The debut of Rider Shochu, shochu made with potatoes harvested by touring motorcyclists that stayed at Akune STAYtion, the NPO where I volunteer
Reception
“Carmen”, the famous opera came to Tsurukawauchi Junior high school. If you look close, you can see a few of my students breaking legs on the big stage
Miki’s birthday party
Pre-river rafting in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto with Zak from Nagashima
Fireworks show post-river rafting in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto
Yatsushiro manhole cover, for Dad
I woke up the morning after river rafting and unconsciously voice my craving for a bagel. My friend took us to the bagel shop down the street; the wonders of living in a slightly large city, I thought
Greetings from a noticeably chillier Akune.
After an exciting and crowded English conversation class this past Thursday evening, I paid a long-overdue visit to one of my favourite restaurants in town. On the east side of Route 3 (a national interstate that runs throughout the island of Kyushu) about fifty meters south of Akune station is Wakana. Every evening of the week except Sundays, the entrance of Wakana glows in the light of its red lantern and the reflection off of the hideously balding head of the loud, charismatic co-owner, Master. If you take a step inside to what some might call a whole in the wall, Okaa-san (Mama), greets you warmly as you find your way to an open seat at the bar, probably next to Master who has come inside to wet his whistle. Sure, there is a menu, but there is nothing like leaving it Okaa-san, who has been pleasing hungry customers for longer than I have been able to chew.
A night at Wakana, usually starts with a sweet stewed vegetable appetizer (daikon radish, turnips and the like) and continues with an endless assortment of fried fish, grilled skewers of chicken, Master’s immaculately prepared sashimi and other delights. With a trained eye Okaa-san asks if you are ready to round off your meal with some piping-hot miso soup and a bowl of steamy white rice; I am always thankful when she asks before I have eaten too much. This Friday, at just the right time, the miso soup and rice came out. I closed my eyes and slurped the soup. I had my rice bowl in my hand and with one look at the rice I noticed something was different; the rice was shimmering.
Mama said, with noticeable pride, “This is shinmai [新米, new rice] from Nagashima”, referring to the island just north of Akune, ”tastes great, right?”
Japanese shinmai is magic. It is fragrant and has a deep savory taste locked inside every glutinous grain. When cooked well, it glistens. Each bite is unspeakably satisfying. You may be thinking to yourself, ‘Can one really use those words to describe white rice?’ Well, yes, one certainly can. New Japanese rice, that has sustained the Japanese soul for thousands of year, is truly something to behold. And this year I had the opportunity to understand what kind work it takes to get that very rice from the tanbo (rice field) to the table.
A few months ago, one of my Japanese English Teachers (JTE) from Akune Elementary, Tashiro-sensei, told me that his family will be harvesting rice at the end of the month and if I were interested my help would be welcome. The work would include cutting the rice stalks with a sickle, organizing the bunches of stalks, hanging them to dry on take-uma, literally bamboo horses, and heartily celebrating in the evening with all of the family members. I was very happy that Tashiro-sensei decided to propose the idea to me and, in retrospect, am duly grateful for the experience.
After a short drive south on Route 3 we, Tashiro-sensei, his wife and I, arrived at the family residence in Satsuma-sendai. When we arrived we exchanged salutations with the matriarch of the house, Tashiro-sensei’s Obaa-san, Grandmother, a pleasant elderly woman who apparently has a knack for raising delicious vegetables; our short exchange made me think that her bright smile never leaves her face. Then it was off to the rice fields to start the day’s work. Our goal for the day was to cut, gather and prepare bundles of rice stalks to be cured before processing. Those getting their hands and feet dirty that day, were the Fathers, Mothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins (and one foreign friend) of Tashiro-sensei’s, all of whom were eager to give me pointers on the various tasks that make inekari (rice harvesting) possible.
Inekari, stacking bunches of rice stalks
It takes the better part of six months for rice to grow and fully mature before it is harvested. Before the rainy season hits Japan in the early summer, the rice paddies are flooded and dotted with thousands of baby rice stalks. By the end of the summer the stalks reach almost one meter in height and show a most vibrant green. Just before the harvest, however, the rice fields transform into a humble gold and the stalks’ once proud posture crumbles under the weight of the rice grains; Tashiro-sensei told me that the rice is bowing to the Earth in respect.
