Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Autumn has come.

Are you enjoying autumn? Here's my entrance.













Do you see spider lilies in your country? Now it is the season of spider lilies. Today my friend and I enjoy driving. There is a road called "spider lily street".
About for 1km we enjoyed such scenery. Harvest season is just around the corner, so the combination of golden rice ears and dark red spider lilies is great.
It is the good season for autumn fruits, such as grapes, pears and persimmons.
I found an interesting column in the newspaper.
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This year  grapes in a bunch are not all of the same large size. Such bunches are called "family grapes". ( I don't know what we call the grapes which are all of the same large size, probably they are high quality.) When the flowers opened in spring, they didn't seem get enough rain. So the market price of the grapes is lower than usual. Our Japanese sense of value about fruits seems to be distinct. In foreign countries, it is said "Fresh fruits are good, processed fruits are better". Here in Japan whether the taste of fruits is good or not is judged by fresh fruits. Of course the size, the shape are very important. We don't judged the taste of fruits by processed fruits.
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Anyway we enjoy autumn.


4 comments:

Helen said...

Mieko, I don't know what your phrase, "Fresh fruits are good, processed fruits are better" means! I've never heard of it before and I don't understand it.

I've lived in lots of different countries with lots of different types of fruit, so I'm confused.

I know that in Japan, fruit (and vegetables) tend to be very nice looking and all a similar size and shape. In Canada we have more variety in the grocery stores of sizes, shapes, and vegetables and fruit.

Mieko said...

Thanks for your commets Helen.
When you have fresh fruit, you think "this fruit is really good", and if you cook the fruit in some way and the taste is good, you think "this fruit is wonderful".

In Japan most of people don't think to cook fresh fruit, if the taste is good.

We decide the value of the fruit by the taste, size and looks of fresh fruit is good or not.
We don't put much value of processed food.

I hope my comment make sense.

Helen said...

Hmm...Okay.

Where I'm from we do cook some fruit to make pies for example. We also make jam with it or to preserve fruit for winter we can or freeze it. In Canada, winter is looooong and if we can have some canned peaches (for example) when it is really cold out we feel happy!

We do eat a lot of fruit as it comes though. Many children take a banana or an apple to school as part of their lunch, and in my family fresh raspberries or strawberries or blueberries were a lovely treat in summer. I'm usually the one that went up the fields to pick them! They grew wild on our farm.

Up here in Shonai, many people will be drying their persimmons (kaki) for winter soon.

We are lucky that we can keep fruit for longer these days!

Mieko said...

Thanks, again. Yes HOSHIGAKI dried persimmons are the wonderful preserving fruit for winter. I love them.
People in Canada seem to be good at enjoying fruit even in winter. In Japan, as you know, typical fruits are MIKAN(mandarin) and apples. Probably people in the young generation might be good at enjoying canned fruits or dry fruits. I'm not good at using canned fruits.