[img]396|left|Alex Campbell||no_popup[/img]I am in between appointments, and it’s lunch time. I decide to grab a quick lunch at the best Japanese bakery this side of Tokyo. When you step inside this bakery, you are in Japan. There is the typical bakery style glass display case, showing various cakes and sweets. There’s a refrigerated drink case, also typical. There’s also a refrigerated section with fresh sandwiches made today. I am unprepared for the emotional response I have to this display.
[img]674|left|||no_popup[/img] It’s the way the sandwiches are displayed, and choice of sandwiches presented. It’s the onigiri—triangular rice balls wrapped in seaweed. It’s the variety of drinks available—green tea, cold coffee in a can, and Pocari Sweat, which I can’t even describe, except to say it has a great name. It brings me back to my days when I lived in Japan; you just don’t see things like this in America. I murmur, “Natsukashii” in my head, meaning, “This brings back memories.”
I choose a tuna and egg salad sandwich. You may think that a sandwich is just a sandwich, but the way the Japanese do it is, to me, perfect. Imagine this: take four slices of soft white or very light whole wheat bread. Cut off the crusts. Put tuna salad on one sandwich and egg salad on the other. Layer small tomato slices and tiny cucumber slices on each. Now cut the bread so that there are four rectangle-shaped tips, and alternate them in a clear plastic container: tuna strip, egg salad strip, tuna strip, egg salad strip. That is your Japanese sandwich.
To wash it down, I ask for milk tea. Milk tea is a particular flavor in Japan, unlike anything we have here. It’s a tea drink, served hot or cold, with milk, and it’s very sweet. It’s not just regular tea with milk, however; it has a very distinct taste. I don’t know how it’s made, and to be honest, I don’t want to know. It’s a sweet taste of nostalgia every time I have it.
Learning by Degrees
I’ll never forget the first time I had milk tea. It was in a park in Japan, my first time there. I got it out of a vending machine. It was cold, and came in a plastic bottle with a blue and white label. Delicious. Later, when I lived in Japan, I learned how to read the Japanese words for hot and cold, so I could choose the kind of milk tea I wanted. I became rather obsessed with the flavor, and set out to try everything that tasted like milk tea. I had hot milk tea in a restaurant, powdered instant milk tea packets for home use (just add water!), milk tea ice cream, popsicles, cereal, and cake. Dear readers, I digress; I will finish my description of a perfect Japanese lunch.
To complete your meal, have a slice of ichigo cake for dessert. “Ichigo” means “strawberry”, and I’m telling you that the Japanese make just about the best strawberry cake there is. The cake is light, with layers of whipped cream and strawberries. It’s just a little bit sweet. It comes with plastic wrapped around the edge of it, laid upon silver cupcake foil. Unwrap your way to heaven! I didn’t have ichigo cake this time, but I highly recommend it.
I take my lunch to the umbrella-shaded tables outside of the bakery. Here is where I go from Japan to America. If you take a bite of your sandwich and it drops on your pants, making a spot, that is a very American thing to do. It would also be American to grab an ice cube from your milk tea and rub it on your pants to clean the spot, then drop the ice cube on the ground. It is okay to do this when in America, but not in Japan. It’s just not done.
If your empty sandwich container blows away in the wind and you knock over your chair to retrieve it, that is also American. I’m 5’1” and 108 lbs. Yet when I lived in Japan I felt like a big lummox because we Americans are always doing clumsy things like the acts described above. Even simple things like sitting are done in a big way here. In Japan, I learned how to use up as little space as possible, and I practiced whenever I could. I just forgot the other day when I was eating my lunch—so sue me! (What an American thing to say…) To balance it out, I’ll say what the Japanese do after finishing a meal: Gochisosama, meaning, thank you for a good meal.
Ms. Campbell may be contacted at campbellalexandra@hotmail.com
