Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

            We made our first oden of the season on Sunday evening!
    Oden is basically a cool/cold weather dish that consists of various processed fish and tofu products,  hard-boiled eggs, and other ingredients such as Japanese radish (daikon) and konnyaku (a sort of gelatinous root). Everything is boiled in a salty broth (dashi) and then served steaming hot, often accompanied by karashi (Japanese spicy mustard). I'm not a big fan of karashi in combination with oden, so you won't see any in the following pictures. It's usually a rather bright orange/red color, though.
  Oden can get rather expensive to make if you like a large variety of ingredients, but it also makes a TON, so you definitely get your money's worth. Or, if you don't want to cook it yourself at home, you can always buy some at most convenience stores, starting around this time and continuing throughout the winter.

                             I've been here too long to know any more if this dish looks weird to most Westerners, but it definitely tastes great!

                    One of my favorite fish products...it's really fluffy, kind of like a fish marshmallow. Only way better tasting that than description sounds, I swear.