The other day, one of the little elementary kids I watch (for my job) offered me something from her snack box. It was a packet of dry (かんそう) natto. I’d heard about dry natto before, but had never had it. Now, let me stop here and say this: if you don’t know what natto is, I don’t quite have enough time right now to describe it fully, so leave me a comment and I’ll do a separate post. Anyway, for those of you who do know the aquired taste that is natto, let’s continue, shall we?
I stowed the little packet (apparantly saved from a flight on JAL, where they pass them out like peanuts) in my bag so that I could try them after work. Once home, I quickly snapped a few pictured of the packet with my crappy digital camera and then proceeded to chow down. The texture was completely different from that of regular natto–it was very much like eating harder-than-usual peanut and there was none of the normal slime (hence, “dry”). Interestingly enough, the smell was still there. Upon opening the packet, I thought, “Yep. This is natto.”
These are actually a pretty good snack if you don’t have anyone important to talk to afterward (natto-breath, ew). They’re also supposed to go really well with beer, so try them out, if you can find them. I’ve never seen these sold in the US, but they are widely available in Japanese grocery stores, next to the regular natto. JAL also sells them online.
