Adventurous Eaters

Calling All Adventurous Eaters!

I need your help. But you must be fearless. Strong of stomach. Free from nausea. Able to leap tall requests with a single bound. Are you ready to step up to the plate? (Get it?)

I am looking for ways to consume a very strange and unique product called natto. (If you want more information about WHY I am eating this stuff, please refer to my post titled Sources of K2.) This is a Japanese fermented soybean product sold only in Asian markets (as far as I know) and probably the weirdest food I have ever tried to eat. It comes in tiny styrafoam boxes with little mustard and soy sauce packets included. Japanese people simply stir in the seasonings and dig their chopsticks right in there. But the texture is the disturbing part. When you stir the beans around, you will notice the stringy, clingy, spider web of goo. It reminds me of melted marshmallows or gooey melted cheese. But it contains neither one. Bacteria are responsible for the goo.

I have to admit that the TASTE of the natto is not bad. Don't get me wrong. It is not good, either. It is pretty bland. But the texture, which is somewhat slimy, gooey, and strange, is the major turn-off here. So I am trying to devise methods of combining natto with other foods which will hide and disguise the odd texture and overpower the lack of flavor.

So far, I have mixed one carton of natto with about a half cup of pre-warmed pulled pork (homemade) and a heaping tablespoon of medium hot salsa. I stirred all of this together and topped it with one half of a sliced avocado. I considered adding cheese, but decided I had plenty of fat in there already. I managed to eat the entire bowl which I thought was rather impressive. The gooey stringyness of the natto was fairly well masked in this mixture and the salsa had so much flavor and spiciness that I really couldn't taste the soybeans at all. But I cannot say that I loved this dish. Nor do I think I will ever get a hankering to eat it again.

Here's where YOU come in. (Enter in a Superhero costume, please.)

I need some brilliant suggestions (and/or recipes!) for making natto into something I might even enjoy eating. I realize this is a tall order. (Please keep in mind that I try not to eat grains and sugar.) But I am also quite sure that my readers are the smartest, most resourceful, and most attractive people on the planet (is the flattery working?) and can come up with ideas that will knock my socks right off. (Since it is almost summer, I should probably take them off anyway.)

So dive in and whip up something creative and less disgusting than I have already made! Post your suggestions and if I think I can stomach them, I'll give them a shot. Thanks in advance for all your help!