Daddy’s Bacon －お父さんのベーコン－

One of the things that excited me about going back to Scotland recently was the chance to eat many different kinds of food which are unavailable in Japan.  I had a list of different foods I wanted to eat while I had the chance. 

One such food was bacon.  Of course you can get bacon in Japan, but it doesn’t taste the same as the bacon in Scotland.  Scotland’s bacon is much saltier.  Bacon in Japan tastes to me like ham.  My son loves bacon in Japan, and so I told him over and over before we went to Scotland, “You are going to love this real bacon!” 

I had plenty of opportunities to enjoy the local bacon during my trip, including eating three bacon rolls before heading to the airport on my way back to Japan. 

Other meat dishes I enjoyed were haggis, black pudding, square sausage and sausage rolls.  Haggis is the signature dish of Scotland.  It is a meat pudding, containing the minced meat of a sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, chopped onion and oatmeal and spices, inside a sheep’s stomach.  It is honestly nicer than it sounds.  I had it with mashed potatoes and turnips. 

One dessert I wanted to have was rhubarb crumble.  Rhubarb is a vegetable, but it is often used in desserts, as if it were a fruit.  It has a strong, tart taste, and goes well with custard.  I managed to get one rhubarb crumble, although it was from a supermarket and not freshly made.  It was still nice, though. 

It is not surprising that I enjoyed the food of my home country.  But how did my eight year old son fare?  He has been raised in Japan and, in addition to bacon, loves wakame seaweed, shirasu fish, and natto. 

My son didn’t eat haggis or some of the more challenging foods.  We often had to buy some Japanese style noodles in the Asian section of the supermarket for him to eat instead of what I was eating.  Still, he seemed satisfied with the Scottish bacon I had recommended so highly.  He liked Scottish baked potatoes, and plenty of sandwiches. 

Yesterday I heard my son whispering to my wife, “Don’t tell Daddy.” 

“I wonder what that is about?” I thought.  “It’s not my birthday, is it?” 

I waited until my son was out of the room, and asked my wife what the secret was. 

I had been reminiscing about all the good food we had enjoyed in Scotland.  “Remember that lovely bacon we enjoyed…” 

My son had been whispering to his mother, “Don’t tell Daddy that I didn’t like the Scottish bacon.”  Apparently it was so salty he could only eat a few bites.

Vocabulary:

tart – as an adjective, tart means having a sharp taste, tasting very sour or acidic

[eg., Tart apples are best for cooking in a pie.]

to reminisce – to indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events

[eg., My friend and I reminisced about our days at school together.]