Friday, May 20, 2005

Fresh fish, Fried chicken

How many people think that sushi is the staple of the Japanese diet? How many people think that Japanese food is simple and healthy? You are all wrong. While the main Japanese food served in foreign countries does happen to be sushi or noodles, there are a whole bunch of other wonderful things to eat in Japan. And most of them are fried.

Walk into a grocery store, and head to the back corner. You will find a wonderful selection of prepared foods, kind of like a deli. However, 75% of them will be fried. Croquettes, tenderloins, fried chicken, fried tofu, tempura...

Are you surprised? Did you not realize that there are so many fried foods in Japan that you could eat a different one every day for at least a month? The amazing thing is despite the massive intakes of oil, high cholestoral and heart disease are not a big problem here. Perhaps it is the popularity of tofu or sesame seeds (both having lately been discovered as the best foods ever, health wise), or perhaps it is because the image of insanely skinny people is so ingrained that you are hard put to find a college student who doesn't count their calories.

Either way, while the Japanese can manage their fried food ingestion, I am slightly worried for my caucasian heart. I cannot resist the croquettes. Or the tenderloins. Or the fried tofu. In fact, I just bought all three for lunch.

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