Rough Teas Ahead: Answer to the Linguistic Quiz
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Here's the answer to the linguistic quiz from the other day...

Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan -- Copyright 2009 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000 — map & image datanearby photos

As Erik Anderson guessed, “Rough Tea” is from 「ラフティー」  (rafuti), a cubed pork disk....

“Rough Tea” -- Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan -- http://regex.info/blog/
map & image datanearby photos
“Rough Tea”

Fumie's mom had made this before, but I never knew what it was called. Even Fumie was only vaguely familiar with the name. Here's a recipe: ラフティー(豚の角煮).

The “is easily boiled” translates better to “lightly boiled”.


All 4 comments so far, oldest first...

Hi!

Thank you for writing the wonderful Flickr for Lightroom plugin. I use it all the time.

I was excited to learn that you’re living in Japan. I’m from Oklahoma and have been working with a Japanese exchange program for the past 5 years. I’ll be studying for a semester at Kansai Gaidai next spring. I look forward to reading your posts and hearing about your life in Japan!

Tyler

— comment by Tyler Van Arsdale on May 12th, 2009 at 11:52pm JST (14 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink

Is that Rafute (maybe a tomayto/tomahto type thing)? -That is a really delicious dish. In New Jersey there are a few izakaya that serve it. We eat it, over rice in block size slabs. I, like some of your other readers tried to read the katakana. I was thinking maybe ‘CRAB RANGOON’ when I saw the ‘lagoon’ word. That is hilarious, though. This was a great quiz, -totally smacking my forehead, -> that phoenetic translation is a good clue. How did it taste?

Also, when you come back to the states is there any food that you ‘overdose’ on? My inlaws live in Himeji and when I visit them my wife and I will walk to the Aeon supermarket and just about buy 1 of everything in the produce/deli/bakery/fish section. Japan doesn’t get the ‘foodie’ destination credit that it deserves.

— comment by Ron Evans on May 13th, 2009 at 1:52am JST (14 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink

LOL, I was completely off base there. I thought “rough tea” was actually some type of tea. I first thought it to be aracha. Great quiz.
Earnie

— comment by Earnest Barr from Amami on May 13th, 2009 at 10:55am JST (14 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink

Jeffrey,

One of my favorites bits of “Janglish” was a note wrapped around the cord of an electric hair dryer in a hotel room in Shibuya. “Please use the instrument for the drying of the hair and not for the other purpose.” I spent countless hours trying to dream up what “the other purpose” might be.

Your Zenfolio and Facebook plug-ins are just great, have saved me much time, and the modest contributions I made don’t begin to balance the books.

— comment by Jim Lewis on May 14th, 2009 at 4:52am JST (14 years, 10 months ago) comment permalink
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