Monday, October 19, 2009

New rice and seasonal gifts

This is the time of year in Japan when rice is harvested. I've just bought some new brown rice (packaged on 12th October so pretty fresh!) New rice (新米) has a little more flavour, contains more water and has a bit more bite. Seasonal food is very important in Japan, and many people send gifts of natural produce that are special to their particular region of Japan.

In Britain and many other countries, it would be too expensive to send fruit and vegetables by post. But in Japan, there is a fantastic network of relatively cheap next day delivery services, where you pay by size and maximum weight. I'm lucky enough to have some very kind students that sometimes give me fruit and vegetables from their families' farms or hometowns, most recently some delicious potatoes from Hokkaido.

No comments:

Post a Comment