And So It Goes

"In Japan, 'Eat Your Vegetables' Is a Pleasure"
by Elizabeth Andoh
New York Times, Jun 21, 2003
[Moreover - Japan news]

Diner customer: Well, what've you got?
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam, spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam, or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.
Mrs. Bun: Have you got anything without spam?
Waitress: Well, there's spam, egg, sausage and spam. That's not got much spam in it.
- from Monty Python's "Spam Sketch"

I'm not a vegetarian, but I know a few, and found out it's difficult to accommodate them easily in Tokyo. Around here, "vegetarian" seems to mean, "well, it doesn't have much meat in it. "Why yes, it's a vegetarian dish: it's just vegetables in pork broth," is a common kind of sentence, I'm told by some vegetarians.

In any case, next time I have vegetarian or semi-vegetarian visitors (like my friend Craig, who has no specific health or moral reasons for abstaining, just a general dislike of eating something that has a face), I 'll use this Elizabeh Andoh article from the The New York Times as a reference to good vegetarian dining. Damn, I get hungry just reading it.

(BTW, Spam? its own self is not much in evidence here. You can find it in the import grocery stores for about four bucks a can, next to the Greek olives, Fortnum & Mason Earl Grey tea, and genuine mozzarella di bufala -- a juxtaposition I find both odd and troubling (this is supposed to represent an exotic culinary import?) -- but not in mainstream places. I do know, however, of a convenience store in Ebisu that offers Spam-flavored onigiri (riceball), presumably a Hawaiian variation on the ubiquitous boxed lunch food. Greasy and guilt-inducing, but tasty.