Live from Japan!

On Tuesday night my school had an enkai to celebrate the retirement of both of our vice principals. Given that both are retiring this year, the party was a little larger filled with all the pomp and circumstance necessary for two people who have each given more than 35 years of service to working and teaching in Gifu. They are both awesome people and they will, for sure, be missed.

At the enkai there were so many traditional Japanese foods. Many of them were recognizable to me after having seen and tried them many times. Several still were unfamiliar.

Fortunately, I was sitting at a table with people who were willing to entertain my questions about the food. In fact, it was nice because it gave us something to talk about. Most of the time I would point to an unfamiliar food and say, “kore wa nan desu ka, eigo de” (What is this, in english?). The person I asked would look at the food, think for a minute and give me a reply. I found out that one of the items I ate, after I ate it and nearly spit it out, was oyster. Good to know that I don’t like that.

One of the items, however, proved especially challenging. On the tray they were small brown-ish spheres that were soaking in a similarly brown-ish sauce. As usual, I pointed at the food and asked what it was. This time I asked the incredibly patient, and lovely, gym teacher that was sitting to my left.

She told me what it was in Japanese, “Imo desu.” Then she did the usual pause and think, but she didn’t have an answer for me. So, she asked the person next to her. This continued until the question had been passed all the way around the table and ended back at the man sitting to my right.

He cocked his head, looked at the food, and then turned to me. “No English, just imo.”

So, there you have it, apparently there is no good English translation for this food. Although the dictionary tries, it says that imo means potato.