Since arriving in Japan and settling into my host mom's house, I have been able to try many different foods including fish paste, sweet mochi, savory mochi, soy powder foods and other things I never even knew existed. But for dinner a couple of nights ago, I tried something that was delicious, but a little difficult for me to eat!
For dinner, my host mom made us a dish called あじのひらき (ajinohiraki). あじ(aji) means "horse mackerel" and ひらき (hiraki) means "opened." So literally, this dish is called "opened horse mackerel."
I was a little intimidated by this dish at first. Not because I do not like fish, but because I have never eaten fish with bones in it using only chopsticks before. But of course, I wanted to be respectful and follow my host mom's lead. She manipulated her chopsticks effortlessly to split the fish from the bone. It was very impressive. It took me a while, but I eventually was able to safely eat all of it with my chopsticks!
