Sun Sun Farm - Tourist farmers' market in Kakegawa

Yesterday afternoon, my mother and I went driving to Kakegawa, a town about 30 km from Hamamatsu. My mother is a pensioner. She got her driver’s license more than 50 years ago and still loves driving. She often goes to countryside to buy fresh vegetables and fruits of reasonable prices. The destination of yesterday’s drive was Sun Sun Farm, which is one of her favorite farmers’ markets.

Sun Sun Farm had two buildings, and we entered this building first. As you see, they still had Halloween pumpkins outside. Even in Japan, Halloween has become more and more popular in recent years.

There were a lot of local fresh products such as mandarin oranges, sweet potatoes, and persimmons. Like mandarin oranges, persimmons are also a specialty in western Shizuoka Prefecture. These big sweet persimmons were from Mori, a mountainous town near Kakegawa. When you are in farmers’ market, you can sometimes have a little bit of fruits to taste.

In another building, I found many processed products that were completely vegan-friendly. Especially, I was amazed to see a variety of unique vegan candies.

They are blueberry candies and acer maximowiczianum candies, agar candies flavored with root tangles, melons, mandarin oranges, and persimmons, and black sesame & soybean flour candies. The first two are said to be good for eyes. Maybe similar candies are sold in some drugstores as well.

There were also tea leaves and buckwheat noodles with yam (unfortunately, bonito flake broth was used for the attached soup),

locally brewed liquor, including sake, beer, and even distilled spirit flavored with tea leaves,

and wakame seaweed, which you can put in soup or salad.

Near the ceiling of the building, they displayed traditional kites in Kakegawa (Yokosuka kites). They have a history of 500 years and were originally used for land survey of the enemy territory or as communication tools in a provincial war.

As Shizuoka Prefecture has both mountains and sea, it has a great variety of local products. But what I like most about farmers’ markets is that they have simple food or sweets made of only natural ingredients.

The upper left sweets are made of rice flour and sugar and colored by gardenia, mugwort, etc. The right ones are mainly made of sweet potato paste mixed with white bean paste, sugar, and agar and wrapped in a thin skin of wheat flour. They are called suhama and imokin (imokintsuba) respectively. I’d like to taste them next time because yesterday, my mother bought us another kind of sweet to eat in the car. They were daifuku or rice cakes stuffed with adzuki bean paste. Daifuku is very popular and good to eat especially when you are hungry.

Sun Sun Farm
Address: 1456-312 Obuchi, Kakegawa-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 0120-55-3386
Open hours: 9:00-17:00
Closed: Thursdays (if a national holiday falls on Thursday, it is closed the previous day instead)
Access: 20-minute drive from Kakegawa IC of Tomei Expressway
             25-minute drive from Fukuroi IC of Tomei Expressway