Pickled plum is my candy. Really.
That mouth-puckering sourness of pickled plum brings back memories of growing up in Japan. This is a place to share those sweet – and sometimes bitter-sweet – stories of times I've almost forgotten about.
Stories about food, history, art, festivals, and growing up Japanese.
Personal anthropology.
A memoir, perhaps.
A pilgrimage back to where my story really began.
I’m doing this for our daughters and their kids lest these memories may be lost forever …
Memories of Japan
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Umeboshi
As a kid growing up in Japan, I never really liked chocolate, candies or ice cream - always preferring savory, salty or sour flavor, like oshinko (おしんこ) or umeboshi (梅干し). My favorite food to this day is pickled plum. Pickled plum was my candy. It still is.
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Origami
When August comes around, I am always reminded of what my father did once for my birthday when I was 7 or 8 years old. In my family, birthdays were not really big deals – especially mine, as my mother’s was on the 5th and mine was on the 7th. We would go out for a special dinner on the 6th and that was that.
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Japanese Breakfast
When my mother was pregnant, she told me she ate broiled mackerel (or sardine) everyday, willing for me to grow up smart. I am truly grateful for her loving thoughts, but always wondered - HOW did she know that mackerel and sardine pack the highest amount of omega-3 fatty acid which is essential for the development of baby’s brain cells?!