Meeting Swedish people and eating sperm

My two Swedish friends that often visit Sapporo are here for a conference in Tokyo (and then decided to visit Sapporo too, since it is relatively close once you are on this side of the Earth). We have some common friends in Sweden Hills, and they invited us to a nabe party (eating hotpot).

I asked if I could invite a woman who lived 7 years in Sweden but who is now back in Japan, and was told that that would be fine too. Then it turned out that our host and this woman ran into each other by chance a few days before the party, so by the time of the party they already kind of knew each other.

A girl who lives and works in Sweden Hills but who is Swedish was also invited, so in the end there were 4 Swedes in the same room, and even more people who speak Swedish quite well. Very rare.

The hotpot was good, of course. Suddenly, the father of the house decided that we should add "tachi". It looks like boiled brain (though you can eat it raw, grilled, deep fried, etc. too), but if you point this out people usually say: "Oh, it just looks that way. It is actually sperm". Not sure that is much better.

The taste is OK, but the texture is not. I am not a fan. Most people in Japan consider it expensive and fancy food (though it used to be cheap, I am told), so you should not complain when they serve it to you. I was pretty much the only one that ate it. Except for the father, of course, who likes it.

Very Japanese restaurant

We had two weeks of having foreign guest professors here at our lab. This meant getting up really early in the morning and working really late in the evenings (you have to attend and give presentations during the days, and since you also have to get your normal work done you have to stay one extra working day in the lab after the visitors go home). It also meant working some Saturdays, since the guests were here during the weekend and if you are in Japan for the first time, why would you not want to spend all your time having meetings, right?

We also visited a very Japanese (and very expensive) restaurant with our guests. The staff all wear kimonos, you sit on the floor (tatami mats), the food comes in tiny sizes (but the number of dishes is huge so the total volume of food is good), and the decorations are very Japanese. We had a calligraphy drawing on the wall in the room for our group that was written by one of the Japanese Nobel laureates. We also had our own private bath (though no one bathed during dinner) and our own private tea ceremony room (!).

The food was of course excellent. It did include some very Japanese things such as deep fried fish sperm, which some of our foreign guests found a bit strange.

Our own private tea room!

I was told by our secretary the day before the late dinner that: "Your name is on the list for tomorrow at 19:00. Did you know that?", which I did not know. Neither she nor I knew what that list meant, either, but I cancelled all my private activities for the evening and prepared to stay at work. At around 15:00 of the day in question, my boss stopped by and asked: "You can join at 19:00, right?", and since I had cancelled all previous engagement I said yes and asked what was going to happen. I was pleasantly surprised by it being dinner (and not for instance a night session of work related presentations). Though it might have been nice to be asked somewhat earlier if I had time to do work related things until midnight (since my contract tells me I only get paid until 17:00).

Our own private bath.

Since it was a job function, the project turned out to pay for the food. Apparently, the project can only pay for food, not for drinks, so we had to pay for our drinks ourselves. Which I was informed of the day after the dinner, when my boss came to my desk and said: "So do you have 2500 yen for me?" The Japanese explanation was along the lines of "You pay for what you drink", but I am guessing we actually split the bill evenly between all of us (and the non-guests paying for the guests parts too) which is common in Japan, since I only had one glass of tea and I think even in an expensive restaurant they do not charge you 2500 yen for that, haha.

Menu printed on expensive Japanese paper

Paying only 2500 yen for enjoying a dinner as nice as this one is of course very cheap and I was quite happy to pay, but I was a bit surprised that no one told me about having to pay in advance. Perhaps they generally tell you that when they invite you/ask you if you have time to come, and since I was never asked that either this information never reached me?

Sashimi

Trout with miso

Beef steak (Japanese size)

Deep fried fish sperm

Crab eggs on rice

Cake

Weird or disgusting food series: goat testicles

About a year ago we went on a business trip to Heraklion in Greece. Since we have a guy from Heraklion in our lab, I asked him if there was any interesting local food he could recommend. He recommended three things: snails, entrails stuffed with hearts/kidneys/whatnot, and goat testicles.

Some of these he said would be a little bit difficult to find in a touristy restaurant, but in restaurants serving traditional food they might have it if we asked (even if it was not on the menu). Snails were easy to find, and very good. The stuffed entrails we did not manage to find. As for the goat testicles, I asked at our hotel if they knew any place that served it. They said most places nearby did not but one might have it if we were lucky.

