IWA had a trip to JIZAIYA, a place where Mr. and Mrs. Kawai lives in the unique rural life.After gathering at Mr.Dounuts, we split in two cars and headed for this wonderful place.
Jizaiya is a place where we can experience rural life. Jizaiya emphasizes that the most luxurious life we could live is to wait for the time to blankly watch mountain and rivers and relax.
First, we went to the mountain to gather Sansai, which is an edible wild plant. There were many kinds of Sansai; Mr.Kawai taught us many things about it. For example, the sour Sansai Suiba, in English, Rumex acetosa, you can use it as a lemon for your tea. We also call it Sukanko, or Suippa. Tarano-me is famous for tempura. It’s a luxurious food in Japan. The appearance is similar to Urushi. The difference with Tarano-me and Urushi is if it has prickle or not. Tarano-me doesn’t have prickles. We also learned about animals and history in Akita; there are bear, deer and rabbit, but no wild boar. In one of the rumors, the long time known temple, Kinkaku-ji’s gold came from Akita.After gathering Sansai, we headed back to the Jizaiya house, and made damako. Damako is Akita’s local specialties which are made from smashed rice. It is put into a delicious soup after shaped into a ball. Mrs.Kawai had already finished cooking lunch when we came back. She was ready to fry fresh Tarano-me that we took, into a tempura. There were all sorts of Sansai food for lunch. The cooked fish was a rare fish called Iwana. Smoked with apples and cherry blossoms, Iwana smelled really good and the bones were eatable. All the foods were delicious.
Jizaiya has had many visitors from all over Japan. It is popular on the media too. The perfect match of Mr.Kawai’s rural sense and Mrs.Kawai’s good cooking draws attention. We should appreciate nature and the history.JIZAIYA web site
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jizaiya/
puratto web site http://puratto.com/philanthropy/2010/06/03/group-83/
