A Wonderful Blogging Experience (Satsuki Funatsu)

 Hello, everyone!

Food and Culture is coming to an end already. I'm not good at English, but reading everyone's blogs was really fun—I got to learn about dishes from overseas and even Japan that I didn't know about. In my daily life now, I've become deeply interested not just in the food itself, but also in the culture and history behind it. Someday, I'd like to try the foods everyone introduced.

Finally, I want to share about a drinking party I had with friends last week.

One friend received venison ribs, Rausu kombu (sea kelp), and sea lion meat from an acquaintance in Hokkaido, so we all cooked and ate it together.

We seasoned the venison with spices and roasted it in the oven. Even though it was venison, it had a lot of fat on it. It had a wild flavor and was really delicious.

Rausu kombu is said to be a premium kelp harvested in Rausu, Hokkaido, known for producing a rich broth. We used it for shabu-shabu. Even though the broth had only kombu, the cheap supermarket pork tasted better than usual (maybe...).

The most memorable part was eating Steller's sea lion meat for the first time in my life. In Hokkaido, they have been eaten since ancient times, and canned meat is still sold as a souvenir today. We ate the Steller's sea lion meat we received as recommended ruibe. Ruibe is a Hokkaido local dish where frozen fish is sliced thinly while still frozen and eaten like sashimi. We sliced the Steller's sea lion meat thinly the same way and ate it with grated ginger and soy sauce. When heated, sea lion meat becomes strongly gamey (I tried cooking it shabu-shabu style. It smelled bad and wasn't very tasty...). However, when eaten frozen, the gamey smell is reduced, and combined with ginger's ability to remove strong smells, it made for a delicious meal.

If you ever get the chance, give it a try!