Bamboo-cooked bamboo shoot rice and foraging for wild vegetables. | Lifestyle Essay #04

Hello, this is Machino☀️

Thank you for stopping by this space☺️

This time, I'm going to write a relaxed story along with some photos.

Last weekend, I went to Kyoto for work.

This month, the plan was to dig up bamboo shoots with the children and cook them in bamboo to make bamboo shoot rice! So, we started by entering the bamboo grove to look for bamboo shoots.

The children, who have been used to the mountains since they were small, are very good at finding bamboo shoots that are just barely poking their heads out of the soil, and they dug them up one after another.

While the boys were preparing the bamboo shoot rice over a bonfire, I decided to make side dishes with the girls.

This time, we made two side dishes using seasonal spring vegetables, and rolled omelets.

Rolled omelets require a bit of skill, such as controlling the heat, but they made them very well.

And after my work was finished, I went to Shigaraki, where I lived until two years ago.

I headed to the home of the couple who had taken such good care of me.

When I met the couple last month, they invited me, saying, 'Next month will be the time for wild vegetables, so come and pick some.'

For dinner, they had prepared tempura made from wild vegetables like fatsia shoots and koshia-abura.

They also fried the bamboo shoots that my children had picked and we brought along as a gift.

I stayed over that night, and the next morning, we went foraging for wild vegetables, which I had been looking forward to.

We rode in the car driven by the husband and headed to a place where we could pick ostrich ferns, a spot I had visited with the couple when I lived there.

We strained our eyes to find the ones that were just right for eating.

Listening to the sound of the nearby river while repeating the process of searching and picking was a very pleasant experience.

Then we went into the mountains to pick koshia-abura.

Koshia-abura has a very short harvest season.

I had been worried for a month, wondering if the timing of my visit would match the harvest season, but when I looked, there were plenty of fresh buds just ready to be picked.

With the koshia-abura and ostrich ferns they gave me, saying, 'We still have plenty, so take as much as you want,' in the passenger seat, I headed back to Aichi.

My family was delighted with these wild vegetables, which we neither eat nor see in the area where I live.

It was two days where both my heart and stomach were filled with the flavors of spring.

　☝︎A conversation with a couple from Shigaraki