Drying stalks
Tashiro-sensei counting the grains to see if this year’s harvest met his late-Grandfather’s benchmark of 130 grains. This year was a pretty good harvest
English listening CD, this one has been repelling crows and many other of rice’s airborne enemies
When the rice stalks are ready to harvest the paddies have dried mostly and are able to accept the weight of harvesters’ feet and even heavy-duty machinery. In the days of old, and in a few rare locations now, rice farmers used to cut the stalks with sickles and bundle up the bunches with the dried, fallen fronds. On the day that I was in the fields, I cut a few stalks with a sickle; according to Tashiro-sensei, it was for the experience, because I really don’t want to do a whole field like that. The remaining rice was dealt with a machine. It was a phenomenal machine. The eldest of the family would walk it systematically up and down the lines of stalks and the machine would cut and bundle the stalks as it went along. If that wasn’t enough, there was even a mechanism that would tie off the bunched stalks and toss them aside with the precision of, well, a piece of specialized agricultural equipment. This left only one job, which happens to be the most important step in Japanese rice harvesting.
It is my understanding that Japanese rice would not be the same if were not for the last step in the harvesting process. I am speaking, of course, of the sun drying process. After the elders built the take-uma (remember? bamboo horse), resembling a drying rack, we gathered bunches of stalks, separated them in the center and draped them on it in a criss-cross fashion. Depending on the given family’s practice, the stalks will then be left to dry for one to three weeks, sometimes up to one month. But I have a feeling, a scientific hunch that a lot more than drying occurs on top of the take-uma. For instance, when you take a steak of the grill and cut into it right away, what happens? Exactly. All of the savory juices that are supposed to dance on your taste buds flow out on to your plate. That is why the culinary world practices the oft looked-over art of resting. Resting: the few precious minutes of doing nothing to your cooked hunk of meat, which allow all of the juices to redistribute throughout it evenly. The drying process for rice, I believe, is carried out with this same intention. Instead of processing the stalks right away, a few weeks are given for the stalks to, one, dry gently and completely in the suns rays and, two, to allow the nutrients still in the stalks to reach the grains. The proof is in the pudding, rice pudding, that is.
Super sickle
Throughout the morning and most of the afternoon I joined the inekari cadence of the Tashiro family, sweating along side cousins, uncles as well as other friends from the area. Just as we all started grunting and groaning from the day’s work the last bunch of stalks were hung on the take-uma and as soon as it started, the inekari for the year was over. I joined the rest of the family and huddled around the cooler to enjoy a nice cold tea while the youngest cousin had ice repeatedly poured down the back of his one piece work suit; cousinly love shows itself in the funniest ways. Obaa-san welcomed us back to the house and was overjoyed at the gift we brought her back from the field, a dead mamushi, Japanese poisonous pit viper. Apparently she makes a mean soup with it.
Super lunch
Super nap
Super staff
After we returned from the onsen to relieve our tired muscles, the real work started, partying with the Tashiro family. There was eating. Yes. There was a barbeque. Sure. And I mustn’t forget the mess of boisterous drinking. The highlight, however, was the arm-wrestling match. One second I was pouring drinks for the elders and the next thing I know I was locking hands with them, mere centimeters away from their grinning, flushed faces. I was never the strongest boy in class, or the strongest Ramras for that matter. I am pleased and proud to report, however, that I am the strongest Tashiro. That’s right. One-by-one, my opponents fell to my intoxicated offense. I left everyone in the dust. It was honestly a riot. In return for my efforts I was given a gift: I was presented with a name; I was inducted into the family. This, I took it, was a pretty big deal. My name for the rest of the night was Kensaburo, which roughly translates to the third son. By the end of the night, Asher, the foreigner who came to help with inekari, was long forgotten. Instead, Kensaburo was wished a good night and invited back anytime, for the door to Obaa-san’s house would always be open. There was no talk of am arm wrestling rematch.
The Tashiro and Ishidzuka (the other family branch)
They said I looked cool when I was pouring
I try my best
Another sorry opponent
About one week ago, I visited Tashiro-sensei’s house-literally five doors down from me-and received a handsome portion of the Tashiro family’s best shinmai. I have been enjoying every grain and basking in the glow that emanates from my rice bowl. With every bite I think of my inekari experience and recall this Japanese proverb:
米一粒汗一粒, kome hitotsubu, ase hitotsubu
A grain of rice, a bead of sweat.
Until next time.
