Tokyo really is a place where more or less everything is available if you are willing to pay (sometimes a lot) for it. This can be wonderful: shopping or even just walking around and have a look at all the beautiful, delicious, strange or funny things is a lot of fun! Especially when it comes to food I often feel like in heaven here. However there are things of which I think they are just not right! Minke whale ^[1]-, bear- or sea lion ^[2] curry are definitly part of those things!
Don’t get me wrong: I also love to try food that I never had before. Give me some veggie I’ve never seen before and I will be happily excited like kids on christmas. But I am absolutely not appreciative of eating animals that are in danger of extinction, especially when people from an affluent society with plenty of other foods eat those meatproducts just out of curiosity or fun! It is not like someone is starving here without whale meat.
Furthermore I guess no one buys this in an endeavour to appreciate the meat – canned and soaking in curry sauce it surely won’t have any distinctive flavour. So it is all just about the idea of eating some “exotic” animal and about the colourful packaging. I found those cans in a shop for presents and all kinds of knick-knack – not in a grocery store – I don’t want to know how many people bought this as a oh-so-funny christmas present… I guess most of the cans will never be opened, they will just get dusty on the kitchen shelves of the presentees. What an unhappy end for a grand whale…