JapanForum.com - Best/worst Japanese food?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LolaMeca (Post 1361151)

I think natto is the worst food in Japan haha but the one I love is kare (curry) <3

Let me plead for NATTO.

In western sense, foods has four kind of tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter.

In Japan, our ancesters added one more taste called "UMAMI:(tasty)" in Japanese.

UMAMI was identified in early 1900s as glutamic acid (1908) or inosinic acid (1913) and chemically synthesized as some products.

If you feel something new in MISO-soup, it is the UMAMI.

As NATTO has much UMAMI in itself, many people love it and other people hate it because of the smell.
Even native Japanese, peope in western Japan often hates NATTO.

To overcome the smell, add green onion in it as shown in this video. Here NATTO lover and NATTO hesitater try NATTO (at 7:30) in their manner.

In this video, they stir NATTO after putting other ingredients. But I recommend to stir first at least 20 times before adding soy sauce. Recommended: 50 times or more before and after adding soy sauce and/or seasonings.

Here is another brave guy who tried NATTO for the first time.

He also stir NATTO after adding soy sauce. I think he is wrong. and He added soy sauce too much. I think 1/4 amount of his soy sauce is enough.

He bought four packs of NATTO at once and tried them all serially. After having fourth pack, he found the NATTO is great.

To overcome the smell and to be used to NATTO taste, it is good idea to put NATTO into Curry, MISO-saup or other foods with strong tatste.

BTW:He had the NATTO before breakfast. Does he know what "朝飯前（ASA-MESHI-MAE）：before breakfast" means in Japanese? It means "easy work which can be done before breakfast".