Niku Jaga
Well, it took long enough for Japan to catch up on its canning technology, but it seems that you can finally get meat stew in a can. “Niku Jaga”, AKA “Beef Stew” has been available, like forever in the States in the form of Dinty Moore beef stew. Here’s a lovely shot of the meaty, pasteurized canned product:
As a kid, I used to love this stuff, and would chow it down almost on a weekly basis, thus explaining some of my eccentricities. Now, any fool can pop open a can of ol’ Dinty and make hisself a bowl of steaming stew. But I have perfected a Dinty Moore Stew masterpiece.
And I’m just the sort of generous dude to be sharing with the world (well, all twelve of you readers of this blog, anyway) my super delicious, super secret Dinty Moore canned stew recipe. Now pay attention, please.
1. acquire a large can of Dinty Moore brand beef stew.
2. 8 ounce can of V-8 (you can use the spicy kind, if you are a daredevil, like me)
3. 2 ounces of Clamato. What’s a “Clamato”? why it’s clam juice and tomato juice concoction! It’s delicious. Try it.
4. some tabasco
Dump all this stuff into a pot, bring it to a boil. Use a spoon, and eat it.
In Japan, of course, you might not have ready source of Dinty Moore, and even less probably, Clamato. Fear not. In Setagaya Seijo (which I assume is near Akihabara) in Tokyo, you can get “Niku Jaga”, or beef stew from a vending machine.
And what luck! You can also get oden in a can from the very same vending machine, along with sake. That, my friends, is a fine meal waiting to happen.
Found at Enjoy Tokyo (in Japanese)
February 23rd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
i heard two things about the subject matter of this posting. 1) it is used as a wife-merit yardstick amongst sad and desperate japanese middle-aged salary men in a ‘my wife makes great niku-jaga’, way. 2) it was originally named after a bloke from england with rubbery lips and not very good singin ability, but oodles of sex appeal and quite possibly the ability to get a japanese groupie into his van to make him stew which was so good it became eponymous. i really prefer the latter explanation because it is both ruthlessly logical and total bollocks at the same time
February 26th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
hahaha! that’s awesome. niku-jaga as wife merit stick… there is sex appeal in beef stew, i just didn’t know it!
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
[…] mean, there are canned oden out there, as well beef stew, so why not the ultimate in convenience food, […]