Text 370, 146 rader
Skriven 2006-04-15 10:24:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av CAROL SHENKENBERGER
Ärende: The woe of a bare larder
================================
 -=> Quoting Carol Shenkenberger to All <=-

 CS> Pink is the 
 CS> word for it as the cherry blossoms are at the just past peak so pink
 CS> litter floats everywhere, still very pink and pretty.
 CS> Charlotte and I floated out on a cloud of pinkness with blue sky
 CS> dotted with  white fluffy clouds

So you missed the annual Cherry Festival?

I may have posted these before....
 
MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06
 
      Title: The Cooking Of Japan: Intro
 Categories: Japanese, Info
      Yield: 1 servings
 
      1    Text file
 
  Japanese food is served in small, meticulously prepared portions.
  While fish, shellfish and seaweed appear frequently, they never
  become monotonous because the Japanese have devised an astonishing
  number of ways of preparing them. There is an emphasis on "Sappari"-
  clean, neat, light honesty and subtlety of taste as well as on
  esthetic appearance and presentation to add visual appeal to enhance
  meals. Dishes and room decorations are selected for their harmony
  with particular foods. Foods are selected to reflect moods, themes
  and seasons and can be very symbolic.
  
  The Japanese generally strive to preserve the intrinsic properties of
  each ingredient rather than blend flavours. Strong flavours are added
  at the end as a garnish rather than cooked into a dish eg: scallion
  and grated ginger in delicate soups.
  
  Foods are very seasonal and only eaten when fresh. The people, even
  today in urban centres, have a close bond with and reverence for the
  course of nature and attempt to live in harmony with it. For example,
  in early Feb. strawberries hit the markets in torrents; for a few
  weeks they are eaten at almost every meal and served in every
  restaurant, even sushi bars. Hardly any other fruits are consumed.
  Then they disappear abruptly until another year goes by. None are
  preserved, no jams are made. Hot house cultivation or freezing could
  extend their availability but in the unending quest for harmony with
  nature, a food simply cannot properly be separated from its natural
  season.
  
  Other seasonal highlights that have special ingredients, recipes or
  even festivals built around them include: cherry season, squid
  spawning in May, the first [and best] tea leaves of the year, ayu
  harvests [a small fish like a brook trout], iced tofu and buckwheat
  noodle dishes in summer, matsutake [like shiitake but larger]
  mushrooms and persimmons in the fall then chestnuts and ginkgo nuts
  and early Nov rice. Winter is the time for broiled white fleshed
  fish, warming stews like sukiyaki and tempura [deep fried foods] but
  the seasonal star is the mandarin orange, a beautiful symbol of the
  soon to return spring sun.
  
  As well as a heavy reliance on seafood, seaweed and of course rice
  and tea, Japanese cuisine is built upon a triad of soybean products:
  miso, a fermented soybean paste, tofu, a custard-like soybean cake
  and shoyu or soy sauce. Miso is used to flavour soups, marinades and
  dressings. Tofu has a blotter like capacity to absorb other flavours
  and can be sauteed, boiled, deep-fried and broiled. It is added to
  soups and scrambled with eggs. Soy sauce of course is the universal
  seasoning.
  
  Source: Foods of the World: The Cooking of Japan, Time-Life Books
  Posted by: Jim Weller
 
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MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06
 
      Title: About Sakura Or Japanese Cherry Blossoms
 Categories: Japanese, Info
      Yield: 1 servings
 
           Sakura
           Japanese cherry blossoms
 
  To differentiate it from the fruit bearing varieties seen in many
  countries, Japanese Sakura are called Japanese Flowering Cherry in
  English.
  
  www.virtualginza.com/cherryblossom.htm
  
  The sakura has for ages been the favorite of our people.
  
  Eating and drinking under the trees is associated with an ancient
  belief that fallen pollen that goes into sake cups promotes good
  health.
  
  Among these are many foods and drinks only available at this time.
  
  Perhaps the best known are akurayu, sakura tea, made by pouring a hot
  water over a salted cherry flower and sakura mochi, a sweetmeat made
  of glutinous rice and sweet red beans that's wrapped in a salted
  sakura leaf.
  
  By HIROKO KIMURA
  The Japan Times: March 19, 2004
  
  Cherry blossoms herald spring in many parts of the world. In Japan
  they not only adorn the landscape but season the food and drink. At
  Sumile, a restaurant at 154 West 13th Street with a cherry tree of
  its own out front, Josh DeChellis, the chef, has imported pickled and
  dried cherry blossoms from Japan, which he floats in a Champagne
  cocktail. They add an alluring perfume to the drink. Mr. DeChellis
  also offers a four-course cherry blossom menu which starts with
  hamachi seasoned with cherry blossom vinegar and wrapped in salted
  cherry blossom leaves.
  
  www.perfume2000.com/Home/Articles/eatflowers.asp.
  
  The fruits of the Japanese wild cherry, widely planted and viewed
  throughout Japan during hanami are not used in Japanese cooking as
  much as the ume.
  
  In fact, wild cherry fruits are not eaten at all in Japan (that is,
  they are not harvested and sold as produce), but there are still a
  number of traditional food creations that instead, surprisingly
  include the vegetable parts of the the cherry tree. Each spring the
  flowers are harvested, dried and pounded with rice to make cherry
  rice cakes or sakura mochi, ordinary mochi cake with a pleasant hint
  of rosy cherry blossom aroma.
  
  But upon trying the sakura mochi, is the realization it is not just
  sweet, but also quite salty. The leaves are pickled like an umeboshi,
  or pickled plum. While slightly salty, the leaf wrapping gives the
  sakura mochi an almost nutty, distinctly grassy flavor.
  
  www.finex.co.jp/11sakura.html
 
MMMMM

Cheers

Jim, in Yellowknife




... Refuse to be seduced by the siren song of out-of-season impostors
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