The last time I came to Japan it was raw chicken and raw horsemeat. This time it was turtle and black tripe. I’ve had many disgusting things for dinner in Japan, but these two took the biscuit. I tried the black tripe at a “Japanese barbeque”, where you cook the food yourself on a grill which is set in the middle of the table. It’s the Japanese take on a Korean tradition. I’d had the white tripe before and I’d found the texture horrible. The black tripe didn’t look too bad. It had a solid texture, unlike the gloopy white version, and because of its dark green colour I thought at first that it was a vegetable. It was crispy and not at all unpleasant to eat. Then I made the mistake of putting on my glasses and seeing it for what it was. I’d been told that it was made from the second stomach of a cow and this is what it looked like and suddenly my appetite disappeared.
As for the turtle, it looked disgusting and it tasted disgusting. And the fact that I was told by the gorgeous girl with whom I was sharing the meal that it’s an aphrodisiac didn’t make the slightest difference.
Tags: Japan, Jonathan Denby