Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

..and then I awoke from the daze and suddenly realised I had flipped out and killed the entire town by breaking everyone’s spine with my foot of justice. “That’ll stop her fidgeting” I thought, as I skipped off into the sunset, feasting on brain.

Anyway pushing spine-kick-death aside for a moment:

There are two Japanese foods that literally taste of NOTHING. Call me old fashioned but I generally like my food to taste of things, because that is what my tongue is for, and unless you live in some bizarre alternate dimension where humans have evolved a completely different way and now eat food by absorbing the natural energy through laser beams from their nipples, so should you too.

Anyway these two foods are hijiki and konnyaku. These are definitions of both these food items which I found on another website:

Hijiki - A type of dried, black seaweed that’s reconstituted in water and used as a vegetable in soups and other dishes. Hijiki’s flavor has a slight anise character.

No. Hijiki is not used as a vegetable at all. Saying Hijiki is used as a vegetable is like saying “my cock is used as a toilet-pointer” or “cows are used to breathe air”. Hijiki is used in much the same way as when some people use those small white polystyrene chips to protect things they send through the post but when they use them for pointless, unbreakable things like books or clothes. In other words, Hijiki is tasteless, redundant filler. In fact, pouring a bowl full of polystyrene chips and munching them down with some hot water would probably be a more wholesome, tasty meal than some bastard soup with hijiki in it.

Konnyaku - A traditional Japanese jelly-like health food made from a kind of potato called “Konnyaku potato” and calcium hydroxide or oxide calcium extracted from eggshells.

Potato eggshell jelly! Well if you mouth isn’t watering now you know at least that you are still human. Konnyaku is a strikingly GREY coloured jelly-like substance, grey being possibly the most unappetising food colour ever, which gives it the appearance of some kind of children’s dessert made from cigarette ash. Konnyaku tastes of absolutely nothing, basically a bit like smooth, taut gristle, and is usually chopped up into little squares and thrown into soups.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, its not as if I don’t like either Hijiki or Konnyaku - I mean, surely it defies some kind of natural law of logic if you hate something that has no taste. It just baffles me as to why food products such as these have sort of stumbled, tripped and looked up to find themselves inexplicably smack bang in the middle of the mainstream Japanese diet. I could go on forever about these - for example ALOE VERA. Yes this is the same ingredient that the western world has embraced as a vital ingredient in such delicious foods as SHAMPOO or FACE CREAM. In Japan however, you will quite routinely find Aloe Vera yoghurt, Aloe Vera gum, and I don’t know, probably Aloe Vera pizza with meercat testicle ravioli and succulent fillets made from a tiny, rare vole constructed in a tesseract formation, suspended above the cheese by some kind of karate power.

You have to wonder, is God looking down on Japan, perhaps whilst on MSN with Prajapati, the Hindu lord of all creation, and having a chat like this?:

Anyway, here are some deliciousâ„¢ instructions on how to make tofu and hijiki burgers:

You will need A block of tofu, heavy enough to brain an owl A packet of hijiki tofu burger mix

1) Drain the water out of the tofu. Unlike what you (read: I) might think, you can’t do that by simply gently squeezing the tofu in your hands like a sponge, as that makes it crumble and fall into the sink. So yeah, wrap some kitchen roll around the tofu, put it in the microwave and blast it for a minute. The tofu will shed most of its water and the paper will absorb it up so you don’t drown your microwave.

2) Put the tofu in a large mixing bowl and empty the contents of the burger mix packet in too. Take some kind of CRUSHX0RIZING tool, like a wide-toothed fork or my preference, an egg whisk, and smash the tofu to a pulp, mixing it with the packet contents at the same time.

3) Wonder what it is exactly that hijiki reminds you of. Think ‘oh yeah that’s right, fish shit”.

4) Pause, startled, for a second as you remember something in the back of your mind that somehow links hijiki to ARSENIC, the lethal poison.

5) Leave everything, and go to your computer. Type “hijiki arsenic death” into Google. Find a dozen links explicitly stating that hijiki does indeed contain small amounts of arsenic. Become alarmed. Look back at bowl of mashed up tofu in the kitchen. Hear a loud booming voice as the bowl suddenly becomes animated with a large, evil face and shouts “EAT MEEEEE, EEEEATTTT MEEEE MWAAA HA HA HA AH AHAAHAHAAHA!!!!!! YOU’LL NEV4R SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY..AGAINNNN!!!!”. Smile, satisfied that you spotted that small Aladdin reference. Decide to eat hijiki tofu burgers regardless.

6) Squash together lumps of the tofu mixture between your hands to create something that resembles a hamburger shape.

7) Throw onto hot frying pan and fry for however long you like, since tofu doesn’t need to be cooked or anything.

8) Eat, trembling in fear of arsenic death.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2004 at 8:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.