On September 30, about 900 volunteers participating in a hands-on rice farming tour began the annual harvest of the Inakadate village (Aomori prefecture) rice paddy art, which this year depicted a pair of famous Hokusai woodblock prints created with four different varieties of rice.
View more photos of rice paddy art HERE.
[Photos via: Inakadate Village, Mainichi, Sankei, Yomiuri]
Following the success of its vending machine ramen, foodstuff producer UMAI has added two flavors of udon to its canned noodle selection -- kitsune udon (udon with fried tofu) and curry udon. The canned noodles have begun to appear in vending machines and convenience stores nationwide.
Like UMAI's ramen, the thick udon noodles are made from konnyaku, so they don't turn soggy before you eat them. The kitsune udon is priced at around 300 yen ($2.60) per can, while the curry udon goes for about 350 yen ($3). Each ready-to-eat serving comes with a small plastic fork.
The idea for UMAI's canned noodles came when the manager of the Men-ya Musashi ramen restaurant in Tokyo was distributing food and supplies to victims of the Niigata earthquake in 2004. There, he was inspired to develop noodles that could be enjoyed by people in areas with disrupted gas and water supplies. About 2 million cans of the popular ramen have sold since it was launched in April.
To provide general consumers, disaster victims and Akihabara vending machine aficionados an ever-more enjoyable selection of canned treats, the company plans to keep expanding its product line. Future noodles in the works include kenchin udon, various regional styles of ramen, and canned versions of ramen from famous restaurants.
[Source: IT Media]
Since early this year, Yamakawa Jozo, a soy sauce brewery based in Gifu prefecture, has been selling a type of Tamari soy sauce specially designed for use on ice cream. With the sauce's rising popularity and a growing number of restaurants using it on their dessert menus, the company sold 5,000 bottles (70 ml for 350 yen/$3) in the second half of August.
A small amount of the rich, dark brew is said to give vanilla ice cream a caramel-like flavor, while a more liberal dose apparently makes vanilla ice cream taste more like mitarashi-dango (skewered rice dumplings covered in sweet sauce).
According to the president of Yamakawa Jozo, the company developed the soy sauce specifically for use with vanilla ice cream, but consumers have come forward with a number of unexpected recipes. In addition to claims that it goes well with other ice cream flavors like strawberry and chocolate, fans of the special sauce say it tastes great on kaki-gori (shaved ice) and on toast, and that it makes a great mixer for shochu (distilled liquor).
[Link: Asahi]
Afterthought: This special soy sauce would undoubtedly make a great topping for a number of these mouth-watering ice cream flavors: 1, 2, 3
Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety. This year's creation -- a pair of grassy reproductions of famous woodblock prints from Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji -- has begun to appear (above). It will be visible until the rice is harvested in September.
The residents of Inakadate have been drawing pictures with rice since 1993. Here are a few crops from the recent past, found at this site.
2006
2005
2002
While Inakadate is Japan's most famous rice paddy decorating town, a couple of other places in Japan have joined in the fun.
Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture, 2007
Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture, 2006
Nishio, Aichi prefecture (2005, 2006)
UPDATE (Oct 1, 2007): Check out photos of the 2007 harvest HERE.
For people looking to liven up the formal rigamarole surrounding the exchange of business cards in Japan, Arigatou Co., Ltd., a company specializing in the sale of laser-etched food products, offers "Taberu Me" edible business cards printed on peanuts.
Taberu Me cards are created using Arigatou's high-grade CO2 laser engraver nicknamed "Shiawase-kun," which can etch up to 700 characters per second on hard organic materials like beans, nuts, rice and pasta and which has been optimized to print clean-looking logos, names and telephone numbers on the irregular surfaces of peanut shells.
As for the product name, Taberu means "eat" and Me could either be an abbreviation of meishi ("business card") or "me" in English, in which case Taberu Me would be saying "Eat me" -- a message you probably don't want to convey to your new business partner at the first meeting. Regardless, a set of 150 Taberu Me cards costs 5,800 yen (around $50), which is mere peanuts considering the lasting impression you will make on your new counterparts.
