Why do Japanese people not know what animal their food is?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Bit of a rant here, so I'll apologise first, BUT:

 

I have started at a couple of new schools this year and, same as last year, I've had the most stupid comments. I cannot eat seafood as I have an allergy that makes my throat close up and usually results in my eyes streaming and me throwing up, so after telling this to the school regarding the kyushoku situation I was given a menu, of which I can read probably about 60% which is cool. I ask for help with the kanji asking if there are any seafood in a particular days meal. The amount of times I have been told that Maguro ISN'T seafood as its in fact Sea Chicken is unbelievable!! Or that no there is no seafood in here it is only Ebi, Ika, Taco, Kani...etc etc.

 

My mind boggles that people here do not know what animal they are eating!! Of course I don't know which part of the animal I eat BUT I always know what kind of meat it is and which animal the meat is sliced, cut, shorn, crushed, grinded, mechanically extracted from.

 

anyone else ever had this?

 

rant over

[bobby12 0]

They do too tend to be a bit dim in the schools here (I'm not being sarcastic, i worked in a SHS on jet for three years).

 

I love how they call tuna sea chicken, its just so stupid.

[JA2340 16]

Tubby,

Had to do a google to find the meaning of kyushoku and found a blog by "Jason in Japan" with the same sort of problem. The pic of the kyushoku showed a whole fried fish, octopus tentacles in the soup and that left just rice and not much else for lunch. Not really satisfactory, given the number of people who must suffer from seafood alergies.

[HelperElfMissy 42]

And according to all reports those allergies are increasing! I have never had to be concerned about that kind of thing when travelling and trying to work out what to eat or not...it is really taste it and if it is good - eat more, if it is not...leave it. No emergency room visits from simply misreading the menu.

 

I can not imagine how difficult it must be - especially with imperfect Japanese (no derogation intended - your Japanese is WAY better than mine!!) and with the colloquial renaming of sea foods to be things like 'sea chicken'.

 

WOW!

What a challenge!

[Fattwins 0]

You don't have to eat the lunch! in fact if you have that much of an allergy you shouldn't be eating it anyways. You do have a choice. the lunch though is cheaper than 7-11 for most people.

[yoroshiku onegai shimasu 2]

When I visited schools I loved the school lunches.

Though that ain't to do with the names of animals.

 

Sounds like a thread.

[xxx 2]

Chicken of the Sea is a brand of canned tuna produced by a company owned by Thai Union International.

 

Based in San Diego, California, the company markets a variety of other seafood items under the Chicken of the Sea brand name, including clam, crab, mackerel, salmon and sardines. The original company was founded in 1914 when Frank Van Camp and his son bought the California Tuna Canning Company and changed the name to the Van Camp Seafood Company. The phrase Chicken of the Sea, first devised as a way to describe the taste was so successful that soon it also became the company name.

 

In 1963, Van Camp Seafood Company was purchased by Ralston Purina. In 1988, Ralston sold its Van Camp division to an Indonesian corporation, P.T. Mantrust, which had financial problems, and the primary creditor, Prudential Life Insurance, became the majority owner. In 1997 the company was purchased by the investment group Tri-Union Seafoods LLC, made up of three partners:

 

In 2003, on the MTV reality television show Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey exchanged this curious dialog:

 

Simpson: Is this chicken what I have, or is it fish? I know it’s tuna, but it says Chicken. By the sea. Is that stupid?

[Long pause]

Simpson: What? Don’t make fun of me right now. I’m not in the mood.

Lachey: You act like you’ve never had tuna before.

Simpson: I’ve had tuna fish, like, sandwiches and stuff, like this.

Lachey: Baby, you and I have eaten tuna like this before.

Simpson: Why is it called "Chicken by the Sea"? Or "in the Sea"?

Lachey: "Chicken of the Sea" is the brand.

Simpson: Oh.

Lachey: You know, 'cause a lot of people eat tuna, it's like a lot of people eat chicken?

Simpson: Oh. I understand now. I read it wrong.

[xxx 2]

[HelperElfMissy 42]

bizarre

[bobby12 0]

xxx - you got that from a JHS textbook right?

[thursday 1]

that chicken is surely not to scale.

[gerard 6]

I thought it was a bird bath on a windy day.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

You see that's where you are probably wrong. That's not just a chicken. It's a Sea Chicken.

[thursday 1]

so what would it taste like?

[BagOfCrisps 24]

I do not know thursday. Chicken? or tuna perhaps?

[bobby12 0]

That is actually a "chick-king" - the dinosaur version of a chicken from which today's chickens derive.

[thursday 1]

then whats it taste like?

[BagOfCrisps 24]

I do not know thursday. Sea Chicken? or tuna perhaps?

[indosnm 0]

I've never heard of raw tuna (maguro) being referred to as shichikin, only Tuna.. That's what they call the onigiri's..

[2pints-mate 0]

thursday --- beef (medium-rare)

[Ezorisu 0]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

...Maguro ISN'T seafood...

Wonder if that's something "lost in the translation"? They might be thinking "shellfish" when you say "seafood". Being a country that got its primary protien from the sea for so many centuries, they probably have a bunch of distinct words fot different kinds of oceanic produce and not a generalized, sweeping definition like we English speakers tend to. Sort of like the Inuit and "snow".

Just a guess...

[Mantas 3]

> I cannot eat seafood as I have an allergy that makes my throat close up and usually results in my eyes streaming and me throwing up<

 

Just curious TB. Is that with all seafood or just shellfish?

[scouser 4]

Good point, Ezorisu. Though I do not know. Anyone?

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Being a vegetarian, and specifically asking for stuff not to be in my food, i come across a lot of the same ignorance all the time. I'm not sure why it exists, or what concept people have between animal/plant/fish, but i have been frustrated to the point commiting seppuku with my own chopsticks (the metal ones i always carry)

 

I have to ask multiple, multiple times during the same order to make sure that there is no fish broth in my soups or dipping sauces. And they bring it anyways. Or i make a big point about the broth (made from bonito), and then hen i order something i think will be safe, like skewred shiitake mushrooms, it scomes out covered in the same bonito flakes.

[Ezorisu 0]

That's a difficult position to be in. It's not like there aren't native vegetarians in Japan - take Buddhist monks for example. I guess you could ask the chef, "can a Buddhist monk eat this?", but I'm sure that in most quarters outside the monastic inner sanctum, cooks generally aren't experienced in true vegetarian cooking.