Friday is shopping day for the guests of Nobeyama observatory, since no meals are servedon weekends. A driver picked Mukul and me up at the dorm (we were the only visitors at that time)and we drove to the closest supermarket–about a 20-m drive away. The store was like an American supermarket, except they didn’t accept credit cards and had no ATM. Since I was short of local currency, I needed an ATM. Our driver didn’t speak much English, so I mimed sticking my ATM card into a slot, and pulling out bills. He understood immediately, and took me down the street to the post office, where I filled up my wallet with several 10,000-yen bills.
Back to the store. I wandered down the produce line, and found mushrooms. Mushrooms galore! The greatest variety of mushrooms I had ever seen. It was a mushroom lovers paradise. I was tempted to buy several packets of odd varieties, but ended up picking just one. I went on to the fruit area. They had some good looking big apples. Initially I was turned off by the size. because in the eastern US, the bigger the apple, the worst the taste. But Mukul assured me that this is not the case in Japan. He also encouraged me to try a persimmon. (He bought 6.)
Then on to the meat area. I selected two packets of sliced fish from the myriad of choices. The only way I could cook these little fishlets in my room was to fry them, so I had to get oil. After wandering around a bit, I found some shelves with a huge array of bottles containing what might be oil. There wasn’t a single English word on any of the labels. I began to wonder if they might in fact be some other liquid–vinegar, perhaps? I turned around, and on the opposite shelves there were other similar bottles, and one of them, thankfully, was labeled Italian Olive Oil. I was saved. Got the smallest one there–200 g.
I also found some shelves of wine, whiskey and sake. I decided to try a local red wine called “Alps”. A few other items like broccoli, cereal and milk, and we checked out. My tab for the weekend spoils was 5500 yen.
That night I cooked one of the packets of fish, 1/3 of the broccoli, and half the mushrooms. Delectable, if I do say so myself. For dessert, I had half the apple, which was perfect.
My own meals are not as complex and colorful as the ones we have been having on weekdays. If you are a mushroom and fish lover, you would enjoy Japanese cooking very much. I am, and do. The only thing I can dispense with is the vast quantities of rice that everyone eats. But there’s so much food in our meals, I can get by with only one scoop of rice, and I’m satisfied.
I look forward to our next supermarket foray. This time I’ll get 3 or 4 packages of mushrooms, and some other kind of fish. Itadakimasu! (Bon appetit!)
Shamaru
michael
9:30 Tuesday morning, a voice from the other room:
“Have we heard from rakkity yet?”
“Yet?”
“It must be nighttime there. He’s had a whole day!”
“Not a thing. Wait, let me check again. Yep, here it is.”
Mushrooms? Better tie Adam down or he’ll be on the next plane out.
mushroomlover
Adam and Diane.
And I like fish as well.
I’m enjoying your quiet adventures, rakkity. thanks.
pete
My reverie, invoked by yesterday’s bike ride and lunch, and the snowfall in particular, brought me back to Kyoto and its occasionnal capture by snow on roof tops, temple pagodas, and walls, on tombstones and bicycles, on umbrellas and across the vanishing emerald moss, down the troweled surfaces of gorges to the black currents below-how it mesmerized me on the branches of plum and cherry, cedar and pine, how the sound of wooden geta grew soft on the pavement, the dawn and evening temple gongs reverberated in the white air, and therefore how your pictures, which included the cozy house, brought back the memories of the “kotatsu” whose fifteen inch table surrounded by a blanket with a lightbulb underneath would serve as a principle source of heat, and where its ancestor at the farm house where I lived had a hole below for a charcoal brazier, and where the legs could gratefully dangle.
Food: I don’t think I ever knew what I was eating for a long time. I had no idea what “sashimi” was and I don’t remember being introduced to it. I do remember the “fugu,” however, but only because Kogo-san, a supervisor & ex-guerrilla fighter in the Philippines who also spoke very good English–called the rest of the workers “cowards” (in English) for not eating what he and I were eating. Another year would go by before I learned of the day long agony of death by poison one could look forward to if it were cut wrong. Less drastic but perhaps more puzzling was your choice of beef, beer, and ice cream all lined up for simultaneous consumption. When I read your selections I didn’t assume they would all be enjoyed like slices from the same pie.
Congratulations on negotiating the supermarket. I’ve never done well in the food world, here or there.
I think you may want to check on your assignment of “In” and “Out” on your intial blog, I think you may have reversed the meanings.
I would recommend you heat up some sake: it’s perfect for those winter days (I mean) nights. Also: see if there is something called “oko (oh-koh) no mi (me) ya ki”… a Kansai specialty but adapted elsewhere… involving a pancake made out of seafood and vegetables on a hot grill at your table…
If there is a village, scout out a Sento (public bath).. that would be a REAL TREAT, or, better yet, ask where the nearest “Onsen” or hot spring is. Up there, you are in prime territory to sit in river bordered by snow and surrounded by mountains, cooking your aches away and drinking (more) sake…
While you’re at it, why not inquire into gettiing a shiatsu massage?
Happily following along, if just a little homesick,
ato de —
pete
rakkity
Well, Pete, I do have to get a little work done,
so I can’t go out to search for those Japanese dlights you mentioned. But this weekend we’ve been told that we will get a ride to a local hot springs.
But on Friday I’ll have a look for okonomiyaki at the store and try cooking it up for dinner. No fugu for this coward, thanks.
adam
Pohaku-san, you add much to the dialogue Rakk is generous enough to carry on with us Western laggards … ! And I, too, commend his industry and openness, his engagement with his environment and bretheren, the poetry of his images fleshed out by Mike’s enthusiasm and your reveries.
pohaku
Edu-san,
What I saw was a computer (yours) plugged into another and I had the impression that’s all there was to it: data gathering and computer baby sitting. Oh well. I guess our eyes (some eyes, not my surmise) might glaze over what you in fact are gathering.
Care to give us a glimpse into your solar cosmos?
What is the nature of the gadgetry in Japan that makes it so unique?
p.s. I wouldn’t advise making that dish, just eatiing if it is available.
michael
There is an old expression such that “I want to eat fugu, but I don’t want to die” in Japan. Since fugu’s poison can lead to instantaneous deaths of diners, only licensed cooks are allowed to prepare fugu.
You must have special skills and knowledge about fugu to be licensed. Poisonous parts of fugu differ, depending on the kind of fugu. Because of the strict regulations, the number of deaths is decreasing.
My oh my, isn’t that comforting.
pohaku
Yeah. But it’s not so instantaneous, apparently. A famous kabuki actor ate a bad piece, or, intentionally, as in “I will eat fugu because I want to die,” I forget which, but the story centered on his fame and how looooong it took him to die.
Katsu san, the woman who cooked all meals at the kiln in her perpetually smoke-dimmed kitchen, was extended the trust of cooking this fish. The workers, all literally “old-hands,” couldn’t make that leap of faith; I did, without knowing it.
okay: how deep is the snow now, Ed?
Michael
About three inches…oh, that’s here and I’m not Ed.