I took my Swedish colleague (my Japanese professor and my British colleague strongly objected to eating testicles and did not go with us) and a random Polish guy with me and set off towards the recommended place. I asked the guy outside the restaurant if they had "ameletita" and he laughed and asked me if I knew what that was. I said sure. He seemed impressed that we had not been tricked into asking for something disgusting but were actually there to willingly eat that disgusting thing. He went off to the kitchen and asked if they had any testicles today (it was not on the menu). They said they did have some, so we sat down and ordered a plate of testicles. The staff thought this was hilarious. We also ordered normal food. The staff were kind enough to tell us about goat brains and other dishes we might want to try in Greece too (though we did not have time to try any of those, if they even exist).

Fried goat testicles, and slightly more of them than we really needed...

When our goat testicles arrived, it turned out to be a small mountain of testicles. They must have castrate a small herd for our sake. We were thinking that something like one pair of testicles would be enough, despite my Greek colleague assuring me it is "delicious" and "one of his favorite foods".

The Polish guy had one testicle, which was one more than expected since he is not the adventurous type. My Swedish colleague had two. Then they said that since I had been the one trying to find this food, I would have to finish the remaining 20 or so myself... Which I did.

The inside of a fried goat testicle. Soft and squishy.

Goat testicle is not actually bad, though. It tastes pretty good. The texture is close to disgusting, but not really. It is a little too soft for comfort, but still fairly OK. The main problem is your mind going "OK, so now I have this huge testicle in my mouth and I need to chew it", which is a bit uncomfortable. After having 20 goat testicles, you kind of get fed up with the taste though. Five would have been enough.

The rest of the food we had at the restaurant was good, and the staff were very friendly to the crazy people ordering testicles. The restaurant also happened to be just across the street from the hotel my professor was staying in. Why he, who is Japanese, refused to eat goat testicles remains a mystery. In Japan people consider fish testicles a delicacy (and completely normal food), and though some people in Japan do not like that my professor claims to like fish testicles.

My Japanese friends back in Sapporo evidently thought it was hysterical when I twittered: "I just ate goat testicles" in Japanese.

Summary:
Taste: good.
Texture: almost bad
Look: a little disgusting
Overall impression: surprisingly OK, might eat again

Weird or disgusting food series: tachi/shirako (fish sperm)

In Japan people eat a lot of weird things. Some of the weird stuff I have eaten here would be considered strange by most Japanese people too (for instance many insects), and some would be considered perfectly normal (for instance whale meat).

The topic of today's blog entry, tachi (or shirako) belongs in the later category, completely normal food. It can be served raw (common) or cooked in various ways. I have tried it lightly grilled (first time I had it), raw (also that same night), tempura fried, and raw in soy sauce together with raw oysters (a New Years feast delicacy). It is also common in miso soup and on sushi.

Raw fish sperm. Apparently delicious.

Tachi does not taste very much at all, and the taste is not bad, unless you really dislike raw fish taste, but then a lot of Japanese food will be tough for you. When you eat it, it is very soft and it kind of just melts in your mouth. This is apparently one of the good things about tachi from the perspective of most of my Japanese friends, but to me it is quite disgusting and one of the reasons I dislike this food...

Another reason to dislike tachi is the look of it. It looks as if someone handed you a raw brain from a small animal. Even Japanese people admit that it looks like a brain, but they helpfully tell you: "No, no, it just looks like a brain. It is actually sperm." I am not entirely convinced that this is so much more appetizing though...

This used to be cheap food I am told, and many people have fond memories of eating lots of this when they were kids. Nowadays it is considered more of a delicacy and is usually a bit expensive. It is not hard to find, though. Most izakaya (Japanese bars) have it on the menu in different forms, and many kaiten-zushi ("conveyor belt" sushi bars, sushi moves by you and you grab anything that looks good) serve it at least during the tachi season of the year.


Summary
Taste: not that bad (but not really good)
Texture: disgusting (melts in your mouth in a disgusting way)
Look: disgusting (looks like the raw brain of a small animal)
Misc: is actually raw sperm, and thinking of this may be unappetizing to some