Thoughts

Today I realized that, at least in this area of Japan, you can only get actual chocolate ice cream in the form of soft serve. Everything else seems to be chocolate coated and vanilla ice cream on the inside. I hadn't noticed it before because... I guess I was distracted by all the new food things, but now that I've been in Japan for two years the new things seem less new and I'm noticing a lot more about them. There is one ice cream bar that is fully chocolate but it is one of those ice bars, made with a lot of water. I've yet to see ice cream, in bar form, that has chocolate on the outside and the inside as well.

In other food related news I noticed that, just like probably everywhere else, Japan has processed cheese and natural cheese. Unfortunately this part of Japan seems to really enjoy processed cheese. I went through the cheese section and picked up all the cheese and checked the ingredients. I could tell, at least 70% of the time just by looking at it but to be sure I checked the ingredients for processed cheese or natural. Out of at least fifteen different cheese things (One was even called cheese candy... and was wrapped like a hard candy...) can you guess how many were processed and how many were natural? Well I'll give you the answer anyway. 13 processed, 2 natural. Sad times for me, a cheese lover. Then again I already knew most of that, anyway.

There is a company here that sells individual cream cheese packets (Well. Individually wrapped in a package of eight). Processed cream cheese. I think all cream cheese is processed though... right? Am I wrong in saying that? Well they make it very clear on the packaging, as if they were proud of the fact that the cheese was processed. But I like it for the fact that it's just the right size for spreading on a bagel. The taste is a bit different than, say, Philadelphia cream cheese. This one is milder. Maybe that's the angel. Japanese people like mild tasting things. Anyway, the point of this story is that my husband eats these individual cream cheese packets like regular cheese. Blech. He offered me one and I asked him if he wasn't going to spread it on something... like a cracker or bread or... something. He responded by taking a bite out of the cheese.

Is that a thing that people do that I just don't? Eat cream cheese like it wasn't a spreadable thing? I have this visual now of someone taking a spoon and just diving into a can of cream cheese...