“Kanamara Matsuri 2007 (phallus festival)-crop” by Saya M. – Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Over a period of two days, a trendy Japanese restaurant in the capital city of Costa Rica celebrated the traditional Shinto Kanamara Matsuri (the Festival of the Steel Phallus) with an unusual gastronomical display that tested the decorum of diners. According to lifestyle journalist Gloriana Corrales of national newspaper La Nacion, the Ramen Sushi restaurant in San Jose observed Kanamara Matsuri with special dishes garnished with phallic shapes.

Ramen Sushi is located behind the church of La Soledad, just east of Chinatown in downtown San Jose. The administrators of this restaurant, which serves both Japanese and Italian meals, have noticed a growing interest in Costa Rica for Japanese culture; to that effect, they decided to introduce Kanamara Matsuri by hanging artistic drawings of the male reproductive organ and erecting (sorry) a shrine to fertility. In addition to the décor, Ramen Sushi served meals shaped as male genitalia, from calzoni to gnocchi and from sushi to ramen.

Per Wikipedia:

The Kanamara Matsuri is centered on a local penis-venerating shrine. The legend being that a sharp-toothed demon (vagina dentata) hid inside the vagina of a young woman and castrated two young men on their wedding nights. As a result, the young woman sought help from a blacksmith, who fashioned an iron phallus to break the demon’s teeth, which led to the enshrinement of the item.

The Kanayama Shrine was popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection from sexually transmitted infections. It is also said the shrine offers divine protections for business prosperity, and for the clan’s prosperity; and for easy delivery, marriage, and married-couple harmony.

Writing for La Nacion, Ms. Corrales described the diverse reactions of diners. A German expat looked at his calzone order with disdain; in contrast, his Tica girlfriend finished her small gnocchi phalli with gusto before moving on to the larger calzone ignored by her date. The young woman explained:

I’m not going to be intimidated by a penis made of flour. In fact, it’s too bad they are not serving popsicles…

At a different table, the mood was less than enthusiastic. A woman mentioned that she wanted to bring her 9-year old son to the restaurant, but when she explained about the Kanamara Matsuri, her son retorted:

Mom, no! I’m not going over there to eat penises.