Intrepid Japanese dining on dirt

French-style seafood was always the big seller at Toshio Tanabe's Tokyo restaurant, but the chef for many years had a secret passion: soil.

Now his long interest in soil cuisine has finally culminated in a feast he's been offering to customers the last few weeks, starting with an amuse bouche of soil soup and ending with a soil sorbet.

"Man didn't create the sea, the air or the soil. They're simply all part of nature, and in a sense they are alive in their own right," said Tanabe. "What I'm trying to do is reflect that feeling in food."