Meet Natto

Natto is what happened when some crazy Japanese person decided to eat the rotting horse feed in some edo-era stable. Natto is a blob of fermented soybeans with a disgustingly stringy texture, that has the same appeal as smelly rotting cheeses- it's good while at the same time disgusting. Most Americans and many Japanese refuse to eat it. It made me throw up to look at it until I developed a taste for it (like many other bizarre Japanese foods that I now crave, like pickled plum, grated mountain yam and burdock root).

I've come to realize I can eat almost anything as long as it's not sketchy meat. (Sketchy meat wrecks my digestion, so it may be a self-preservation thing). But rotten soybeans and fruit that smells like dirty ass? Bring it on!

Speaking of sketchy meat, Mike Sula at the Reader posted the menu for his pig dinner (the Reader bought some kind of heirloom pig with the express intent of butchering and eating it- I guess it's supposed to be some kind of environmentally positive gesture but it's the sort of gesture that would have angry vegans throwing bricks in my hometown of Berkeley.) Anyway, I am less sad about not being able to attend this event because if I tried to eat my way through that much pork, combined with wine, no less, my digestive system would probably stage a hostile revolt (which happened after eating pork belly at Hot Chocolate, as delicious as it was). My digestive system adores probiotics laden natto on the other hand. So that was your TMI for the day.