![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Natto.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI\u2019m at a restaurant that bleeds sophistication. Seated across from me is a stunning member of the opposite sex, joining me for the sole purpose of sampling the house\u2019s signature dish, a personal favorite of mine.<\/p>\n
Tender music swells in the background. The lighting is perfect, with the glow of candlelight on the table framing my partner\u2019s irresistible charms as a celebrated bon vivant holds court four tables over. Spirits are high, and we\u2019re high on spirits. The mood is ripe.<\/p>\n
I snap my fingers to cue the waiter, who gracefully sets two silver trays before us. \u201cEnjoy,\u201d he says dryly. I look him straight in the eye and grin, signaling as I have many times before that I fully intend to.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time. Gloved hands raise the lids, revealing…a small pair of Styrofoam trays with thin sheets of plastic on top. My date is puzzled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I know what she\u2019s thinking: is that it? Or are they going to, like, light this on fire to cook the actual main course? A demonstration is in order.<\/p>\n
Brandishing a pair of chopsticks in my right hand, I gingerly lift the plastic several inches upward with my left, leaving behind a messy string of viscosity that oozes all the way from the plastic, sinking back into the tray. The pungent scent is inescapable, like something you\u2019d encounter accidentally in transit.<\/p>\n
I stab what\u2019s inside with the sticks and twist my wrist clockwise several turns. Before the Venus can say a word, I press the smelly, sizable glob through her parted lips.<\/p>\n
Languid chewing, then silence. As her cheeks swell, the goo slimes its way down her lips, nestling off her chin. In other words, it looks like she\u2019s suffering from a nasty cold as opposed to enjoying one of my all-time favorite delicacies.<\/p>\n
So goes my experiences with natto, a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans that most of its countrymen and women would choose not to consume if their lives depended on it. This is partly due to its reputation as \u201chealthy,\u201d but more about its inimitable appearance.<\/p>\n
Naturally, after I returned to the States my parents would remark, \u201cSon, since when did you develop a taste for dog food?\u201d<\/p>\n
I was first introduced to natto as a teenager through an anime in which a hapless wife who, preparing a homemade meal for the very first time, mistakenly puts ketchup atop the natto\u2014the Western equivalent to slathering relish over pasta. (In fairness, there are probably some Japanese who would find the ketchup an improvement.)<\/p>\n
After years of wondering what this b\u00eate noire called natto was like, my curiosity was rewarded within the first week of my arrival in Kobe as a university exchange student. Enjoying breakfast with my host family one morning, I polished off the familiar\u2014cereal, toast, eggs, sausage and salad\u2014but then, something curious was plopped down before me on a bed of rice.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t look good (and in the ken of Japanese cuisine, this is really saying something), and we\u2019ve already covered the smell, but there was something about its taste that hooked me instantly and hasn\u2019t let go. Even today, I\u2019m challenged to describe what natto tastes like, since it bears no resemblance to raw or cooked soybeans, and doesn\u2019t bear the flavor of anything else that\u2019s edible through fermentation. Back then I likened it to edible paste, or a nutty mucous. If it ain\u2019t broke, indeed.<\/p>\n
The fact that I could stomach natto put me in a whole other court of opinion with the average Japanese, vaulting me far beyond the \u201ccan you use chopsticks-do you own a gun-do you play sex\u201d crowd. (There\u2019s nothing like being branded a particularly incorrigible henna gaijin<\/em> simply because you enjoy one of their most identifiable national foods. Imagine if we Americans spread the same double standard to the Double-Double.)<\/p>\nSomething else: natto has now become the ultimate litmus test for gauging my compatibility with a potential mate. Forget horoscopes and blood types, natto is the great equalizer. Without exaggeration, my relationships with Those Who Can Try It have lasted far longer than with Those Who Would Prefer Toejam, and this gains added weight for significant others (although even I\u2019ve thought twice about sneaking a kiss after munching some).<\/p>\n
This is no coincidence. Like many acquired tastes, natto will not tumble neatly into a communal dining experience. It just can\u2019t be shared. No, it must be savored solitarily, and what better time in young man’s life is there to enjoy something in private, away from prying eyes, than on the JET Programme?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always wondered if part of my attachment to natto speaks to a deeper part of my psyche. The ultimate underdog food, it assaults nearly every sense of a Japanese. As a foreigner working in a big city but still living far beyond the fringes of the Sticky Rice Society given my unmistakably clashing background and appearance, natto and I bonded in a way that I never could have with my coworkers, or even the Drummania machine (another magnificent obsession).<\/p>\n
This was all the more remarkable after learning the Kansai region has far less passion for natto than their eastern neighbors. The irony that one of the most homogeneous societies on earth with a strong reputation for groupism could shun such a dish while leaving the door open for cadres of connoisseurs (both foreign and domestic) to beat the drum in its favor was not lost on me.<\/p>\n
I could relate to natto. We both might have been welcomed to Japan, but we each clearly had our own struggles attracting the greater public no matter how good our intentions. After the daily gruel of the jimusho<\/em>, the balm was dashing straight home to indulge in a fresh tray right out of the fridge. (Another benefit of this miracle food\u2014it can be enjoyed at any meal, cold or room temperature, straight up or with accompaniment.)<\/p>\nA word about that. Legend says that Chairman Frank Sinatra was notoriously precise about the way he took his whiskey. A minimum of ice, and never mixed with water (the rationale being that he wanted a drink, not a bath). I\u2019m the same when it comes to natto: give me the packet of mustard provided and I\u2019m good to go. (Sauce? Pshaw!<\/em>) I always made an effort to hunt down the no-frills, whole bean variety, and if I was in a particularly adventurous mood I would grate some cheddar cheese on top. You know, to keep things exciting.<\/p>\nHappily, this tradition still continues today. Thanks to an Asian supermarket located tantalizingly close to home, my fridge is never without at least one full package of natto (even in New York, it\u2019s happily inexpensive), and almost every morning I\u2019m faced with the same decision: before or after cereal?<\/p>\n
Since returning from JET, I\u2019ve read all about different combinations of natto streets ahead of anything I could have dreamed up on my own. Natto toast, fried natto and natto ice cream are all vittles I hope to try one day, and I\u2019ve even taken the creativity of the old days one step further by whipping up new ways to prepare it for an eager audience of one. Natto omelet, anyone?<\/p>\n
My relationship with natto has been one of my greatest takeaways from living in Japan. Like keeping up with the culture itself, it\u2019s provided me with a lifelong fascination, a new shade of tolerance and a respect for the unconventional, and I remain optimistic that I can convert more tyros to its elusive appeal. Looking back, it\u2019s strange to think that even before I could grasp just what exactly it was, I was somehow expecting greatness from natto.<\/em> What I got instead was transcendence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"************** The Rice Cooker Chronicles is a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking\/eating and being alone in Japan. The brain-child of JETwit founder \u00a0Steven Horowitz\u00a0(Aichi-ken,\u00a0Kariya-shi, 1992-94) (and inspired by the book Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant), this series is curated by L.M.\u00a0Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,4,305,70,291,413,368,6],"tags":[412,411],"class_list":["post-21886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdote-article","category-articlejournalism","category-cultural-outreach","category-food-drink","category-jq-magazine","category-rice-cooker-chronicles","category-traveltourism","category-writers","tag-japanese-food","tag-natto"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-5H0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21886"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40614,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21886\/revisions\/40614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}