sakuranbo

I've told you before that I've never had sweet sakuranbo (cherries) grown in Japan.

Well, I found some recently.

The color is definitely different, yeah?!

Now I know to choose the darker colored cherries.

supermarket finds

Trying two new (to us) fruits...plums and hebesu.

The plums were from Yamagata...bummer that the first one we tried were hard, not too sweet either. Hopefully the other 3 will be better.

Hebesu is a citrus from Miyazaki...like lime but not as sour...delicious!

It is fun discovering new fruits and veggies.

dadacha mame

Dadacha mame are a type of soybeans.

They are grown in the Tsuruoka area of Yamagata prefecture.

Dadacha is apparently an old and casual way of saying "father" in Yamagata dialect...mame is bean.

Apparently this variety is one of the most famous (they may have also been sold them in Osaka, though I've only discovered them this summer).

The membranes around the bean are darker than edamame almost black.

It is cool that we live so close to Tohoku, because we get to taste a lot of different foods from there.

After cooking them, I think they have a more smoky roasted taste than regular edamame...delicious.

My favorite way to cook them is laying them flat into a shallow pan, putting a cup of water, cover it and cooking them on high for 7 minutes.

The beans are still a little firm but it cooks super fast because they are laid out flat on the pan....my kind of cooking these days.

p.s. we have another typhoon approaching, it is supposedly a super typhoon (bigger than the one that hit last week)...it is forecast to hit Shikoku & Kansai tomorrow lunchtime and we will probably get high winds in the afternoon...stay safe everyone.

anzu shiso fuumi

Recently Hankyu Department Store had a Tohoku fair.

We picked up some bento for dinner (Yonezawa beef for me and salmon for Satoshi), iburigakko and anzu shiso fuumi.

If you recall, the iburigakko is a smoked pickle from Akita.

The anzu shiso fuumi (literally means perilla flavored apricot) and is a sweet-sour pickle/jam of sorts.

The taste reminds me of prune mui, a preserve we have in Hawaii.

We first tried this in Aomori, and reconnected with it at the fair.

This version is made by Kariya Shokuhin from Akita.

The owner, Mr Kariya, was a very friendly and good salesman.

So far, we've eaten it as is with breakfast and also chopped it up and added it to yogurt.

These apricot are also grown by Mr Kariya and he makes these with honey and shiso (perilla).

I think the syrup might be good on ice cream or pancakes.

What are you enjoying these days?

'tis the season...

It is summer, there are lots of fruits in season here.

One in particular is the cherry--very popular now, you can tell because the price is very HIGH!

The prefecture known for producing them is Yamagata. Yamagata is located in the Tohoku area of Honshu, which is in the North-Eastern area, near Niigata.

In Japanese, cherries are called sakuranbo. They are similar to the Rainier cherry in Washington. I got these on sale at a local supermarket, they were having a discounted price for point-card holders.

If you live in Japan--and shop, you'll know that almost EVERY store has a point-card, some give money back after collecting so many points, some give discounted prices to card holders. I think most places have them just to test your memory. My wallet would definitely be a little thinner if I didn't have to carry so many point-cards. And if I could only remember to present them at the check-out, I would probably be able to save a little more $$! But, if you had this many, would you be able to? (and this is only half of what I have!! yipes!)