A Nuuttipukki, Toivo Kaukoranta, Finnish Heritage Agency We continue with our upcycling theme this week by considering the nearly extinct nuuttipukki, essentially an ambulatory carpet-cum-mendicant in search of beer and leftover grub--like in food: this is not an eat-the-bugs reference--in Finland. We recently learned of this creature from The Public Domain Review, an excellent publication … Continue reading Trick or Treating with the Nuuttipukki
There is an interesting debate taking place in Japan at the moment centered around the issue of “overtourism.” Distilled down to its very essence—and we like distillation here at drinkingjapan.org—it is simply a matter of locating the Goldilocks Zone, determining the ideal number of inbound tourists. This number, should it exist, will prove neither too … Continue reading In Search of the Goldilocks Zone
fooduniversity.org Go This Way This is the final entry in our series on eel. We hope that our readers have found the information interesting and, if they have not already done so, are now motivated to explore the pleasures that this dish has to offer. In Japan, the most obvious place to conduct this gastronomic … Continue reading Eel: The Editorial
fooduniversity.org Spearing Eels, Winslow Homer In this penultimate posting in our series on eel, we make a sharp departure from the foci of this blog--Japanese drinks and, to a lesser extent, food pairings for those beverages. All will be made clear in the final entry. The Dictionary of Historical Slang has an entry for the … Continue reading The Eel Abroad, Part 2
fooduniversity.org This is the sixth entry in our series on eel. Here, we leave Japan briefly and look at how eel is and was consumed overseas. Many Japanese believe that eel is not eaten overseas. Nothing could be further from the truth. Calvin W. Schwabe (see the first entry in this series) lists a number … Continue reading The Eel Abroad, Part 1
fooduniversity.org This is the fifth entry in our series on eels. Here we briefly consider two beverages that are thought to go well with Unagi no Kabayaki—nihon-shu and beer. There are some rules,…or guidelines,…or, wait a minute,...perhaps the best word to use here is suggestions as to what drinks complement which foods. A common assumption … Continue reading Eel-and-Beverage Pairings
fooduniversity.org The Frog and the Eel, Haiku Meets Haute Cuisine This is the fourth installment of our series on eel. Unagipie A successful by-product of the eel business in Hamamatsu is unagipie. This is a cookie-like confection that has become a must-buy-product for many visitors to the city. It is made by Shunkado, which was … Continue reading By-Product and Must-Buy-Product
