Bird Flu Be Damned

Yes, raw chicken is indeed considered consumable here. the place my host family took me to specializes in chicken - and you have to have a special licence just to serve it raw. i have no idea how they avoid avian flu, salmonella, or any of that, but if anyone is a specialist at raw food, it's certainly the japanese. except mushrooms: they refuse to eat mushrooms raw. other than that, i've eaten raw pretty much anything i can think of - including horse! although i have yet to try raw pork...

and this particular dinner was a part of a japanese traditional 'kaiseki' style: they serve everything on separate little dishes, all specially chosen and arranged for optimum aesthetic and palatal impact. it's an incredibly in-depth, esoteric art form, of which i'm pretty much entirely ignorant; but it looks gorgeous! and is always delicious... anyways, this particular restaurant's kaiseki was a chicken theme: you got your grilled chicken, breaded chicken, soup with chicken, chicken on a stick (with salad etc. stuffed between, of course. no one eats as healthy as the japanese. must be why they have the world's longest life expectancy), and how could the meal be complete without RAW chicken? so, on the plate it goes. i made sure to have telling photos taken. they say scottish cuisine must have been created based on a dare; well, i'll bet in some ancient lore anthology you'll find the scots pitting their iron stomachs against the japanese.

and on another note of peculiar cuisine habits, have you ever heard of such a thing as all-you-can-eat cake buffet?? the japanese girls at my school love it! there's an italian restaurant near school that offers this thing after 3pm daily, and for some crazy reason the girls, instead of being worried about getting fat after a full meal of solely CAKE, are all for it! unbelievable. we're headed there today.

so, these things compounded by the propensity to slurp up noodles at alarming rates, shovel rice straight from bowl-to-mouth, and a furthermore brow-raising love of raw eggs, certainly make it a lively experience to tuck into a meal with the japanese.

itadakimasu!