Back in March when we had the team from our home church in Terre Hill, PA come, everyone would have unanimously agreed that one of the strangest things they ate was raw horse meat. Well, this past week, Colby and I broke the record for strangest thing eaten.

We were invited out by our good friends, the Tamuras, to a small Japanese style restaurant. Here, you could order as much meat and veggies that you wanted (including various other animal parts aside from the meat) and it would be cooked for you in front of you. So after we sampled a number of things (all delicious!), Mr. Tamura looked at the menu and started to chuckle.

“Have you ever eaten suzume?” he asked (in Japanese).

“Suzume? What’s suzume?” we asked as we pulled out our dictionary. Suzume, as it turns out, is sparrow. Yes, those same cute little birds that sometimes come to our bird feeders are being served up on a stick half a world away for the price of about $5.

Colby and I looked at each other. If the Japanese eat it, how could we not at least try it? we reasoned. So, we put in an order for one sparrow, dipped in soy sauce. This is what it looked like:

Yep, it was the WHOLE thing.

Thankfully Colby ate most of it, but from what I could taste it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t something I would like to make a regular part of my diet, but for a one time experience (and a great blog post!) I ate it.

Mr. Tamura is smiling because he doesn't have to eat it. I don't know why Colby is smiling...

God has blessed us with the Tamuras’ friendship. Please continue to pray for them that the truths they sing about in the Gospel Choir each week would touch their hearts and that they would be drawn to the Savior.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 17th, 2011 at 19:34 and is filed under Life in Cross-Cultural Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.