Fish, Fins and Forbidden Food: A Travel Writer With Food Allergies Navigates Japan
Perhaps it seems strange that someone with a slew of food allergies would attempt to eat their way around any country, but I was eager to explore beyond sushi and if ever there was a country where people understood the concept of food as roulette, it’s Japan, the blowfish capital of the world.
As a travel writer, the pre-trip vocabulary I stock up on tends not to be found on the first pages of phrasebooks. I always start by learning the same phrases, no matter where I’m going. Hellos and nice-to-meet-yous will come later. For me, there are more crucial conversations to be had. I’ve learned to state my food allergies in languages from Czech to Malay.
Perhaps it seems strange that someone with a slew of food allergies would attempt to eat their way around any country, but I was eager to explore beyond sushi and if ever there was a country where people understood the concept of food as roulette, it’s Japan, the blowfish capital of the world.
Equipped with cards that stated which foodstuffs were likely to kill me or at least transform me into a blowfish (gluten, soy, walnuts), I trotted off to the land where wheat-rich soy sauce flows.
It was a week of thrilling eating. On my second day, I pestered my hosts to teach me the word for “delicious.” They were pleased as I said it at the majority of our dining experiences. “Oishi!” I’d exclaim on sampling a pickle or sliver of raw fish. “Ooh, oishi!” I’d squeal, halfway through a skewer of bacon-wrapped octopus. “Mmm… oishi!” I’d burble while devouring incredibly flavorful consommé, later revealed — to my horror — to be sharksfin soup.
Descriptions of my food difficulties are often the only phrases that come to mind when I meet people from that country once back home. I’m aware that I’m unlikely to win new friends when my entire conversation consists of “It looks lovely, but it might kill me” and “I’m allergic to practically everything on your menu,” but with Japanese it’s different. Sure, I can tell them I swell up to the size of a blowfish if I come within ten feet of their favorite wheat-based, liquid flavour-enhancer. Sure, I can, but I don’t. The first word that springs to mind when I think of Japan, is far more winning. It’s oishi.
But, on my last night in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city, I encountered something I hadn’t known to put on my CANNOT EAT list. I knew I would have to pass on Osaka’s famed noodles, which was a real shame in a city obsessed with noodles (Osaka even has a museum devoted entirely to instant noodles).
Perhaps Osaka’s most famous noodlerie is Mimiu, famed as the place where udon suki — thick, white noodle stew, cooked in a hot pot at the table — was invented in 1928. Udon Suki is now considered the quintessentially Kansai regional dish. I would be having noodle hot pot, without the noodles, but there would be plenty of other delicious things in my stew, I was assured.
Kimono-clad servers brought delicate glasses full of frozen sake and beakers of shochu rice vodka to accompany bento boxes of pickles, salads and sashimi. A huge vat of steaming noodle broth bubbled away, my small noodle-free pot alongside. I feasted happily on my bento and watched as servers brought plates and dishes of shiitake mushrooms, greens, clams, and my companions and I added them to the cooking pots.
It was looking tantalizingly good when a smiling staff member presented the final ingredient, a platter of live and still writhing shrimp, one of which I was expected to pick up and plunge to its brothy demise. Perhaps it’s just me, but I usually prefer when my dinner doesn’t flail its legs in terror on my plate. Sometimes you don’t need to learn the correct phrase to explain what you just can’t eat. There are times an expression of horror does the trick just as well.
