menu for December 21st, 2024

Sayuri's note

On the longest darkness of the year, many people in my state of Yamanashi, Japan, eat traditional food called Hōtō, a flat-shaped noodle with miso based soup, kabocha squash, and some vegetables. My grandparents showed me how to make Hōtō when I was little. You can store kabocha squash for a long time, so we eat them early in the winter. Winter has fewer vegetables, so Kabocha squash are a good source of nutrients that have helped people survive in the winter. We usually eat Hōtō at dinner on the solstice, and we take a bath with floating yuzu citrus fruit. The smell is so good! People say that the strong smell of yuzu fruit dispels the bad spirits of darkness, and it also warms you up. The red color of Azuki beans are also said to dispel bad spirits. 

Yamanashi, Japan is also famous for dried persimmons. We planted the tree at Revival Gardens a long time ago. We had about 400 persimmons this year. We usually pick them in early November but we were surprised that we had long warm weather after the first frost and picked November 22nd this year. Joe helped pick them and I peeled the skin, hung them up, dried them, and massaged each one a couple of times over 2 weeks to 3 weeks. This process turns their astringent taste into sweetness. There are two types of persimmon: One is astringent and another one is non astringent. The astringent type is good for dried persimmons. 

There is a proverb in Japan, “ When persimmons turn red, doctors turn blue.” It’s comparable to the American adage, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Hopefully the roll cake with azuki bean paste and dried persimmons will keep the doctors and the bad spirits away from you all!

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