I'm amazed at the low quality of the translation.  Are we really in the 21st century?

Sheesh! the search I did on Google before asking my question brought up the Sanrio character (Purin the dog), but not the "pudding" connection.

Any idea why "pudding" is spelled as "purin" in katakana, and not as pu-di-n-gu?

SuzySushi

"She sells shiso by the seashore."

My eGullet Foodblog: A Tropical Christmas in the Suburbs

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hiroyuki

Hiroyuki

Posted
Posted
Tha'ts easy enough.  Purin, プリン, custard pudding?

I'm amazed at the low quality of the translation.  Are we really in the 21st century?

Sheesh! the search I did on Google before asking my question brought up the Sanrio character (Purin the dog), but not the "pudding" connection.

Any idea why "pudding" is spelled as "purin" in katakana, and not as pu-di-n-gu?

I'm not sure, but it's easy to imagine that when the Japanese first heard the word "pudding", they thought they heard it as "purin". :biggrin:

My blog
Link to comment
Share on other sites
_john

_john

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

Today I ate an interesting gimmick food item. It was Glico LEE 30x spicy beef curry. It belongs to the category of strange Japanese foods known as 激辛 gekikara which means "extremely spicy". On the box it claims that if you add the included sauce it becomes 40x spicy. It was just about the perfect level of spicyness for me. I liked the sauce packet more than the curry itself though. The sauce was some sort of rayu (chili oil) that was made with what tasted like spicy paprika. The sauce packet was really good. I don't think I will buy it again, but I might try to make a similar rayu with paprika.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
_john

_john

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

I tried another gimmick item last night. When I saw it on the menu I had to try it. ゴーヤチューハイ　Goya Chu-Hi ! It was really good, only slightly sweet, and had good goya flavor. It was not very strong though :hmmm: .

gallery_23727_2765_28716.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jschyun

jschyun

Posted
Posted (edited)

I just got some green tea ramen. i haven't tried it but will let you know how it tastes when I do.

-hmm, i just realized that it's not strange and I'm behind the times. oh well. hehe

Edited by jschyun (log)

I love cold Dinty Moore beef stew. It is like dog food! And I am like a dog.

--NeroW

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 years later...
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...