Is That An Eel In Your Pocket? (Or: The Time G Wore a Dress to Dinner)

We've been off the internet for a while because we spent yesterday and last night at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. I think I may have mentioned that we did the planning for this trip last summer, in the heat of our angst and anxiety about selling the Virginia house. We desperately needed something to look forward to, hence this trip. Hence last night.

We set out from Tokyo to a small mountain town called Hakone (Ha-CONE-eh). And when I say mountain town, I mean middle of nowhere. We've reviewed this trip itinerary many times over the last few months and each time we zoom right over the ryokan night, like it's no big deal. Why we thought it would be fun to saunter around in kimonos and sit on the floor and wear socks with toe dividers eludes me now. The best I can figure is we got caught up in the "when in Rome" mentality.

In reality the experience was a lot of things. It was authentic. It was traditional. It was unique and different and went a long way to open our eyes to the complexities of Japanese culture. Was it fun? Mmmmmm... Was it relaxing? No.

In all our vacation excitement, we completely skipped over the food situation. For dinner last night we had an 11-course Japanese meal.

I'm gonna stop and let you mull that over for a minute. ELEVEN courses. It lasted about two hours. G couldn't eat any of it.

My food intake, while impressive, has its limits and by about course #7, I had consumed an entire aquarium. We became desperate and started looking for places to politely, hurriedly, frantically hide some of G's food. A couple of pieces of tofu underneath the salad. Two slices of squid under the remnants of miso soup. Some pickled root vegetables mixed in with left over rice. That sort of thing.

More information about the meal in a future post - it was remarkable - but I'll skip to the heart of the matter. In the midst of sweaty panic, and more nodding and bowing, G wrapped up two large pieces of eel tempura and put them in a hidden pocket in his kimono.

As I said, this was only course #7. We still had spanish mackerel and red miso soup and a whole host of other mysteries to go. The eel began to weigh down the front of his kimono but he held out for another hour or so until we got to the room and flushed it down the toilet. Returning the eel to its brethren, etc.

There are a host of moral and ethical issues surrounding our actions, but I can honestly say that we did most respectful thing we could. In G's defense, he could appreciate the effort, artistry, skill, and care that went into preparing every dish--it just wasn't food he could eat.

But the house cat followed him around until we left...