Happy New Year of Ox 2021

If you are in Japan during the year-end and New Year holidays, you can see many pretty sweets at Japanese confectionary stores. As 2021 is the year of Ox according to the Chinese zodiac, we ate buns filled with sweet bean paste like these today. In most cases, such buns (called manju) are vegan, however, yellowish buns may contain egg as the one on the right. They represented oxen but looked like pigs. I just wanted to upload the picture because they were cute anyway. Happy New Year!

The design of the wrapping paper was also nice and suitable for a New Year's gift.

Swedish almond ginger cookies

Two years ago, I introduced Swedish ginger cookies in this blog. On December 13, Swedish people have Luciadagen or Saint Lucy’s Day. Since I have lived in Finland and Sweden before, I often remember their Christmas season and traditional foods like ginger cookies at this time of year. Today I went to Entetsu Department Store and bought ANNAS Original ALMOND THINS. Like the plain ginger cookies I wrote about two years ago, they are also vegan. Though they are supposed to have an almond flavor, I could hardly feel it. I noticed a strong flavor of cinnamon instead and felt like dipping the cookies into Swedish strong coffee (as I’m sensitive to caffeine, I don’t usually drink coffee). They were so tasty and reminded me of the atmosphere of the Christmas season in Northern Europe.

In 1988, I got a ginger cookie from a girl dressed up as Lucia at a youth hostel in Stockholm on Luciadagen. It was my first trip to Sweden, and I had a wonderful time in Stockholm. But now I’m in Japan and worried about Covid-19 there. Sweden is one of several countries where use of a mask is not obligatory/recommended in public areas and the majority of people don’t wear it even now. As I’m Japanese and have used a mask all the time during this pandemic, I feel very uneasy to see news from Sweden that shows people in crowd. Last April, I sent an e-mail to a local station of SVT (Sveriges Television) to tell about mask usage in Japan. I guess some readers of this blog live in Sweden. I’ll paste the e-mail below though my Swedish is not good and may sound childish. I really want to say that wearing a mask works. Take care! 

Hej!

Jag är japanska och tittar på Norrbottens nyheter om coronaviruset på nätet. Jag har haft väninnor i svensk och finsk Lapland och känner ängslig. Det var tråkigt att det finns många som har drabbats av viruset.

I Japan och andra östasiatiska länder är det vanlingt att bära munskydd när man gå ut och rör sig bland folk. Man gör så för att inte sprida smitta även om man inte har någon symptom eller inte är smittad. Wolfgang Hanson har skrivit en bra artikel om det på Aftonbladet.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/a/9v4bvd/nar-blir-det-tvang-pa-munskydd-i-sverige

Förra veckan tittade jag presskonferens och blev orolig när jag såg att det fanns ingen som hade munskydd på sig. När jag bodde i Sverige och var ute utan mössa mitt på vintern, mina kompisar blev så oroliga att de tog mig till en affär och tvang mig att köpa en. Jag tyckte de överdrev och betedde sig konstigt, men nu förstår jag hur de kände då. Nu är jag lika orolig för svenskar utan munskydd. Kanske är det min största kulturkrock. Vår premiärminister sa att de skulle skicka två tyg munskydd till varje hushåll. Men många japaner har redan sytt dem själv genom att titta på youtube eller annat på nätet.

Jag hoppas coronaviruset ska lugna ner sig snart i hela världen. Tack för informativa nyheter och sköt om er!

Många hälsningar 

Hiroko

Vegan emergency food in Yamada Denki

Last week, my PC didn’t work well, and I had difficulty entering characters. I wondered whether it was the PC or keyboard that had a trouble. I went to Yamada Denki, a chain of consumer electronics stores, where I bought the PC four years ago.

Like Bic Camera, another chain of consumer electronics stores, Yamada Denki sells some other things such as food, drink, and convenience goods, in addition to consumer electronics. On that day, they even had emergency food that were sold at a discount. I bought two items that seemed to be vegan. One of them is Gomoku Gohan that literally means rice with five ingredients.

