Dear Log,
There is something very tragic and provincial about Iron Chef, that Japanese TV show where Japanese men chefs try to use bizarre ingredients (peaches, squid, whatever) to cook for ignorant Japanese judges, as ignorant Japanese announcers narrate. At times they let a non-Japanese person in (or even a woman), just for laughs, but those rare times somehow only emphasize their own rarity.
The other night, I watched it, and everyone was mulling over how one of the Japanese cooks was making a kah-poh-nah-tah -- something they make in Italy! The Japanese announcers were struck with the interesting novelty of the word "kah-poh-nah-tah", and so repeated it as much as possible. The Japanese judges were scared by the kah-poh-nah-tah, especially by the prospect that it might be oily, or otherwise hint at not being Japanese, not even Japanesque.
Note to self: When I open a Buca di Beppo franchise in Japan to sell nasty food to clueless party-timers, I will make someone devise kanji for all the menu items, and will tell people that it's all from "Iitari prefecture".
