Japanese grocery stores

One of the things in daily life here, that you don't necessarily think about at home, is going to the grocery store. Unless you eat convenience store (conbini) bento every day, that is. But since the nearest conbini is a 20 minute drive from my current location, as well as being expensive, that isn't really an option. Plus it's not nearly as fun as experimenting in the kitchen. >:-D

 Today's dinner: Japanese style curry, packed (a little too) full of deliciousness.

Yesterday, I went to the new grocery store in the nearby city. One of the things you notice immediately is the loudspeakers yelling at you from every direction. Welcome, the meat is on sale, today only! Fish is good for the health! When the Ponyo movie from Studio Ghibli came out a few years ago, the fish section looped the theme song over and over again every day for months. I don't know how the workers didn't go crazy. And then you have the (usually chain) stores with their own theme songs that loop endlessly throughout the store.

Once you learn to tune those out, shopping is a pretty fun experience, mostly because there are loads of things that you look at and have no idea what they're used for. Or the sections that are huge in comparison to the ones at home. Even in the prefecture that is the farthest away from the sea as you can get in Japan (yes, this is true), the seafood section is bigger than all of the meat combined. And that's not even including the sashimi and sushi. Most of the fish are whole. One of these days, I'll learn how to properly clean and cut a fish....until then, I get the fish precut, but still with the skin on.

One more section that is relatively huge is the seaweed. There are so many types here, Kombu, sheets for sushi rolls, shredded for garnish, powdery for going on top of rice, dried stuff for soups, etc. I remember in elementary school, the teacher said that in the rest of the world, seaweed was a very common food. I refused to eat the sample. Now I eat it almost every day! A favorite snack is dried and flavored strips while watching TV or such.

 Super healthy seaweed!

And then, there's miso. Miso is a paste made of fermented soybeans (but sooo much better than natto. Eugh.). It's used to marinate fish, spice up some vegetables, and used for the broth in the popular miso soup. It's one of those thing that's ALWAYS in the Japanese kitchen. There are so many to chose from, so for me it's like playing eenie meenie miney moe.

 Miso-ey goodness...

You can generally buy store made bento, sides, sushi, and chose from a wide variety of fried foods in all grocery stores. They tend to go on sale at about 5:00, if there's any left. There have been many a night that I get out of work late and buy half off sashimi for dinner. 

  Dinner sides, prepared in store!

One more thing that's pretty different here is the amount of senbei, or Japanese rice crackers. They're completely different from the airy, puffy zero calorie snack in the U.S., they're actually GOOD. And there is such a broad range of shapes and flavors, including sweet, savory and spicy. My current favorite is covered in kinako, a flour made using soy. Mmmmm. They're also individually wrapped for portion control.

On another note, it's aaaaalmost strawberry season. Which means that there are some in the stores, but they're still way overpriced. Maybe in another month or so....