Simple Snacks in Fall

Simple Snacks in Fall

Do you like Japanese food? Have you found any favorite foods here? I love eating, of course, and delicious dishes make me happy. In fall and winter we have many kinds of wonderful food, and I have to worry about my weight! In this essay, I'd like to introduce you some of our simple but good snacks in this season.

When I go shopping at big supermarkets, I sometimes feel dizzy with the amount of food from all over the world. Do we eat it all? They say that the half of the world is starving, but we have this much food
here. It makes me feel slightly guilty.

1. Yakiimo (baked sweet potatoes)

This is a very simple snack, just bake a potato, but a hot and sweet potato makes us so happy, especially on a cold day. In winter you will find a strange truck on the streets, which whistles or sometimes calls "yakiimo." It has an oven on it, which is baking potatoes.
I sometimes find yakiimo stalls in front of big DIY stores or supermarkets.
The most interesting and fun way of making yakiimo is to put sweet potatoes
in a pile of fallen leaves and bake them. Some days ago, my grandson Tomo wanted to do it and we built a fire with fallen leaves and baked potatoes from our vegetable garden in it . The potatoes were good, but a part of our lawn was burnt! Will it be green next spring? I 'm afraid...

You can make yakiimo on a kerosene heater or a wood stove. Wrap a sweet potato with a wet piece of newspaper, then wrap it with aluminum foil. Put it on a heater until you can smell an appetizing aroma.

2. Hoshiimo (dried sweet potatoes)

Again, sweet potatoes! There are many ways to make sweet snacks or dishes from sweet potatoes, but this may be the oldest and simplest way to eat them. Slice the boiled or steamed sweet potatoes and dry them in the sun. Drying makes the potato sweeter and it was also the way to preserve　it a long time ago. You can also find hoshiimo in a supermarket or a grocery store in this season.

I made it myself this year. (This year I have a lot of time, and I live with my grandsons who are always hungry.) While the potato slices are drying in the garden, some of the pieces often disappear. I suspect my grandchildren and my husband are guilty!


3. Hoshigaki (dried persimmon)

It's the season for persimmons now. You see many family gardens have one or two persimmon trees. The fruits are beautiful on the tree, but some of them have an astringent taste. We peel them and dry them in the sun so they turn sweet. Ina and Iida area is famous for this product, and you will see the persimmon curtains in the sun during this season there. Soon you can find them at supermarkets.
I peeled about 50 persimmons and hung them outside. Everyday Tomo says to me, "Can I eat it today, Grandma?" But not yet. Maybe in ten days or so.

In winter we often see persimmons left on the trees. It must show that people prefer cakes or candies to persimmons, or they don't have time to peel and dry persimmons. Maybe there's no one who can pick them from the tree because an old woman lives there alone. That's the scene I imagine.

4. Taiyaki

Taiyaki is a kind of pie or pancake with anko (bean jam) inside. It has the shape of a fish, "tai," or sea bream. ( I found this word in my dictionary now!) Usually we get them at a small shop or a stall where they bake them. Why is it tai, or sea bream? I don't know, but tai is a happy and celebratory fish in Japan. We sometimes find the same kind of sweets with other shapes.

There's a great taiyaki shop in Saku City. Its name is Shinkai.(I haven't taken any advertisement charges.) Its taiyaki is the best I have ever had. My younger son's girlfriend(now his wife) loves it, and whenever she comes from Tokyo she rushes to get it. So, one of our presents for their wedding was Shinkai's taiyaki.


5. Oyaki
Many of you have read the word, "Oyaki" on a festival flag or something like it. It is a popular snack from Naganoken now and you see them often, but originally it was made by poor farmers in mountainous areas. They could not get enough rice to eat, so they made oyaki from wheat flour and vegetables from their gardens. Soba has the same origin. Anyway, both are delicious, and I like oyaki. However, you have to be careful choosing. As a result of getting popular and famous, some of them take easy ways to make it.

6. Mochi (rice cake)

We have many kinds of food and snacks made from rice. Mochi, a rice cake, is an important food for the New Year or to celebrate something. There are many types of mochi and various ways to enjoy mochi. Every family used to make mochi by hand before the new year. It was an important part of preparing for the new year. But today, many people don't do this work anymore, so you can get mochi at a supermarket. You can try cooking it yourself. You can toast, fry, or boil it in a soup. Did you know cheese or butter goes well with mochi?

In supermarkets, you see huge piles of snack bags like potato chips, but it's difficult to find the snacks I introduced. Yes, young people prefer those snacks with a lot of chemical seasonings to the old, simple-tasting food without ads on TV. You know which is better to train a palette for food and to keep us healthy, of course...

On 11/26/07, Abigail Augusta Rogosheske wrote:

Education in Japan: Problems and Potential

Many of the readers of my blog are teachers who teach English at Japanese schools, I guess. You are watching students, teachers, or classes everyday. Also, you understand (or sometimes don't understand) what's going on at schools or within education in Japan.　I have been teaching at schools for more than thirty years, (I am still teaching some students who are not attending school), and I worry about education and the future of this country.

Before WWII, higher education was only for rich people and for men, not women. Nationalism and militarism prevailed in schools, and so, no one could teach against the nation. When we started the new constitution after the war, education was also quite changed. The basic law about education, which was changed last year even though many people were against the change, said, "We should rely on education to realize our ideal to make a peaceful country, which is prescribed in our constitution.”

However, Japan is changing a lot for two reasons, I think. First, the new conservatives are getting power. (The reason should be discussed.) Second, globalization and new liberalism, which emphasizes free market, are destroying people's life, as in other countries. The government, which obeys those two masters, has intended to control education--sometimes with an iron fist.

Did you hear the news of the big gathering in Okinawa about the school textbooks? The people of Okinawa were against erasing the fact of the war in Okinawa from the history textbooks. In Japan, the government checks all the textbooks that will be used at schools and when they find descriptions or pages that they don't like, they demand the publishing companies to rewrite them. So, publishing companies make only textbooks the government prefers and children are taught with those textbooks.

One more example: Do you know the national anthem of Japan? The government demands schools to sing it, and the teachers to teach it to children. But there are many problems with it. For example, the words of the song celebrate the Emperor. This doesn’t seem appropriate for the anthem of a democratic nation. In addition, the anthem was sung when Japan was ruled by militarism. There are many people who don't want to listen to the song, especially in Asia, because people were forced to sing it, which infringed upon their liberty and spirits, etc. A lot of people opposed the way the government forced the anthem on schools and teachers, but at last the government made a law to make students sing the song. These two examples show that the government is intending to go backward to nationalism and not regarding democracy and people's rights as important.

The government of Japan is trying to reduce the money for education (How much money is used for useless places!), and so, as you see, a class has many students, teachers' work seems endless and they are tired and losing their pride and creativity. When teachers are not creative and liberal, education must be conservative and it's just what the government wants. Only children with parents who can pay for the private schools or the cram schools can get better education and better jobs. The difference of their parents' income decides the children's future, and class distinction will be fixed in the society. I worry about the children and their future… the future of our society.

You, as foreign teachers, are eyewitnesses to the education in Japan. Education is a very important factor of culture and future of the country. I would like to know what you think of it. Feel free to write to me. Leave a comment with any new insight.