Oden is a Japanese one-pot meal with an assortment of preserved fishcakes (especially fried “satsuma-age” fishcakes and cheerful looking “kamaboko”), eggs and some vegetables in dashi stock. It’s warm, salty comfort food.
In Taiwan, we have Japanese influences in our food culture because of our history as a Japanese colony. Oden is one of these dishes but in Taiwan, it’s a street snack variation called tiánbùlà. You can find it at many 7-Eleven/FamilyMart convenience stores and large night markets. When I found out that you could have tiánbùlà as a meal and not a snack, I was ALL OVER THIS. I LOVE FISHCAKES.
Now that it feels like winter here, traditional oden hits the spot for me thanks to the cozy, hot dashi. I try to add my own twist to it by mixing in some Chinese greens, seaweed and seafood in it. If you’re interested in trying it, here are some blogger recipes I recommend:
My book Hot Pot Night comes out Sept 8th and is available for pre-order now!
What’s for dinner? A Taiwanese American child brings his diverse neighbors together to make a tasty communal meal. Together, they cook up a steaming family dinner that celebrates community, cooperation, and culture. Includes a family recipe for hot pot! ✨
We bring you this recipe from our panel, “Anime Foodies: Laid Back Camp”.
This recipe comes from Episode 3 of “Laid-Back Camp” when Nadeshiko comes to join Rin for their first formal camping session after their initial interaction. To thank Rin for her previous hospitality, Nadeshiko brings the ingredients for a hotpot for them to enjoy and loads it up with gyoza in a spicy dan dan broth.
Even though the south of Taiwan has a tropical monsoon climate and the north is subtropical, winter in Taiwan can still feel mighty cold. And while there is no doubt that winters in Taiwan are short and sweet, a lack of heating in buildings can sometimes make them feel even harder to bear than those the winters of Europe! But luckily Taiwan has a remedy: hot pot. Indeed, as the weather gets…
And Don’t Forget the Robot: I’m not going to lie, a good portion of these upcoming posts of mine over the next one hundred and one days are gonna feature pretty damn heavily on what the last two days have involved for me.
Starting at the very start of Day 1, and I really mean it, I was taking full advantage of the wonders of a British May Bank Holiday and was staying up until 4am watching a WWE pay-per-view with my boyfriend. I won’t recount the ins and outs of every match, but I was extremely happy to see one of my favourite female wrestlers, Alexa Bliss, become the first ever wrestler to have held both the Raw & Smackdown Women’s Championships and I was so happy that it felt like I dislocated my shoulder while celebrating.
What was a great bit of fun though was that the two of us had watched some other wrestling earlier in the day for a promotion called Progress (awesome guys, by the way. Can’t not love a promotion whose only rule is “don’t be a dick”), which his flatmate saw, but promptly went out for the rest of the day. So from his perspective, when he came walking back in from dancing at around 3:30am, the two of us had just been sitting there for over 12 hours doing nothing but watching wrestling. Now I’m not saying we aren’t capable of doing that, but some form of actual life did happen in there. Honest… I mean, kinda.
Other stuff happened too though: Day 1 was also filled with friend-related stuff. Went to this awesome Korean Hot Pot place on Shaftsbury Avenue to have a catch up with my best friend. We both follow ketogenic diets very closely and this place is fantastic for just piling a whole bunch of low carb veg and protein into delicious broths. We go there every month or so and I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of it.
The British weather also decided to say hello to me when a torrential downpour caught me without a proper coat or umbrella… I love you cute spring denim jacket, but against rain you are of little to no help. I was thankfully okay as there was a bus stop not too far off to help carry me to my destination, but it definitely put a dampener on my lovely hot pot (oh, and the purchase of an awesome Kat Von D lipstick which I think I will slowly work towards buying literally every shade ever of). But ignoring the rain, I continued the Bank Holiday in the very British tradition of going to a Wetherspoons.
While there is a strong chance you know exactly what I’m talking about, in case not, it’s a chain of pubs which are known for being just slightly more on the cheap side than most, and for a pre-gig in London, it is generally where you’re likely to find a congregation. Now ‘Spoons has done something amazing kinda recently in that they have an app now. An app whereby you never have to leave your table to order food or drink ever again. My friends were testing it out and discovered that for a sole pint they will bring it to you on a tray, however, a lowly shot of Apple Sourz receives no such distinction and was simply carried by hand.
And live music is always extremely lovely: Pub led on very nicely to Koko in Camden to go and watch Los Campesinos! who are honestly one of the greatest British bands going. (Ed: completely agreed.) Supports were bloody great too; Muncie Girls have been floating around a long while and I’ve seen them play shows my friends have put on and always have a lovely time watching them, it was fantastic to see them on such a big stage. Sløtface were also incredibly, incredibly fun, and if you’ve never listened to them before, just, go change that now. Genuinely, you will have zero regrets.
If you’re not familiar with LC! then I think there’s only one way to truly describe them, and that would be the musical equivalent to pure joy. There was all of the dancing, and singing and screaming about how you never kiss a Tory. It was just a generally all around lovely time and I’m still in shock that somehow this was only the second time I’ve seen them when they play London so frequently.
The night was topped very nicely by grabbing the bus back to my boyfriend’s after the show, singing Let’s Go to The Mall.
The next day has much less for me to ramble about: Day 2 was significantly less eventful for me, was back at work and had a very normal day all in all. However, there is one thing which is of importance for me from today. One of the key points of the 101 days is that it’s not about staying in your comfort zone, and if you’ve read my intro post you know that I’m going through a fitness transformation. On an only slightly-planned whim I went to a self-defense class situated not too far from where I live. It was an interesting experience, it’s aimed at a range of abilities so a large portion of the session was based around stretches and cardio, but there was a decent amount around correctly punching and a small amount of sparring which was rather fun.
I don’t know if I will go there long term, it’s useful to learn how to watch people’s body language and try and anticipate moves which I absolutely see being beneficial, but I’m not sure a large unfocused group learning session is really what I’m after right now, especially when I’m having a really good experience with a Personal Trainer.
Anyway, I promise to attempt to ramble less in future posts, but if you know me, that is absolutely no guarantee.
Sophia Probert is an aspiring writer as well as a general crazy person who works with numbers for a living. She rambles on about wrestling, music, movies, politics, life & the meaning of nothing at @distortthecode, will yell into the void about keto and exercise on @carveachange and post millions upon millions of selfies on Instagram.
