Nattō is associated with both health/wellness food culture, which as we all know has fascistic roots and is associated with ideas of purity and national strength.
Further reenforcing this is that Nattō is considered a food only Japanese people like, a pillar (albiet a minor one) of ethnonational identity. Consider: 30% of people who eat it do not enjoy it but instead eat it based on aformentioned health reasons[1]. Offering nattō to people in order to see their repulsed reactions is an act of humiliation, reenforcing the superiority of the Japanese character and identifying an out-group.
Anyway it’s ok, a little mild. More stale coffee than cheese, I keep craving it though and am now fermenting my own
I tried it. Smelled and tasted like shit. I wanted to like it, wanted to push past it, but just couldn’t. Thought it’d be a healthy and quirky and tasty add to my food rotation. I’d rather just have some yummy tofu or really any other forms of beans.
Yes they’re bland and uncanny, it’s pre-globalisation japanese food. But is it reactionary?