Thursday, May 1, 2014

Pizza Hut "Supporter's Box" (product information)


One of the customs that is popular in the U.S. is for people, mostly men, to come together and watch sports while ingesting large quantities of nutritionally suspect food and intoxicating beverages. In Japan, this is done as well, but generally not in people's homes. The idea of what they often refer to as a "home party" (a get-together with friends that usually involves food and drink) is still a little alien to them since Japanese folks take entertaining and hostessing much more seriously than Americans do.

At any rate, this offer from Pizza Hut seems designed to help encourage people, mostly men, to eat junk food and watch sports. In this case, the sport would be soccer, or, as the non-Americans call it, football. For 2,680 yen (about $26 U.S.), you get a split pizza with your choice of four possibilities: margherita, teriyaki, avocado and shrimp, or meat (Iberico ham, bacon, sausage). You also get several side dishes including corn, chicken wings or tiny drumsticks, and roast potato wedges. As someone who bought a Pizza Hut pizza, I recommend the "paku chiki" or spicy chicken drumsticks as well as the potato wedges. As an addition, they will also give you a small packet of mayonnaise to draw a soccer pitch and goal post on your pizza, or at least that is what the illustration seems to be suggesting.

5 comments:

miyazaki said...

I still find it so strange the Japanese obsession with mayo? Where or when did that start...

ibagoalie said...

I was just going to make the same mayo comment...apparently its different from american mayo, though.

Orchid64 said...

The mayo thing is puzzling, but it was in full force even in my earliest days in Japan. One of my coworkers used to by UFO (big, round bowls of instant ramen) and he'd take a mini tube (not a packet, a tube which probably had 3-5 tablespoons of mayo in it) and squeeze the entire contents onto the top of the ramen when he ate it!

I'm guessing it was just something that resonated with their taste buds since eggs and high fat food are pretty popular. For all of their petite people, they don't mind great lashings of fat. I guess there's a lesson in that. ;-) Thanks for commenting!

Orchid64 said...

ibagoalie: I've heard that it contains more egg yolks and is richer. It also contains vinegar, or more flavorful vinegar, I think. It is pretty tasty, but it's also as bad for you as any other mayo! ;-) Still, I like mayonnaise - not like the Japanese do, but I do use it occasionally.

Orchid64 said...

I finally decided to look it up and it seems mayo was introduced in 1925 (by the founder of Kewpie mayonnaise) and that it is so tasty because of apple cider vinegar and... wait for it... MSG!