Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
Some visitors to Japan are often surprised by how similar the Japanese diet is to the Western one. Most Japanese people are as likely to be seen munching on a muffin than eating one of the more unusual dishes traditionally associated with Japan. However, you shouldn’t be put off—there are plenty of popular weird and wonderful dishes out there and some of them have fascinating names that tell you a lot about the country’s distinct food culture.
1. 親子丼 Oyako-don
親子丼 (おやこどん) is such a common dish (basically scrambled eggs and chicken over rice) that most learners of Japanese probably don’t think about how strange the name is. The origin of the kanji that make up this tasty treat is a combination of the Chinese characters for parent 親 (the chicken) and child 子 (the egg). So it’s parent and child in the same bowl. Lovely.
2. 踊り丼 Odori-don
Another strange-sounding (and looking) dish is the Japanese 踊 (おどり丼どん). This dish consists of a squid or an octopus that is basically a zombie: the brainstem has been severed, so the animal is effectively brain-dead, but the muscle cells are still active. When the sodium in the soy sauce makes contact with the still active muscles, they begin to writhe and contract like something from a Japanese horror movie.
As these contractions make the tentacles move in a way that looks like a grotesque vaudeville dance, the dish includes the word for dance (踊り) in its name.
Unfortunately, 踊り丼 is not the only culinary misadventure that uses the “dancing” idea, as there is also the infamous 白魚 (しらうおの踊り食ぐい ) or dancing icefish, which consists of a raw egg and little fish that are still swimming among them.
Click here to read more.
- External Link
- https://gaijinpot.com/
4 Comments
Login to comment
Serrano
That odori-don looks sooooo appetizing...
Ralph
The Oyakodon tastes so good! Also, I would like to mention that the dancing squid bowl is just a name coming from a specific shop, and you can't really find that bowl anywhere else. The squid is dead BTW, don't freak out.
Taydra Anna Brookshire
Nothing says Happy Mother’s Day like chicken and scrambled eggs
Kuma Kuro
They have strange names? Nothing is more strange than English. Kanji is symbolic character, at least there are meanings because they are drawings. What about George(sorry George, no offense)? What about Helen (sorry Helen, no offense)? What's ABC? There are no meanings other than they mean whatever they said they were meant. What's T? What's R? Strange name of character.
Just wanna say, there is no strange thing in language. There are always reasons for them, just because we don't know the reason doesn't mean that they are strange.