DAIKON
THEY DON’T grow on trees. What you are looking at are daikon or giant radishes hung out to dry. Next to rice they are one of the most important staples in Japanese diet. An average daikon will be a foot or more long and weigh five pounds or so. They can be much bigger. They are eaten boiled with shoyu, sliced, or shredded as salad. Well-to-do Japanese frequently eat daikon as an essential part of the sauce for the famous tempura (sea-food deep fried in batter). Farmers and laborers are more dependent on daikon as a part of their daily diet, pickled and eaten with rice. If any Japanese food has an odor to which Japanese are sensitive it is pickled daikon, although to a Westerner who may be used to garlic or onion it is not a particularly strong smell at all.
‘I didn’t know they grew on trees!’
GIANT STRAWBERRIES
STRAWBERRIES come so large in Japan that one box will scarcely accommodate an even dozen. The strawberry box is flat and the berries are laid tenderly in on paper, like a box of Western chocolates. The strawberries themselves come as big as plums and hold their taste and juiciness in spite of their size. They are specially cultivated on terraced slopes with a southern exposure.
Fruit in general is plentiful and delicious. Almost every variety seen in the West is available, plus some others not ordinarily found. These include sweet persimmons, sometimes as large as small grapefruit; mikan, a type of tangerine; nashi, a sort of pear-apple with the pear flavor and the apple texture; biwa or loquat; and amazingly large fresh figs.
In almost every Japanese neighborhood the fruit shop rivals the flower shop in attractiveness to the passers-by.
“…and a half-dozen strawberries.”
SHAVED ICE
A FAVORITE summer treat in Japan, for young and old alike, is a dish of shaved ice over which has been poured an extremely sweet syrup. The result is a sort of defrosted popsicle. The syrup comes in several flavors including strawberry, lemon, grape, orange and melon. Even sweet bean paste, a staple for Japanese cakes and confectionary, is found on the shaved ice menu.
The hot and humid Japanese summers make understandable the popularity of this dish. In the countryside the shaving process may be done by a hand scraper but more familiar is the iron machine with a large turning wheel.
The character on the shop curtain denotes an ice shop and there are so many in the summertime that it is one Japanese character that is easily recognized and learned by foreigners.
The Pause That Refreshes…
NOODLE SELLER
THE LONESOME, weird note of the noodle seller’s horn is one of the most characteristic Japanese sounds. Japanese sometimes refer to “night weeping noodles.”
The noodle man comes out after dark in the winter season, pulling a little house-on-wheels and announcing his passage with his horn. He sells his wares until one or two in the morning, stopping for a few minutes in a likely spot and then moving on. His steaming hot bowls of noodles heated over a charcoal stove and sold at comparatively low prices are very tempting on a cold winter night. One distinctive scene in Japan is a train of noodle carts moving away in the early evening from the noodle cart pool where they have been stored during the day.
“Where’s Duncan Hines?”
— CLOTHING —
KIMONO AND OBI
HERE IS evidence that the kimono is not as simple as it looks. Far from it. In fact, in addition to considerable strength necessary to put it together, it also requires several odd little gadgets, some of which may be described briefly as a miniature pillow, a ten-inch metal clip and several small sashes. In any case, once the obi and kimono are successfully put together with a pretty girl inside the result is one of the world’s most beautiful feminine costumes and well worth the trouble.
Neither the kimono nor the obi is an inexpensive proposition. The New Year’s kimono of a seventeen-year-old Japanese girl will be every bit as costly as her American sister’s first formal. Japanese kimono may look alike to Westerners but to a Japanese each is different and the age and social status of the wearer and season of the year can be told at a glance.
Incidentally, kimono in Japanese means clothing in general rather than this particular outfit.
“But it seemed so easy when Mother did it.”
TABI, GETA, ZORI
JAPANESE FOOTGEAR all has one thing in common—a separation of some kind between the big toe and the other toes. Any foreigner’s first attempt to navigate in these is sure to be awkward, but in time many become quite adept.
Geta are the wooden ones that go clicketyclack. Zori are the fancier ones that come in many colors, patterns and materials including leather, brocade and colorful plastics. Tabi are not really shoes at all but a sort of glorified sock, still with the big toe separate, like the thumb in a mitten. The helpful little maid in the cartoon is wearing tabi with her geta.