Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No594

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list3/296207/

Hello from Yuka from Ichiroya. Sakura, cherry blossoms are gone, and we are enjoying this season of fresh green. The typical seasonal cuisine is Takenoko, bamboo shoot.

You may imagine something very hard since they are shoot of bamboo, but actually they are not so hard. Takenoko is typical spring taste, every one are looking forward to.

Takenoko can be cooked with rice(takenoko gohan) and also they can match with other ingriedients and are used for many kind of dish. Takenoko can tell us, spring is here!

Here are some recipe using Takenoko:

http://cookpad.com/search/%E3%81%9F%E3%81%91%E3%81%AE%E3%81%93%20%E3%81%94%E9%A3%AF

I have heard, white asparagas are the king of seasonal vegetable, which can tell spring has come in Germany. I think Takenoko is like white asparagas for us. Ichiro's mother loves Takenoko and used to cook Takenoko with various way of cooking- they were yummy!

There is a famous design with Takenoko from old Chinese story (The Twenty-four filial examplars). This is a story of a man who did a nice thing for her mother.

Here is the story (from wiki):

Meng Zong's father died when he was young so he lived with his mother. Once, when his mother was ill, the physician suggested that she drink soup made from fresh bamboo shoots. However, it was in winter then and there were no bamboo shoots. In desperation, Meng went to the bamboo forest alone and cried. Just then, he heard a loud noise and saw bamboo shoots sprouting out of the ground. He was so happy that he collected them, went home and made soup for his mother. She recovered from her illness after drinking the soup.

I have never seen Takenoko in snow. Spring weather is really confusing always, and there are chilly days also, so Takenoko in snow might be possibly seen but it is quite unusual.

Bamboo shoot in Snow...is an example of unexpected thing. Even it seemed helpless, the man prayed and kept digging to find Takenoko for his mother and he found it. This is a story telling unexpected thing can happen if you really wish it comes true, and also the story of devotion to one's parents.

We see kimono or obi with this design sometimes. At this moment, we only have these two items (except the one on top) with this design and two of them are already sold.

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/262550/

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/252451/

The above fukusa, there is no man but (#252451) but a sedge hat and a straw rain-snow cape and the bamboo shoot can be seen. These design- showing items without the person is the way often seen with fukusa design. We can notice this fukusa is showing the famous bamboo shoot digging story from China.

Takenoko, really does not have strong taste but still tasty and has very nice texture! 

We hope you can try Takenoko dish if you are in Japan in spring and think about this story too.