Everyone knows I love Mexico. I love Mexico like I was born there. Love the way the language drips off the tongue, the rolling r’s, the languid ll, the singing up-and-down lilt of the South (as opposed to the sharp screeching of the North). Love the mountains and the beaches, the brilliant colors, the open architecture and open-doored houses hidden behind tall gates. Love the people, salt of the earth, who would open their houses and share a simple meal with a gringa from el norte. Love the smell of the city and the country, that distinct “I-am-in-Mexico” scent that I’ve never smelled anywhere else. And, more than almost anything, I love the food. Huevos rancheros smothered in green sauce, pollo con mole, tomato-stained rice filled with vegetables, street-corner tlyudas with tasajo, thick corn cakes, and hand-made tortillas and salsa three times a day.
But something strange happened.
I went to Oaxaca, Mexico in 2008 for five weeks to study for my TESOL certificate. But just three weeks in, I started—dare it be true?—missing American food. Yes. I craved Papa John’s pizza. (Mexican pizza, bless its heart, is the worst.) I wanted my mom’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes and Rusty’s macaroni and cheese. I wanted Southern food: honest to goodness sweet tea, green beans, Brunswick stew. I wanted a hamburger without a fried egg on top. I was tired of Mexican food, dammit! Delicious as it was, Mexican for breakfast, lunch, and dinner was getting to me.
So I was worried when I found out I’d be moving to Japan for a year. Sure, I like Japanese food as much as the next guy, but was I really going to have to eat sushi every single day for 365 days?
Actually, no.
I have been surprised at the variety of food here. I can find almost anything I’d eat in the U.S., except, as fate would have it, good Mexican food. (There are frozen tortillas in the International Foods Store and made-in-Japan Coronas, but many of the fruits and vegetables that they have down south just don’t exist over here in the middle of the ocean.) There is a good amount of “American” food, though, sandwiched between the dried squid, seaweed, soba noodles, and other unrecognizables. (NB: By “American” I mean things I can eat in America, which includes food from all over the world.) Japan loves Italian food, so there are always jars of spaghetti sauce and various pastas in every grocery store. I can buy pancake mix (together with astronomically-priced pure maple syrup), olive oil, spaghetti noodles (no oven, no lasagna?), instant macaroni and cheese, oatmeal, and Ocean Spray cranberry juice. So I am eating toasted peanut butter and honey bagels with my cup of coffee in the morning just like I was back in the good ol' U.S. of A.
But.
I LOVE Japanese food. And I'm not tired of it at all. Even after hearing "What do you like Japanese food?" a thousand times at school, I can still answer, "Everything (almost)!" truthfully. On rainy days I want hot udon or ramen (noodle soups). I like to sip green tea (even though the powdered kind is not as delicious as the dried leaf kind). I've even started enjoying the tiny dishes of random fresh seafood you get when you go to a nice restaurant, even if they do slide off my chopsticks occasionally. It's funny. Here I was thinking I would get so tired of what they have here, and I find I am loving it.
I still miss some food, though. In no particular order:
Chick-Fil-A
Stamey's Barbeque
Beef Burger
Super-G Mart (cheap avocados! cheap mangoes! oh, the cheap mangoes!)
Estrella del Mar & La Azteca (or whatever its name is now) & La Vaca Ramona
You Greensboro people, go there for me, and tell them I wish it was in Japan.
いただきます！
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