Kyushoku

After yesterday and today's school lunch I have realized that I have not paid enough homage to these culinary creations. As you will read in "A Day in the Life..." entry I touch base on this subject, but for the audiences' sake I need to add a little more detail to this phenomenon we call "school lunch".

You thought your school lunch from middle school was bad, you have no clue what these poor students go through. They don't even have the option of bringing their own lunch, they eat what is set in front of them. No options at all, no chocolate milk, no ice cream, no chicken nugget or pizza day. The reason for this post is to tell you that yesterday and today I had to have help deciphering what I was putting in my mouth. I couldn't tell if I was eating a plant or an animal or a starch. The first item was thin and nearly transparent white. It looked like the rice noodles that you can get in the Asian food section. I thought, "Hey, I like these noodle things". One of the teachers asked me if I knew what they were and I said, "Of course, noodles". Much to my dismay one of the students did the motion of something swimming in the ocean. So I think it was a type of fish (or fish tentacles) that I was eating. Hum, shocking. Today's school lunch offered nothing even remotely appetizing. I am really getting used to my 'bucket of rice' that they feed me. What a great filler when you have such peculiar things on the side. Today's mystery food looked like a spring roll. I got very excited. When I bit into it it had a spongy, rubbery texture. It was shaped like a cylinder which cheese in the middle. This creation could have been a plant, animal or starch as well so I continued to ask my students. "Sakana desu ka" (is this a fish), is what I asked. They looked confused and again did the motion of something swimming in water. Scientists aren't kidding when they remark on the hundreds of thousands of millions of species living in the ocean. I think since I have been in Japan I have sampled about half of them. Served with the spongy spring roll item was this salad dish. I will call it salad for lack of a better word (although it was cooked). Black stringy leaf looking things accompanied by the fish/rice noodle with beans, carrots and a surprise item which only I was lucky to get. This surprise item looked like a cross between a clam, mussel, and fried tofu. I was not brave enough to sample this and I was too embarrassed to ask my students what it was. That baby went in the burnable gomi (trash) for sure. One more salad with cabbage, peanuts and cucumber made the lunch complete. Needless to say, there was much to be desired.