When a friend of mine who is a Japanese cook offered to make me pizza, I have to admit that my stomach did a turn. I mean, this guy specializes in preparing sashimi -- would the pizza come with the sausage still twitching?

On my planet, the United States, I'd normally consider pizza a "comfort food." But in Japan, it has become a discomfort food. This is because you just never know what they'll put on top of a pizza here. Almost anything is game, and even live game is a possibility.

I attribute discomfort food in Japan to the "Addams family factor" in Japanese cuisine. Like the other day when this same friend had cooked a large grilled fish. Several of us sat around the table with the fish in the middle, and ate freely from it with our chopsticks, all the while talking and having a good time. Then, almost predictably, someone zealously dove in with their chopsticks to seize the fish's eyeball. Unfortunately, as the man paused to finish his sentence, the eyeball fell back onto the plate. I suppose this is natural, as the eyeball is a very gooey part of the anatomy. Nonplussed, he picked up the eyeball again, popped it into his mouth, and continued his sentence as if eyeball cuisine were completely normal outside the Addams family.