I am currently living in my parents' house to support them, which happens to be at the heart of the Boso Peninsula. Yesterday, I got a yama no sachi (lit. happiness of the mountains; bounty of the mountains) from a neighbor, moso bamboo, as well as an umi no sachi (lit. happiness of the sea; bounty of the sea) from another neighbor, wakame seaweed.
現在、両親をサポートするため両親の実家に住んでいますが、実家は房総半島の真ん中にあります。昨日は、近所の人から山の幸、孟宗竹（もうそうちく）を頂き、 別の人から海の幸、若布（わかめ、ワカメ）を頂きました。
A common way to prepare a bamboo shoot is to boil it in a pot of water plus some rice bran or "kome no togi jiru" (milky water resulting from washing white rice before cooking). Unfortunately, I had no rice bran in the kithen, and I had no kome no togi jiru because I had planned to eat leftover rice the next morning. So, I tried preparing these bamboo shoots with plain tap water. The neighbor suggested boiling them for an hour or so, but I shortened the cooking time to about 30 minutes or so.
This morning, I tasted the bamboo shoots and found they were very tasty!
筍（竹の子、たけのこ、タケノコ）を下ごしらえする一般的な方法は、水に米ぬかを少し入れて、または米のとぎ汁で煮ることですが、残念ながら、家には米ぬかはなく、また、翌朝は残りごはんを食べる予定だったので、米のとぎ汁もありませんでした。そこで、ただの水道水で下ごしらえしてみました。筍を下さった方から、１時間程度煮るよう言われましたが、30分程度に短縮しました。
今朝、筍を味見すると、とても美味しかったです！
I had to use one very large pot and another large pot.
極大の鍋一つと大きな鍋一つ使いました。
After boiled:
茹でた後：
Wakame seaweed:
若布：
Still brown.
まだ茶色です。
Preparing wakame is simple. Rinse and put in a pot of boiling water. It changes its color to vivid green in an instant. Drain and cool with tap water.
若布の下ごしらえは簡単です。洗って、沸騰したお湯に入れます。一瞬で鮮やかな緑色に変わります。お湯を切り、水道水で冷やします。
Shown on the right in the photo above are hard stems of the wakame.
上の写真の右側に見えるのは、若布の硬い茎です。
***
My mother died of cerebral infarction at the age of 84 on March 7. Nothing makes you sadder than to lose your beloved mom.
３月７日、母が脳梗塞で亡くなりました。84歳でした。愛する母を失うことほど悲しいことはありません。
14 comments:
Hiroyuki, I'm so sorry for your loss.
My sincere and deep condolences, Mr. Hiroyuki. Your mom must have been a wonderful person. It is good you were able to be with your parents at this time. Hope that time will bring some comfort. Thank you for sharing your everyday life with us on the web.
Two Amy's: Thank you both for you sympathy!
My deepest condolences, Hiroyuki-san.
Wieslaw Szczoteczka (Sorry, I can't type them right!):
Thank you for your condolences.
I visited your blog. Although I can't understand a word of it, I can see you are very interested in Japanese cuisine!
Oh yes, Japanese cuisine has fascinated me for years. I've even started to learn the language recently, just to read the cook books. Your blog is very interesting, and extremely useful for learning. どうもありがとうございます。
I got curious about bamboo shoots and I found an article (from this french blog http://www.lemanger.fr/index.php/preparer-les-pousses-de-bambou/) explaining why they should be cooked slowly and with the rice's washing water: when in contact with water, a substance called taxiphilline (contained also in apricot kernels and manioc) produces a sort of toxic acid (acide cyanhudrique). However, this toxic element deteriorates in boiling water. The longer it boils, the lesser toxic substances there are: 70% disappear after 20min, and there's none left after 2 hours of boiling. And it works even better with starch, that's why people would use the rice water which is full of it.
I hope you find this useful!
Also, my sincere condolences for your loss. Thank you for sharing all of this with us.
Arwen: First of all, thank you for your condolences.
I had some difficulty identifying the substances you mentioned.
taxiphilline = taxiphyllin (E) = タキシフィリン (J), which is a cyanogenetic glycoside (青酸配糖体)
This substance is sensitive to heat and is decomposed when boiled for 35-40 minutes.
この物質は熱に弱く、35～40分の煮沸で分解する。
acide cyanhydrique = hydrocyanic acid, hydrogen cyanide (E) = 青酸 (J)
I cannot find the connection between taxiphyllin and hydrocyanic acid, but I did find this sentence:
ume fruit contains a component called amygdaline, which is a cyanogenetic glycoside that forms poisonous hydrogen cyanide （hydrocyanic acid） when hydrolyzed by an enzyme in the stomach, intestines and so on
ウメの実には元々青酸配糖体であるアミグダリンという成分が含まれており、これが胃腸などで酵素によって加水分解されると毒であるシアン化水素（青酸）を生成する
I'm not 100% sure but I think that there is some error in the description you provided.
The site you linked to contains this link about moso bamboo:
http://botanyboy.org/moso-japans-giant-bamboo-phyllostachys-edulis/
which contains this paragraph:
As the shoots mature oxalic acid as well as homogentisic acid and its glycosides (notably containing cyanide), making them unpalatable. To remove these unwanted substances, freshly collected shoots must be first cleaned of the outer sheaths and parboiled in water with an alkali agent (rice bran being the most commonly used in Japan). The shoots should be tender before being consumed, a process that takes about 30 minutes for most shoots, but can be longer for larger ones.
Let me point out the following facts:
1. The freshest bamboo shoots are not at all bitter, harsh, or astringent, and do not require parboiling, or "aku nuki" (bitterness, harshness, and astringency removal). Believe it or not, you can eat just harvested bamboo shoots raw, in the sashimi style, without boiling them first.
The ones I got from the neighbor were quite fresh (harvested that morning), so I figured that they did not contain much "aku" (bitterness, etc.).
Anyway, the proof is in the eating. When I tasted the bamboo shoots the next morning, they tasted quite good.
2. For some plants, removing all "aku" (bitterness, etc.) may not be a good idea. For example, removing all aku from a sansai (wild edible plant) such warabi (bracken fern) would make it tasteless.
お悔やみ申し上げます. Please take good care of yourself and your father.
Kiki: お悔やみをいただきまして、恐れいります。
My father (89) is still alive and kicking, willing to do farm work every day, despite my plea to go easy on himself.
My sincere sympathies on the loss of your mother. Your sadness honours her life.
I really enjoy your blog!
Warm regards from the other side of the world (Cape Town),
Deon
Deon Schutte: Thank your for your sympathies.
We will have a "shiju ku nichi" (lit. 49th day) memorial service for my mother tomorrow.
I am so behind in reading your blog and only just now i learnt the sad news, please accept my deepest condolences on your loss. I, too, loss my father about 2 months after your mother on May 20th. He was 94 and was suffering from dementia and at the end pneumonia got him. I also did a lot food preparation, like you, for my father during the last couple of year of his life. It is never an easy thing to go through a loss.
心よりお悔やみ申しあげます。
okasan: Thank you, okasan. She now lives in my heart.
Sorry to hear about your father. My deepest condlences to you, too.
My father, 90, is still increcrebly healthy, which gives me lots of headaches!
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