Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Kanro Freeze-dried Natto Snack

Image courtesy of Kanro.

Raise your hand if you don't know what natto is? Okay, the truth is that I can't see my readers so you just did that for nothing. Natto is that one food in Japan that Japanese people like to ask foreigners if they "can" eat it with a certain snicker in their voice. It's fermented soy beans that have a mucous-like sticky goo between the beans. They also smell like bad beer. It's supposed to be super healthy, but even some Japanese people find it disgusting, so it's jolly good fun to ask foreigners about how they respond to it. Not to worry. You can get them back by asking them to try root beer (which they find equally if not more vile).

Kanro is capitalizing on the love of natto by making it into a freeze-dried snack. It's apparently been around for awhile and this is a "renewal" which has reduced stink and is available in two flavors - soy sauce and seaweed. If I were interested in doing another week or two of "weird" Japanese snacks, I'd give this a go, but I'm not really going to do that. I'll leave my readers as guinea pigs for this thing. Leave a comment if you braved this. 

2 comments:

Ren said...

I am one of those weird people who loves natto (and I'm not even Japanese)! It's a shame I can't find this freeze-dried version around here, or I'd totally be all over it.

thegypsie said...

As I am reading this, with a sense of pride, I scoff because I have had natto and it's actually not bad. And then I get to the part about rootbeer. Gah I hate the stuff. But now when I visit Japan I will be armed with rootbeer to the unsuspecting folk that try to gross me out with their natto. I will win!!!