Haydenei

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

My last business trip took me to Paris, where my friend Song showed me around the city as a couchsurfer and suggested dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant. It is one of the restaurants, which offers the traditional Japanese cuisine apart from the everywhere available Sushi. Sure, Japan is well know for it’s Sushi, but it has so much more delicious stuff to offer. On the other hand some rather questionable dishes (this is a purely personal opinion) have made their appearances on the menu. One of these dishes is nattō.

Due to my poor – or to be honest non existent - knowledge of the French language I made my decision with Song’s help and an ordered tuna with nattō as a starter. The waiter kindly pointed out that it has “a very special taste” to it. Song and I thought nattō is a kind of marinade and I decided, can’t be that bad. So I stuck to my order. The polite question of “are you sure” didn’t dissuade me.

A little later they served me a small bowl with some pieces of raw tuna and some kind of bean slop. Fearless as I was, I picked up the chopsticks and tried some of that nattō. When I lifted it even a little it produced spider web like strings. And looking promising is definitely something completely different. To me it reminded me more of food you forgot before you left for vacation and you have to get rid of afterwards. But what could I do? I ordered it, so I had to try it. The taste definitly didn’t convince me and it is hard to describe. For me it was kind of moldy, salty and not very tasty. I tried some more of it, but decided to eat only the raw tuna beneath it. And the latter was definitely good.

Nattō consists of steamed soy beans which are mixed with a bacterium. This way, the beans are fermented for up to 24 hours. The result is a slime of denatured protein.

My personal conclusion – it is interesting to have seen and tasted it, but I definitely don’t have to do it a second time.