# The salability of "authentic" ethnic food. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 7, 2007, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-salability-of-authentic-ethnic-food/399067 "2007-04-07T02:48:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 25
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-salability-of-authentic-ethnic-food/399067/25 "2007-04-08T13:44:00Z")
Many years ago I was touring Japan. This was long enough ago that Caucasians were rare in Tokyo & all but unheard of out in the prefectures. I was in a city park on Shikoku watching a guy pushing a vending cart. A 20-ish total babe came up & bought one of whatever it was. I watched with interest as I hadn’t been able to figure out what he was selling from his signage. Depending on what it was, I thought it might give me an opener with the babe too. He pokes around in the cart with a skewer & out comes a bright purple octopus tentacle about 8-10" long & maybe 1" in dameter at the thick end. She pays, tilts her head back & dangles the tentacle into her eager mouth and … Sorry, my train of thought took a detour just there, exactly as it did 40 years ago… At any rate, she ate her tentacle with obvious enjoyment. (And I never did get anywhere with her, despite valiant efforts) I doubt that particular very authentic and presumably popular Japanese snack food will catch on in the US. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-salability-of-authentic-ethnic-food/399067)._