Fermented soybeans and the art of conversation...

Incredibly, I now like eating natto, the foul tasting, stringy goo-beans that are the natural enemy of gaijin... last night, whilst enjoying beer and skewered chicken with some new colleagues, I challenged them to try natto. They did, and to my surprise, one of them loved it. Pressed for more information, he told me that it's not much different to eating a raw potato, and that the earthy taste is actually the best thing about it, as it is natural and not saturated with preservatives and fat, like most fast food.

We ate our natto, and came to the conclusion that food preference is as much in the mind as the taste buds, which seemed like a very profound idea at 1.30am in the heart of Sasebo. Toasting our reasoning with another beer, we didn't notice at first that our other colleague had scrambled to the bathroom to send his fermented goo-beans back to the earth whence they came...