popcorn
Also available from Trader Joe’s.
In Hawaii it’s eaten on popcorn, with or without arare rice crackers.
Eta: ninjaed
LOL. I thought of it on popcorn on my way to work. Personally, I can’t stand it, especially on buttered popcorn, ecccchhh…
I just thought of the Hidden Valley commericals where they sprinkle it on vegetables. I would think it would work well for that.
I don’t know if kids still do this, but my nieces used to crush dried ramen and sprinkle the soup mix on it, then eat it dry. I suspect furikake would work well for this too. Japanese popcorn!
Not to knock your recommendation, but this is a example of what I posted about salt earlier. 95% of your recommended daily sodium, 2290mg in one tablespoon.
If you want a bit of heat and like nori (dried seaweed sheets), give ajisuke / teriyaki nori a try. It’s usually lightly seasoned, but goes great with rice or chazuke. It’s always expensive, but a few sheets can go a long way if broken up. Read the ingredients to see if chile pepper is an ingredient even if it doesn’t say hot on the package.
If you look in Asian section of your market or have an Asian store, you can sometimes find the packages of the bits and pieces from the process of making the little sheets. This will be much cheaper. I like this: https://www.amazon.com/Ajitsuke-Momi-Nori-1-4oz-Pack/dp/B00G2637YM, but it’s not hot. I don’t like any spice in my Japanese food.
I don’t know what it’s called, but there’s a whole category of Japanese paste rice toppings, some of them really spicy as I saw on a Japanese show covering them.
Live and learn … I didn’t know furikake was newish in Hawai’i; I assumed it had always been around.
I love the stuff. My favorite kind (I can’t remember the name, but I know it when I see it in the store) tastes primarily of sesame and wasabi. It’s supposed to be a “topping” for rice, but I usually end up with a ratio of about 3 parts rice, 1 part furikake.
Definitely not new to Hawaii. I grew up in the 60’s and it’s always been around. I think the ones in the bottle came later in the 70’s or 80’s, but the chazuke one I used to love came in a package similar to this, but in single serving size.
Last year a friend sent me this:
https://3porchfarm.com/products/3-porch-farm-gomasio-3-bags
Is furikake similar? This gomasio is very good. The fish flakes y’all describe are a no-go for my vegetarian diet, but if there are veg options I’ll look for them.
Doesn’t hold a candle to the infamous dancing squid.
I challenge you with live sashimi. PETA members, stay away!
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=live+sashimi
In Korean director Kim Ki Duk’s The Isle, there’s a n infamous scene where a fisherman filets one of side of the fish for sashimi and tosses it back in the water. Say what you will about his films, but he was a brilliant director who sadly passed away last December from covid.
Also, eating live octopus is a thing: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=eat+live+otopus
When I was in graduate school, I scraped by on white rice and furikake for months on end. Curiously, after that dark era, I can’t recall if I ever had it on any dish since then. Probably not.
As I said in my OP, I tried it on buttered toast and IMHO it does not go well with butter. Probably okay on plain popcorn. I don’t like butter on popcorn anyway.
I’ve actually made gomasio. Very easy. Toast sesame seeds, grind them up (I have a suribachi), and mix with salt in your preferred proportion. I think I did 10 sesame to 1 salt.
Furikake is like gomasio on steroids-- sesame taste, salty, sweet, seaweedy (nori, which has a fantastic taste!), and possibly fishy.
Now I have to try some of this stuff.
Haven’t seen any sold on Amazon that meet my requirements, which include having sesame, seaweed, some kind of fishy component, preferably with wasabi too and made in Japan or at least not in China and without a bunch of artificial colors/flavor.
Might be worth a stop at Whole Paycheck.
The fishy component is usually katsuoboshi, dried smoked bonito flakes. You can buy it by itself, but shop carefully because the quality varies greatly. If you’re planning to eat it a topping, stay away from the large shavings or if it says dashi. These are intended for boiling to make stock and my not be overpowering in flavor and not tender.
It’s pretty simple to make at home to your taste, but the catch is having a lot of extra ingredients since most of them aren’t available in single serving size. https://www.google.com/search?q=furikake+recipe&rlz=1C1ASVC_enUS940US940&oq=furikake+recipe&aqs=chrome…69i57.5474j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
The other catch is that of most the ingredients absorbs moisture quickly, particularly nori and katsouboshi, which turns rancid pretty quickly once opened.