Usually, such a rice dish contains chicken. But this one doesn’t contain any animal ingredients according to the description on the backside. The five ingredients added to the rice are dried carrot, deep-fried tofu, dried burdock, dried shiitake mushroom, and konjac. They are flavored with plant oil, soy sauce, and sugar. The package also has a table of 27 allergens specified in the Food Labeling Act in Japan.

*えび (shrimp), かに (crab), 小麦 (wheat), そば (buckwheat)
 卵 (egg), 乳成分 (milk), 落花生 (peanut), あわび (abalone)
いか (squid), いくら (salmon roe), オレンジ (orange), カシューナッツ (cashew nut)
キウイ (kiwifruit), 牛肉 (beef), くるみ (walnut), ごま (sesame)
さけ (salmon), さば (mackerel), 大豆 (soybean), 鶏肉 (chicken)
バナナ (banana), 豚肉 (pork), まつたけ (matsutake mushroom), もも (peach)
やまいも (yam), りんご (apple), ゼラチン (gelatin)

The words 小麦 (wheat) and 大豆 (soybean) are highlighted, which means that this product contains these ingredients.

It is very easy to prepare this Gomoku Gohan. First, I took the spoon and the oxygen absorber out of the package.

Then I poured 160 ml hot water into it, closed it, and waited for 15 minutes. As it is a kind of emergency food, you can eat it directly from the package. But I wanted to see how it look like on a dish.

It tasted light and seemed to be suitable for everyone expect those allergic to wheat and soybeans. I think I’ll buy some more while they are sold at a discount.
The other vegan item from Yamada Denki is Rice Cookies. They are made from rice powder, rice oil, sugar, sweetened coconut puree, almond flour, fermented seasoning (rice, salt), shredded coconut. Any of the 27 allergens isn’t contained in them.

The rice powder is from Niigata Prefecture that is famous as a major cultivation area of rice.

The cookies looked delicious.

One of them was broken. They seemed to be fragile but were crispy and tasty. I thought the texture was very much like that of langue de chat, French thin cookies.

Both Gomoku Gohan and Rice Cookies are the products of Onisi (尾西). I heard this company’s name for the first time, but I appreciate their efforts to provide such food. Though it is not clearly described that they are vegan, they are vegan-friendly products. In addition, both of them bear the Halal mark.

As I wrote before, it has been very difficult to find vegan food in Japan. But it seems that more and more companies have come to release vegan-friendly products recently. I think I’ll stop writing this blog now. Thank you for reading.

My blog is mainly intended for visitors or inhabitants from abroad, but in fact I myself like traveling and wish to visit some countries after corona. So, I intend to study hard in my free time to improve my language skills from now on. I wish you’ll enjoy your stay in Japan. Thank you again!

Fruit without flower

Yesterday, I got some fresh figs that my mother bought at a local farmers’ market.

Though it seemed possible to peel the fruits by hand, I used a knife not to deform them too much. They were so soft. In Japanese, figs are called “ichijiku”. It is sometimes written as 無花果 that means a fruit without flower. I wondered where this mysterious name came from and checked some websites. Then I learned that fig trees never have flowers that look like flowers. To my surprise, the flowers are the grain-like things in the red parts of the fruits! They looked delicious.

The taste is difficult to explain. They had a gentle sweetness, but their soft texture and a grainy texture in the red part were more impressive. I remembered that dried figs in some bread also had the same grainy texture though they were much sweeter and very different from fresh ones.

I’m not sure if I like fresh figs or not because I'm more used to eat dried ones. I have had an image that figs are good for beauty. According to some websites, they are called “fruits for eternal youth.” They have polyphenols to make the skin beautiful and potassium to prevent swelling. They also improve intestinal condition. As its season continues to October, I may have more opportunities to eat them.

Long-selling adzuki bean popsicle

In this blog, I have introduced many sweets containing adzuki bean paste. You may have got tired of it, but adzuki bean paste is inevitable for traditional Japanese sweets. In supermarkets and convenience stores, you can also find popsicles whose major ingredient is adzuki bean paste. The other day, I found one sold for a reasonable price (about 50 yen) at a drug store.

