natto should always be eaten this way - day 28

steve invited us to a homemade sushi party last night, and chad had the good sense to bring natto. since he wanted to offer it to all the guests, he planned to buy a trusted brand, my good "knitting grandmother" kind - which, as you may recall, i had described as: "orange packaging, mostly japanese characters but picture of small, bespectacled grandma figure in top right hand corner. i always imagine her to be knitting, but she isn't." with this description in mind, chad bought natto with green and white packaging, the picture of a bowl of natto with scallions, and a little hello-kitty type figure in the top left hand corner...

but it was fine. it was a new kind of natto where the beans are pre-chopped, and it tasted very mild (apparently the mildness was advocated on the package, which yoko was able to translate for us).





we made a big bowl of natto over rice with finely chopped scallions and shizo leaf, grated daikon radish, tsuyu (from a newly purchased bottle), and mustard (from the little packets that come with the natto).


nearly everyone had some. i thought it tasted really good; i hope the others will post their impressions...