Food Porn and a Food Review
Can’t say fairer than that.
Much in the same way I feel about having my balls smashed with hammers, I’ve never been a huge fan of Oden. In Japan, Oden is a traditional Winter stew, inexplicably eaten all year round. It varies from the expensive kind that you might get as a course at an elaborate Japanese restaurant, to the convenience store version which manifests itself as an open, bubbling pot of brown liquid and fish-paste shapes situated by the cash register allowing for it to be conveniently sneezed and coughed into by every single customer who comes into the shop.
However, the two ends of the Oden spectrum share one similar trait; both varieties - and all in between - taste exactly the same. This is because Oden is made by following these 3 simple steps:
1) Take some basic dashi
2) Throw in some additional ingredients - it doesn’t really matter what, because the last step is…
3) Boil the shit out of everything
Which means you end up with a stew that tastes like a slightly sexed-up dashi, with some chewy bits that have next to no nutritional value. Perversely, the convenience store uses this as a selling point, putting up big signs that proudly proclaim “Now With Frick-All Calories!!”. The actual ingredients that are boiled to their base elements in Oden reads like a random list of pantry leftovers and the depraved implements of Chinese vomit torture. In an average vat of Oden you will find:
Eggs
Konnyaku (grey jelly made from cigarette ash)
Chicken skin on skewers
Daikon (Japanese radish - boiled until a near-puree)
Innocuous-looking white puffs that I believe are made from whale smegma.
Tofu; brown and not-brown varieties.
All kinds of objects wrapped in “surimi” (a kind of fish paste). You can even get FISH wrapped in this fish paste, which I like to think is some kind of clever ironic statement, in food form.
Lots more info an pics of individual items here.
ANYWAY. Whilst walking around Akihabara the other weekend in search of tentacle porn, I found THIS. Oden in a CAN, the size and contents of which bear all the hallmarks of finest catfood, differentiated only by the lack of feline imagery on the package design. I do, however, expect both canned Oden and cat food to contain similar amounts of reclaimed horse meat. I am yet to open this (since it’s good until like 2015) but I may return to it at a later date…UNTIL THEN…
Madness? THIS. IS. ODEN!
In other news, here’s some food I cooked recently that totally pwns the turgid, grey mash of pulped chinese newspapers you - the afflicted-with-retarditis readers of yongfook.com - whip up in your kitchens to feed yourselves with.
King Prawn Spaghetti
http://www.opensourcefood.com/people/yongfook/recipes/luxurious-king-prawn-spaghetti/
Pan-Roasted, Stuffed Pork
Pineapple Rice
http://opensourcefood.com/people/yongfook/recipes/pineapple-fried-rice/
Absorption Pasta
http://www.opensourcefood.com/people/yongfook/recipes/simple-absorption-pasta/
If I was a chick, I’d totally do me for a bite of any of that.
