Life In Japan: Sweet Potatoes

Having grown up in a major city — beautiful Detroit, Michigan — I never experienced the agricultural cycle, the annual rotation of planting, growing, harvesting. We of course had seasons, rather dramatic seasons since Michigan is so far north and has some very cold winters. But the whole “growing food” thing was a blank slate.

Since living in rural Japan, not only have I discovered the overall cycle but am further educated in the idea of seasonal crops. Everything doesn’t grow at the same time, nor does it become available for human consumption at the same time.

I know what you’re thinking: DUH! Don’t laugh. I helped to rebuild an 8-cylinder Ford engine when I was in high school. I just never never got to around to planting tomatoes or corn, much less soybeans or rice.

Moving on to my big announcement, we just harvested the most recent item to appear on Mother Nature’s Day-Timer — or maybe she has an iCalendar these days, who knows?

Yes . . . [ drumroll ] . . . we just dug out of the ground our crop of SWEET POTATOES!

I say ‘we’ but that’s a stretch of the truth. I’m afraid that inserting a shovel into the soft earth and removing the sometimes huge tubers is above my pay grade. I did other grunt work while my wife Masumi, and her daughter Izumi, did the precision extraction. Here they are at work . . .

Knowledge is power. Fertilizer helps a lot too.

Nothing more to say. I don’t want you readers to get overexcited by my earthshaking news.

Wait! Actually, I’ll add one final comment, something that surprised me. We don’t wash the newly exposed sweet potatoes. Yes, we leave a coating of dirt on them. Apparently, they can last a very long time, not decaying or rotting, if a fine coat of soil remains on their surface. Thinking back on how as a boy, growing up poor, I only took a bath once a week, despite always being covered with a fine layer of dirt. I now see the wisdom of my very lax standard of personal hygiene.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: Sweet Potatoes | John Rachel

Life In Japan: Bamboo

Bamboo Grove in Arashiyama, Kyoto, Japan.

Bamboo is amazing!

But I can’t say I thought very much about it before I moved to Japan.

Of course, everyone in America is familiar with bamboo. Maybe as a pencil holder or a curtain rod to add a “jungle flavor” to the den. But it’s a rare novelty.

I had a friend in Portland, Oregon who was experiencing a modest but annoying bamboo attack on her garden. Even under the less than ideal growing conditions for bamboo which is typical of Portland, the plant is so hardy it can spread and take over quickly. I dug up a good portion of her lawn before finding the underground shoots aggressively wreaking havoc with her flower beds and on their way to tipping over her house.

Okay . . . that was a bit of an exaggeration. The house wouldn’t have budged but it was still in the realm of possibility that the bamboo would have punched holes in the foundation of her home and started rearranging the stuff in her basement.

Think I’m kidding? Look at this photo taken right here in my home town, which by the way has almost identical weather to Portland, Oregon.

Yes, it’s exactly as it looks. Coming right up through the asphalt!

So what’s my point?

First, bamboo is one tough cookie. Both because of that and because it truly flourishes in the warmer climates across stretches of much of Asia, it is ubiquitous both in nature and in the anthropocentric world we’ve convened from the rocks and dust of Planet Earth.

Unbeknownst to me in the dark days of my bambooless ignorance, this rather simple tree has a whole host of applications. Anyone from Asia needs to just bear with me here. This is all so obvious to you. But I’m embarrassed to have to admit, before I started traveling this hemisphere, I had no clue about bamboo.

Let me expand on this with an anecdote: Every spring I see neighbors wandering around the woods directly behind our house. Sometime within a few days, several of THESE will show up on my porch, the folks in my community being the wonderfully generous people that they are . . .

. . . which can be cooked, for example, to look like this . . .

I can’t say I’m thrilled with the taste of bamboo shoots. But they’re extremely healthy and more importantly, demonstrate that if for some apocalyptic reason the supermarkets are shuttered, there are actually things growing all around us which will keep us alive!

Let’s summarize our progress. Bamboo. Pencil holders. Curtain rods. Punching holes in the pavement. Healthy cuisine.

It’s time to cut to the chase, before this article becomes unnecessarily tedious, if it hasn’t already. I’ll resort to bullet points. Among the many further uses of bamboo . . .

•  In a number of countries, bamboo is used to make tea.

•  Bamboo can be used to make fabric (sort of).

•  Bamboo is used in the kitchen for cooking.

•  Bamboo is used to make eating utensils.

•  Bamboo is so sturdy it’s used to make bars for windows.

•  Panda bears love bamboo! They thrive on it. Bamboo is 99% of their diet!

•  Bamboo makes a superb fishing pole.

•  Bamboo is used many places as a construction material, e.g. fences, scaffolding.

• Musical instruments are fashioned out of bamboo, usually flutes.

•  Bamboo can be used in self-defense, unless the assailant is heavily-armed.

•  Bamboo is used at sea as a raft, and in the Philippines as a breeding cage for mussels.

•  It makes a handy broom!

•  It can be a really big straw.

•  A walking stick.

•  A baton for conducting an orchestra.

I could go on but you get the idea.

I seriously hope now you will never again look dismissively at bamboo, viewing it as one of Nature’s odd hiccups. Like a garden mole . . . or sea cucumber . . . or a platypus.

I know I won’t.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]





Life In Japan: Bamboo