The manufacturer of this popsicle "Adzuki Bar (あずきバー)" is Imuraya (井村屋) that was originally a Japanese-style confectionary store started in 1896. In 1973, they released the adzuki bean popsicle. According to their website, its price was 30 yen at that time while most popsicles usually cost only 10 yen. From the very beginning, it was intended for adults. Since my childhood, I have had an image that this kind of popsicle with adzuki beans is mainly eaten by elderly people like my grandparents. So, I have seldom eaten one myself.

This time I bought it just because the price was reasonable, but I found it may be healthier compared with other popsicles and ice creams. The ingredients were only five: sugar, adzuki beans, starch syrup, corn starch, and salt. The popsicle looked like this.

I found it moderately sweet and mild. It wasn’t too hard or too soft and had a sophisticated flavor. I even thought it was more delicious than some traditional Japanese sweets containing adzuki bean paste. With a long history as a Japanese-style confectionary store, Imuraya developed such an excellent product. It surely was a popsicle for adults.

Chilled Chinese noodles with vegan toppings

Ramen is a popular dish in Japan all year round. In summer, we have seasonal ramen “Hiyashi Chuka (冷やし中華)” that literally means “chilled Chinese”. It is a cold dish made with ramen noodles and various toppings. I had thought for a long time that it had come from China, but actually it was invented in Japan.

You can eat Hiyashi Chuka in ramen shops at this time of year, but instant products are also available in supermarkets. Like other ramen products, they usually have soup made from dried bonito broth in the package, so I had never bought one until recently. But Last Sunday, when I was in Mori-machi with my mother, I happened to find a product that seemed to be vegan.

The picture on the packages shows popular toppings for Hiyashi Chuka such as cucumber, tomato, ham, omelet cut into strips, prawns, and okra. The first four toppings are very common both in restaurants and at home. The package contained noodles and soup for two portions. The soup was made from brewed vinegar, salt, plant oil, soy sauce, seasonings (amino acid, etc.), acidifier, and caramel coloring.

For topping, I used another instant food “Seaweed & Konjac Salad” instead of omelet and ham.

To make this salad, you only need to soak seaweed in water for ten minutes and drain, rinse konjaku, and sprinkle your favorite dressing on them. I used half of them for the toppings of Hiyashi Chuka.

The noodles were also easy to prepare. It took only five minutes to boil them. After that I cooled the noodles with running water. In addition to the soup, seaweed, konjac, I also added sliced tomato and cucumber strips.

Konjac is jelly made from konjac yam roots. To my mind, it is almost tasteless, but it is said to be good for diet as it is rich in dietary fiber.

The combination of cold noodles and soup containing vinegar was very good. It was refreshing and stimulated my appetite. I also added some sesame oil, which made the noodles more delicious.

Growing avocado in water

Today I visited my parents’ house, and my mother showed me some pictures she had took recently. One of them was a picture of avocado on the windowsill in the kitchen. At the beginning of this year, she started water cultivation with the seed of an avocado that she had eaten.

On the windowsill, there were two avocado seed. This one is older and cracked. It was put in a coffee cup from a convenience store.

In addition to the cup, a garbage draining tool was used to support the seed. My mother said it had taken a long time to sprout. When she gave up and was about to discard the seed, she noticed that the roots had come out first.

Now it has also three leaves.

The stem is quite long. It is about 32 cm from the seed to the top of the stem.

The other seed on the windowsill hasn’t sprouted yet though water cultivation was started on July 5.

I wondered how in the world she had thought of cultivating avocado as I had never imagined that it could grow in Japan. Most avocados sold in Japan are imported from Mexico. My mother said that it was her acupuncture therapist who had told her about it. I also wondered if it was necessary to plant it in soil when it would further grow. How tall will it be?

According to some websites, there are some places in Japan where farmers cultivate avocados. Among them, Matsuyama in Ehime prefecture aims to be No.1 in avocado cultivation in Japan. Their avocados were first released in the market in the city of Matsuyama in 2016. I have never seen avocados from Matsuyama or any other places in Japan, but I would like to buy their fruits if they become available in ordinary supermarkets here. Domestic avocados are said to have a richer taste as they can stay longer on trees compared with imported ones.