Conditioned to Know: The Cost of Certainty

My hand is trembling, just a fraction, as the cedar chopsticks hover over a small, indigo-glazed bowl. Inside is a mound of something translucent, shimmering with a faint, iridescent violet hue, topped with a single, microscopic orange sphere. It looks like a gelatinous galaxy. I have no idea what it is. I could ask the host, but the vocabulary barrier is a mountain 888 meters high, and frankly, I don’t want to know. If she says ‘fermented sea cucumber lung,’ the psychological wall will slam shut. But if I just eat it, the experience remains pure. It remains a conversation between my tongue and the unknown.

We are conditioned to crave certainty. We spend our lives reading reviews, checking ingredients, and squinting at photographs of our dinner before we even put on our shoes to head to the restaurant. We want to know exactly what we are getting for our 48 dollars. This is a survival mechanism, I suppose, a way to avoid the literal or metaphorical poison of a bad meal. But in our desperate grip on certainty, we’ve strangled the joy of discovery. We’ve turned eating into a transaction rather than an event. I realized this most acutely yesterday when I found myself crying during a commercial for long-distance phone plans-the one where the grandmother hears her grandson’s voice for the first time in 18 months. My emotional floor is currently thin, worn down by the sheer effort of trying to control every variable of my life. Sitting here, faced with a bowl of purple mystery, I realize the only way to feel anything real is to let go of the steering wheel.

The Culinary Digital Tuner

Eva is 58 now, and she still refuses to use a digital tuner. She uses her ears and a set of forks that look like they belong in a medieval surgery. She says that when you rely on a screen to tell you if a sound is ‘right,’ you stop listening to the sound itself. You start listening to the data. Eating a ‘safe’ meal-a burger, a club sandwich, a bowl of plain pasta-is the culinary equivalent of a digital tuner. It tells you exactly what you expect. It is 100% accurate and 0% alive.

The Map is the Meal

This is the philosophy we often forget when we plan our escapes. We focus on the destination, the mileage, and the gear, but we forget the surrender. When you are walking the ancient paths of the world, like walking the Kumano Kodo Trail, the physical exertion is only half the journey. The other half happens at the end of the day, when you sit on a tatami mat and a woman with 78 years of history etched into her face places a tray of 18 small dishes in front of you. None of them are familiar. There is a fern sprout pickled in something tart, a slice of root that tastes like the earth itself, and a broth that seems to contain the essence of a thousand forest mornings.

To look at these dishes and ask for a club sandwich is a refusal of the very ground you just walked upon. It is a way of saying, ‘I want the view, but I don’t want the truth.’ Because the truth of a place is found in its flavors, especially the ones that challenge us. This is where the Aikido of travel comes in. In Aikido, you don’t resist the force of your opponent; you lead it. You say ‘yes, and.’ Yes, this fish has its head still attached, and I will find out why that matters. Yes, this custard is savory instead of sweet, and I will let it recalibrate my expectations. When you stop resisting the menu, you stop resisting the culture. You become a guest rather than a consumer.

Overcoming the ‘Mucus’ Story

I remember a specific night in a mountain hut where I was served a bowl of what looked like white strings in a clear liquid. I was 28 years old and still very much in my ‘safe’ phase. I poked at it. I sniffed it. I looked for an exit. But then I saw the person next to me, an old man who had walked 18 miles that day, slurping it down with such profound gratitude that I felt ashamed. I took a bite. It was mountain yam, grated into a viscous, slippery silk. At first, my brain screamed ‘mucus!’ But then, as the cool earthiness hit the back of my throat, the signal changed. It became ‘sustenance.’ It became ‘vitality.’ I realized that my disgust was just a lack of imagination.

The Orchestra of Experience

Eva J.-C. used to say that the pipes in an organ need to breathe. If the air is too sterile, the sound is brittle. Our palates are the same. We need the ‘dust’ of the unknown to give our experiences resonance. If we only eat what we can identify, we are living in a world of 8 colors when there are actually 108. We are listening to a solo when we could be hearing an orchestra. The joy of eating something you can’t identify is the joy of being a child again-of having no preconceived notions, no ‘standard’ to uphold. It is the purest form of trust you can offer a host: ‘I don’t know what this is, but I trust you, and I trust this land.’

Growth Through Friction

There is a specific kind of humility in the unknown bite. It forces you to be present. You can’t scroll on your phone or plan your next day while you are trying to decipher the complex, smoky, bitter, and sweet layers of a fermented wild plum. You have to be right there, in the indigo bowl, in the moment. It’s a meditative act. It’s a way of saying that your comfort is less important than your growth. And let’s be honest, most of our ‘dislikes’ are just stories we told ourselves 28 years ago because we had a bad experience with a cafeteria lunch. We carry these stories like heavy stones in our pockets, wondering why the hike is so hard.

I’ve spent the last 38 minutes working my way through the 18 dishes of this kaiseki meal. Some were sublime. Some were confusing. One, a small cube of grey curd, tasted like a wet basement, but even that had a certain honesty to it. It tasted of the cellar where it was aged, of the damp stones and the slow passage of time. It wasn’t ‘delicious,’ but it was ‘real.’ And in a world that is increasingly filtered, processed, and packaged for our convenience, ‘real’ is the highest luxury.

We think we travel to see things, but we actually travel to be seen by the world. To be exposed. To have our edges softened by the friction of the unfamiliar. Every time you pick up a piece of food that scares you, you are doing a small, brave thing. You are admitting that you don’t know everything. You are opening a door that can’t be closed. By the time I reach the final course-a simple bowl of rice and a slice of melon-I feel lighter. Not just because I’ve eaten, but because I’ve surrendered. I didn’t need the digital tuner. I just needed to listen to the song the mountain was playing.

The Final Command

If you find yourself in a place where the menu is a mystery, don’t reach for your phone to translate it. Don’t look for the word ‘chicken.’ Just point to something at random and say thank you. You might hate it. You might love it. But you will definitely remember it. And isn’t that why we leave home in the first place? To find the things that we didn’t know we were looking for? To eat the galaxy in an indigo bowl and realize that we are part of it?

What is the last thing you ate that truly surprised you?

(Answer in the comments below)