One of Japan's many soy products to be experienced, nattō is fermented soybeans. I suppose there's much to be said about it. It generally isn't restaurant food. It's quite economical, about a hundred yen for a three-pack (sometimes four). It's gooey. It's unpleasant to wash dishes that are coated in natto remnants--at least for me it is. It's an excellent source of lean protein. It feels gross to some people to have natto's texture in their mouth. Above all, above all else, first and foremost and most predominantly, at least in terms of first impressions, is its horrid and wretched smell. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating about the smell.
The first time I had nattō was in Waikiki. I'd just finished work at the Warner Bros store--it's long since closed down, but I have some fond memories--and was walking to my car. As I passed by CoCo Ichiban, I got a whiff of a fresh batch of curry and suddenly had to have some. If you've never eaten at a CoCo Ichiban, it's curry Japanese style. The standard is beef, I suppose, although I remember back in 2001 when they found a mad cow in Japan (in Chiba), a lot of traditionally beef dishes switched to pork; to this day, it seems to me that pork is more available as an option than when I first arrived here, but I don't know if that Mad Cow scare is the reason.
Anyway, back to the CoCo Ichiban Waikiki. I wanted curry, but I also wanted to try something different, new exotic. The menu in the glass door had pictures, and at the bottom was nattō curry. "Geez!" I thought. "What is that?" It certainly didn't look good. I'd never heard of nattō before. I decided to try it. I went for it. When they brought it out I looked at it; I don't remember if I noticed any smell, any of that fermented aroma. I picked some up with a fork, then a spoon, and put it in my mouth. It Was Horrible. I couldn't believe it was food. But I ate it because I'd just spent my hard-earned money on it.
A few months later, I was talking to a friend whose grandmother was a first-generation local Japanese lady, and who often served nattō to her children and grandchildren. So I told the friend my horror story, and she said "Curry? You don't eat nattō with curry!"
"How do you eat it then?
"Just with hot rice!"
"But how do you deal with those gooey strands that hang like spider webs?" She showed me through gestures how she uses her fork to break the strands, attacking them as if cutting through a forest of overflowing foliage.
Shortly afterwards I tried nattō once again, on a bed of hot steaming rice, and was stunned to find that I quite liked it. It's called nattō gohan. You put yellow mustard on it and pour the sauce on. Much less commonly, the yellow mustard can be replaced with wasabi, Japan's horseradish. (I've only seen this once, in a supermarket.) A lot of people will mix a raw egg with the nattō. (I find that just about all of my friends who grew up in Japan have an unshakable trust in the eggs produced here and will eat them raw anytime, any place, without fear of salmonella.) You can also put okra, shirasu (tiny, tiny fish), or strips of nori (dry roasted seaweed). You can eat it as sushi (the nori maki, or maki sushi version); 7-11 usually sells it. I know some who eat it on toast, and one of my students eats it plain and cold, just out of the fridge.
Below is a picture of it. A couple years ago, when I was on my way to pick up a tourist visa at the Indian embassy, I came across a place that seemed to have chosen natto as its primary dish for sale. I believe that's a rare thing. It was good stuff.
Below are pictures of an eatery that serves nattō, and the slimy dish itself:
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