Food. And things that other people say are food.

This post is going to be mostly photos, I think they tell the story better than I can.  We went to the Nishiki Food Market, Which has some incredible stuff and some incredibly weird stuff.  The market is several blocks of an old old street.  It is so narrow that in recent years a roof has been built over it, making it into an arcade, but each vendor still has a discreet building, and many of them make what they sell in the back.

I am always interested by the assumptions we make, and a lot of the assumptions we make are around food, of course.  What tastes good or comforting to us is so specific to us culturally that I think that food makes for an interesting shibboleth.

So here are some images:

The arcade

Noodles.  The little yellow can has udon soup in it.

Dried bonito for making fish flakes.  It is hard as a piece of wood.

Gorgeous fish ready to eat.

Wasabi root.

It is exactly what the picture says it is:  Whale meat.

Fish.  And octopus.

These are actually still alive.  Pretty wild.

Sweets.

Little tiny dried fish.

Some amazing pickles.  There are a lot of really beautiful pickles here.

Lots of pickles of various types.

Beautiful eel.

Rice Shop.Lots of different rices, and each marked with the part of the country they came from.

More fish.  Behind the fish are dried squid.

The packaged stuff is whale bacon.  No, I did not try it.

Flaked bonito

Different nori and other dried seaweed

More dried fish

Different teas

More fish.

Octopus on a stick with a quail egg in its body.  Yours for only $3.00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A student eating an octopus on a stick with a quail egg in it's body. No. No I did not.