When I first arrived in Japan 19 years ago, I brought a lot of preconceived notions with me. Like, the Japanese all lived in small houses (my house in Japan is larger than my San Diego home) and drove tiny cars (actually, you see quite a few large vehicles on the roads, including the occasional Cadillac Escalade and Hummer). I also was pretty sure the Japanese didn’t eat much meat, since the impression we all had back in the 1980s was that Japan spent 25% of their income on a meager diet of fish and rice, or something like that. (This was before the Internet and bloggers like me came along, making it possible to know Japan as it really is.) Happily, this notion turned out to be mistaken, and the Japanese eat plenty of delicious foods, including lots of niku (meat). One of the most common ways to enjoy meat is to go to a steak house where you can choose from a regular steak or a cheaper “hamburg” (ground beef) steak, usually imported from Australia or the USA. Korean BBQ is another popular way to get your meat fix, especially in my home prefecture of Gunma, which has the highest population of Koreans (though most were born in Japan and only maintain their Korean identity for cultural reasons). Last Friday the J-List crew went out for shabu shabu, which is thinly sliced pieces of meat you cook in a pot of boiling water. Since the meat is so thin it cooks in seconds, and the water washes away most of the fat, so it’s very healthy. (The name shabu shabu is the sound of the meat swishing around in the water.)
A popular way to eat meat is shabu shabu.
