Do you know "child of sushi?" Yesterday my wife had me go to the store to buy some so she could make my favorite dish ever, tuna-maki sushi rolls, and at the risk of taking the sushi motif too far, this gave me a neta (lit. the top part of a piece of sushi, but in this case it means an idea) for today's J-List update. One of the first kanji characters anime fans or students of Japanese become familiar with is ko, which means child. Ko is commonly used with girl's names, e.g. Keiko or Hanako, and it sounds very cute to people here, although fewer babies are being named with ko names these days. A lot of food names use the ko character, too, such as kinoko (lit. "child of tree," meaning mushrooms), takenoko ("child of bamboo," or bamboo shoots), tarako ("child of cod," or cod roe), and the powder you use to make vinagered rice for sushi, sushinoko (which we conveniently have in stock today). The character has other uses, too. Place ko in front of any animal and you have the word for the young version of that animal, e.g. koneko (kitten), koinu (puppy), etc. It's used in slang, too, for example Hamakko, a person from Yokohama.
My favorite meal is tuna-maki made with "child of sushi."
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