Oden Can Japanese Style Hot Pot with Fish Cakes

Life brings strange surprises. This is one of the strangest so far. A colleague appeared at my office door holding an Amazon box. “You like the fish, and I saw this guy on YouTube trying these.” I could only express gratitude.

Because he’s right. A variety pack of fishy soup from Japan is indeed right up my weird alley. It’s also true, though, that I’ve a deadly shellfish allergy, so first things first: check the ingredient list.

Holy hell, what a list it is. I had to smash flat today’s empty tin—I opened the plain version for starters—to get a snapshot of it all at once. Soooo many fish in the one little cake—the label says “cakes,” but each can, it seems, offers up just a cake, singular. But no shellfish at all, which seems contrary to the Japanese laws of probability. Phew.

The fish cake is actually the cylinder that looks, to my eye, like a piece of bamboo. There’s also a little tofu cushion, a lump of konjac root, a bit of daikon radish, two quail eggs, some noodles, and couple of other things—the list is soooo long—all in a very mild miso broth. It looks crazy. It sounds weird. But actually it’s all very nice, a hearty bowl on the first day in Richmond, Virginia that brought autumn cool after such a long hot summer.

I don’t know that I’ll profile the other varieties individually. I am now, however, looking forward to both, one spicy, the other curried. The plain was good, but spicier and currier are always better, right?