3 in 30 - 2001.09.08 Saturday
Beverly wanted some lettuce, cauliflower, and garlic this weekend, so I walked down to the Ekos store where they have a reasonably sized fresh fruit and vegetable section. Most of the store seems to have prepared foods, so it seems like a huge convenience store, and yes, we do buy Japanese convenience foods. If we knew how to prepare some things, we might not.
One of the wonders to come out of Japan that gets the least attention—is noodle soup. I know that there is the American image of cuppa-noodles as being a small 8 ounce foam cup of mix where you had to also consume the cup to get any nutritional advantage. We have found otherwise.
Here is one side of an aisle of prepackaged noodle soups. First, you can see that there is a whole aisle, you can't see the other side of the aisle here. Next, the packages are not small, they are about 1/2 liter in size. The noodles inside most of these are in individual packets, as are the mix parts. The ramen noodles are soft, fresh, and thin like spaghetti, while the udon noodles are thick.
This is just one side of one cooler with fresh fish and seafood products. Other frozen fish, as well as other meats are in coolers along the whole back of the store. There is lots of variety, though in Japan there is a greater variety of fresh fish than in the midwest U.S.
Nearest in this cooler is fresh squid. We haven’t learned how to prepare fresh squid, so we take advantage of its offering at restaurants. The rest of this cooler is mackerel, tai, bream and others.
On the opposite side of the squids, the clerk just filled with slabs of frozen tuna. They would be the perfect size for slicing up for some sushi or sashimi.
Here is one small corner of the fresh fruit section. Along the top row, left to right, you see cantaloupe, persimmon, guava, grapes, and more. The bottom row starts with watermelon, some dried fruit mix, something yellow, some more grapes, kiwis, out of season tangerines, oranges, lemons and the list goes on.
Fruits and vegetable abound. While Japan extends from northern climate in Hokkaido to tropical in Okinawa, there is a great deal of fruits that are imported from other areas of Asia, including Australia. This is where Japan gets its summer fruits and vegetables in winter and its winter fruits and vegetables in the summer.
Generally, the choices and quality is very good. It does seem that Japanese like their fruits a little different than I do. I look forward to a bushel of hard, crisp, juicy, Michigan apples. The Japanese apples are large and beautiful, but to me, always a little grainy.
Quite a few Japanese fruits and vegetables are ones that we will have to search for in the States. Persimmons, leechee, tangerines like these, ginger shoots, daikon radish, the variety of soybean products. Enough! I need to go eat a snack.