An often misunderstood aspect of Japanese culture is the food. Most people think of sushi and miso. The reality is that a huge part of Japanese food evolved over the last 150 years and is a lot different from the traditional stuff people think about. Frankly, if the general public knew more about these foods, Japanese restaurants in America would get a lot more interesting.

Bento boxes — this actually caused a lot of trouble in our group. For lunch, more often than not we did not have time to sit down and eat, so we got bentos. All of you probably know what it is–it’s pretty much a Japanese lunchbox, which you can also buy premade at the store. Unfortunately, ours were mostly western style, with sandwiches and little bits of spaghetti and “hamburger steak” (the patty without the bread). There were a lot of complaints about how this isn’t Japanese. Of course, technically it is. Miniature egg sandwiches, tonkatsu sandwiches, and tuna sandwiches appear all the time in bento. Hamburger steak is especially popular in Japanese restaurants. And finally, Japanese people love Italian food, and a chain restaurant, Saizeriya, is dedicated to serving convenient Japanese versions of Italian dishes.

Curry — Japanese curry is the best curry, and it’s been around for over a hundred years. They eat it more than any other dish, or very close to it. On average, Japanese people eat it about 70 meals out of the year, or one out of five days. It is incredibly popular here, and I was disappointed that we didn’t get to eat it MORE. Japanese curry is somewhat like a thick soup with potatoes and carrots and meat in it that’s served with rice and some pickled vegetables. Again, wish more people would know about this. A picture was provided in my previous post, but here it is again for reference.

Traditional food — There were times when we could get more traditional food, though. Miso soup is actually really good. It was a bit of an acquired taste for me. I only really started drinking it my freshman year at Rice, when the local Japanese restaurant included it with meals.

Surprisingly, I liked this as well. The hipster in me wants to not like it just so I can like the westernized stuff. But all joking aside, I really enjoy Japanese food, which is quite surprising given how hard a time I have with Chinese food.