Cooking and eating Oden.

 Many people like eating oden, a Japanese hot meal which is usually eaten in cold seasons like now. You can find it anywhere such as convenience stores, markets and so forth so easily. Eating it outside is fun, especially cold place with someone. But what if you want to cook it in your house? Well, let's do it :)

 It was the first time for me to actually cook it, so I searched some recipe books in my room in advance. There seems to have a variety of kinds, from its sauce to its ingredient. "Every family has its own way to season it." the book says. It must be true, considering the fact that I encounter unique ones when I eat it at other people's home or other regions as well. Sometimes brownish soup, sometimes almost transparent that you could even see the bottom of the pan. Oh, I bought so many kinds of ingredients, by the way.

 To tell the truth, I cooked another one, called "Kansai-style" or the style of the western part of Japan. You may find chopped beefs are stuck. It usually takes sauce from chicken and beef, that's the big different point of the one we eat around Tokyo.

 What's this?! Well, these are called "fukuro", just means a bag. Containing rice cake inside, it really enchants me anytime I eat oden.

 And konjac. Actually I hated it when I was a kid, I really didn't like the texture of it and taste neither. Old memory, haha :)

 We also use it with being sliced and then banded. You can find it many meals if you taste nabe, or hot pot dishes (about nabe, see this post :)).

 First of all I had no idea what the ingredients was, but well, it's only wheat and water :D

 Another mystery here, hmmm... Those brown things are basically called "nerimono". I wrote "basically" because the way of calling varies in regions. Not only this one, but also the ones I introduced in this post. Since oden is widely eaten among this country, many people name it in their own. Naturally, talking about oden with friends from different part of this country is fun. "You put carrot in it?!" "Cooking with soy paste? Are you kidding me?" That's something I find frequently.

 Well, it's about a short story of oden. The fact that many people like it is you can preserve it almost a week if you preserve it rightly. When you eat it, you would do it with many people sitting around the table.  Surely it blows cold air to somewhere ;)