Slugs and snails and pregnant fish

Considered one of the most highly acclaimed cuisines globally, Japanese fodder had a lot to live up to if it was going to rank anywhere close to the extravagantly lavish concoctions conjured up by my own mother – who is capable of recreating any meal she’s ever enjoyed worldwide by the memory of taste alone.

An overrunning habit from a misspent youth, surviving solely on beer and anything vaguely edible to provide sustenance (including kebab meat salvaged from biffa bins and freeze dried milk by the spoonful), during the Withanail and I-esque student days means I can stomach most things.

And after eight months living in this country, I can vouch that there is nothing wrong with the food. It’s perfectly palatable, even the pregnant fish served up at lunchtime, eyeballs and all, are actually not that bad.

But slapping a whole fish on a plate does not exert any degree of effort. And here we unearth a running theme.

Slicing up a live squid or a fillet of raw fish and assembling it in a pretty(ish) formation on a polystyrene tray does not constitute cooking and, therefore, cannot put the country’s “chefs” in the same league as our very own pig faced Jamie Oliver’s three page guide to making the perfect fish finger sandwich.

Invited to a cookery class in my Junior High School, a student was to teach me a traditional, and very old, recipe using sweet potatoes. Honoured to be let into a culinary secret of a land so far from home, my disappointment upon discovering that the entire process involved boiling the potato whole, slicing it into discs and leaving it on a baking tray over the weekend to dry in the sunlit bug fuelled air, was difficult to mask.

Asking if any seasoning was involved I was told, in no uncertain terms; “No Ellie-sensei, we like to eat natural.”

Which is fine, but don’t label this feral practice a recipe. In the same vein, I cook every morning when I peel my banana.

In preparation for a family party, one of my colleagues explained the foods she would prepare – rice, rice, more rice, and – the piece de resistance - gyoza dumplings.

By the Japanese standards I had encountered so far, I was impressed, until she continued to explain that she would be buying premade Gyoza, because it is “very difficult” to extract a ready-made dumpling sheet from a packet, spoon on lumps of minced meat and fold it over into little pasties.

From a generation hell bent against waste, my grandmother would overcome this great barrier of difficulty to do similar with left over pastry and a bag of raisins.

Attending a cooking class this weekend, we were the entertainment, as the unsung Japanese masterchefs observed us cubing apples to stew before spooning into circles of packet-bought puff pastry. Rightly they were flabbergasted at our outstanding proficiency with a knife and a chopping board, which saw their enthusiasm soaring to unforeseen heights.

We also made chocolate fondue, with dipping products including dried squid, fishy cheese, carrots and cherry tomatoes, which were annihilated by the locals like a pack of sugar addicted rabbits.

Most weekends, as I’m off for visits to various towns and prefectures across the country, fellow teachers will religiously, and without fail, pipe up – “You must try the udon.”

Kagawa, Okayama, Kobe, Kochi, pretty much everywhere is allegedly “very famous for its udon,” possibly one of the most used phrases in the Japanese vocabulary.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, udon is an oriental artform, and a lengthy and difficult process to master.

Take a bowl of water, add a stock cube and some thick noodles, simmer for two minutes and pour into a bowl. If you’re lucky you get a raw egg to crack over the top.

Another highly regarded dish is tempura. We treated ourselves to a pricey and lavish tempura meal in Hiroshima at a top end restaurant to celebrate the forming of new friendships during training week.

There’s not much scope to make a clear differentiation between cheap and expensively deep-fried microscopic slithers of vegetable, doused in enough batter to encapsulate a small child.

Needless to say we were left both lighter in the purse and terribly disappointed.

It is also frowned upon to err from what is expected when eating the poor man’s fish and chips. There is a strict regimental technique to devouring this delicacy. Rumour has it that dipping your food into condiments in the wrong order was once punishable by death.

Raw fish, pregnant fish, fly ridden spuds, I would choose a British Fry Up every time.