[Link: Taberu Me via Gizmodo Japan]
A new menu is in the works for hungry cosmonauts with a taste for Japanese cuisine. On June 27, in a move to expand the menu aboard the International Space Station, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) certified 29 Japanese food products from 12 manufacturers as official Japanese space food.
All items on the Japanese space menu -- which includes instant ramen, curry, onigiri (rice balls) and powdered green tea -- satisfy the International Space Station's stringent standards requiring packaged foods to withstand changes in air pressure and temperature and survive one year in storage under ordinary earthly temperatures. To meet these requirements, the food products are packed in special tubes. The foods also satisfy the preparation time requirement, which calls for food to be ready to eat in less than one hour after adding heat or water.
In addition, much of the space food has been redesigned to prevent it from scattering in zero-g. The ramen, for example, features a thick broth and noodles that are clumped together in bite-sized pieces. Extra flavoring has also been added because food tends to taste bland in zero-g.
Once the ISS menu is expanded to include the Japanese space food, astronauts aboard the space station will be able to eat it as they wish. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who is scheduled for a long-term stay aboard the International Space Station beginning in the fall of 2008, will undoubtedly appreciate the new fare.
Here is a complete list of the officially recognized Japanese space food products and the companies that produce them:
- Ajinomoto: Egg soup
- Onishi Foods: White rice, rice with red azuki beans, rice with red azuki beans and wild greens, salmon onigiri
- Kagome: Tomato ketchup, vegetable sauce, vegetable jelly drink (tomato/carrot)
- Kewpie: Mayonnaise, rice porridge
- Nissin: Soy sauce ramen, seafood ramen, curry ramen
- House Foods: Curry (beef/pork/chicken)
- Maruha: Mackerel in miso sauce, sardines in tomato sauce, kabayaki saury (broiled with sweet soy sauce)
- Mitsui Norin: Powdered green tea, powdered oolong tea
- Meiji: Functional drink (amino jelly)
- Yamazaki Baking: Azuki bean yokan (jelly), chestnut yokan
- Yamazaki-Nabisco: Kuroame (brown sugar candy), mint candy
- Riken Vitamin: Wakame (seaweed) soup, clear soup
[Sources: Yomiuri, JAXA press release]
Internet content creator Hertz has launched a new marketing service called "QR Ebi-sen," which allows companies and individuals to print QR code on shrimp crackers. QR code, a type of two-dimensional code that enjoys widespread use in Japan, connects users to mobile web content when they scan it with a QR code reader-equipped cellphone.
Using natural dye extracted from tamarind seeds, the QR code is printed on the smooth surface of white crackers provided by ebi senbei manufacturer Shimahide, whose factory is located in the city of Kanonji in Kagawa prefecture -- a place known for delicious ebi senbei. The resulting cracker has a high-contrast, high-quality image readable by a cellphone QR code scanner.
The price for the service starts at 10,000 yen ($85), with an additional fee based on the number of crackers printed. Visitors to the NET Marketing Forum held at Tokyo Midtown from June 6 to 7 will get the first taste of QR Ebi-sen courtesy of the Web Technology Corporation, who will be handing them out from their company booth.
[Source: Impress Watch]
What happens when you combine chinsukou (a traditional Okinawan cookie made from flour and lots of lard) with chinko (slang for male genitalia)? You get chinkosukou, a phallus-shaped fertility cookie, of course.
The chinkosukou website, which promotes the cookies as a solution to Japan's shrinking population woes, is selling boxes of 15 cookies for 500 yen ($4) each. Shipping appears to be limited to Japan, though, so you may have to ask your buddies in Japan to buy them for you.
The commercial video features words of praise from satisfied customers Roman Chimpolanski (film director), TINKO (talento) and Taro Kodakusan (NEET), as well as from The Fertility Times, which hails chinkosukou as the front-runner for this year's Golden Ball Award.
[Link: Chinkosukou]
Sushi culture is mysterious and the etiquette complex, but fortunately we have this entertaining video by Japan Culture Lab to explain it all. A must-see for anyone who has ever wondered why Japanese feet smell like vinegar.
