Favorite foods in Kumamoto

Mikio Kinoshita
Watermelon: It is a famous vegetable in Kumamoto. Some people mistakes the Watermelon for a kind of fruit. Ueki is the most productive area. It is usually sold in summer, but recently, it pretend to be sold in winter. It tastes very sweet. However, sometime people become troublesome because Watermelon has much seeds inside. Thanks to a new biological technology,
we see a seedless watermelon in a department store these day.

Basashi: It is meats of a horse. This is eaten in many countries, China, Mexico, Italy, etc. It is expensive and people don't buy it very much, but they sometime but it in a celebration. Basashi is resilient food. We usually eat it with soy sauce, ginger, welsh onion, and sometime. Moreover, Tategami is a fatty meat and said the delicious part of Basashi by mavens, and as Reba-sashi and Tan-sashi has no fishy smell, people who don't like something reek of blood can eat them without problems.

Amakusa-daiou: It is the greatest and biggest chicken in Kumamoto. It is bred for food. The average length of an adalt rooster is about 90 centimeters and the weight is about from 6,375 grams to 6,750 grams.　Therefore, other normal chickens is much shorter than Amakusa-daiou. In Showa time, they were exterminated due to a recession, but people are making a effort hard to reintegrate it now. It is very resilient and rich, so it is used by famous chefs at a classy restaurant. It is very expensive.

Nankan fine noogle (Somen in Japanese) and Nankan deep-fried tofu: They are my local special products. I often see them at a super market. Nankan fine noogle is so expensive that local people do not buy it quite often. It costs at least two thousand one hundred yen as a gift and the most expensive one is over ten thousand yen. It is a brand goods and is called "Yuki no Shiraito", I think it is called "Artistic white strings of snow" in English and Hakusyu Kitahara made a thirty-one syllabled verse about it. I have ever eaten it once and I was surprised the resilient texture. Nankan deep-fried tofu is also a popular food in Nankan and Kumamoto Prefecture. The normal is soft and juicy, but Nankan deep-fried tofu is very different from the former. The texture is like a snack. Moreover, it is very juicy when we use it as a ingredient of miso-soup.

Reference: <Nankan fine noodle> If you want to know more, you can go here.

Sae Miyagawa

Ikinaridango: It is a kind of sweets in Kunamoto. This name means 'dango which makes with easy' in Kumamoto dialect. This dango is made up chiefly of bean paste and sweet potato. They are unique combination, but bean pastes goes well with sweet potato. It is really delicious and famous in Kumamoto, so I think almost everyone who live in Kumamoto know it and have eaten it at least once. These were sold at 60 yen each at ikkyuu, so please try to eat.

Tiepi-en: It is a famous food in Kumamoto, but some people who lives in Kumamoto don't know it is a special product in Kumamoto. It is a kind of chinese soup. There are a lot of taste of this soup, for example, Kumuchi, soy sause and salt. In this soup, there are a lot of vegetables and harusame which is a kind of noodle and so on in the soup. Each home differ a little in those ingredient. Tiepi-en is really healty. It is one of the populer menu of school lunch in Kumamoto.

Banpeiyu: It is a famous fruit in Kumamoto. It is a kind of citrus fruits. Banpeiyus are a special product of Yastushiro in Kumamoto. It is the most biggest than all cirrus fruits, and it is 20cm across wide, so as big as a volleyball. And also the weight is about 1.5kg~ 2.0kg each. It has some features, for example it has deep skin, good smell and very jusy. Then You can eat　and use peel. I want you to try to get skin of Banpeiyu into the bath, then I think you can have good bath time with good smell. Then it has a lot of Vitamin C, so it is good for beauty.

　　Amakusa cookies: Amakusa cookies are famous souvenir from Kumamoto. They are kind of butter cookies and delicious. This sweets have wide appeal and reasonable. And also Kumamoto kabou which is a famous sweets company in Kumamoto produces Amakusa cookies. In 1966, 5 briges were completed in Amakusam and with the completing these, Amakusa cookies were produced for the first time. This cookie's shape is cross, because Amakusa is a famous place for Christianity, but I think it doesn't look like so. They are salled not only at souvenior shops but also at convenience stores, so we can find them easily.

Tomomi Tsukuda
Ozu sweet potato:Do you know Ozu sweet potatoes? They are very sweet of course and rich in minerals. They don't have any fiber,so it is veyr easy to eat. They are very much for temrura. They are grew on foot of Aso.

Strawberries:Yokoshima is in the North part of Kumamoto, and one of Tamana city. Long time ago, this area was an island floating in the Ariake Sea, but in 1605, Kiyomasa Kato began a policy to reclaim land from the sea. Since then, the area came to large and had a lot of places for Argiculture. Now Yokoshima produces rice, strawberries, tomatoes, and pumpkins. Yokoshima is the best producing strawberries inKumamoto. The strawberries are very sweet and delicious. Yokoshima strawberry marathon is took place once a year. There are many strawberries instead of water at the waterworks. The runners can eat strawberries during they run.

Karashi renkon:Karashi renkon was made for Hosokawa. It is healthy food. Karashi renkon is lotus root with mustard and miso; soybean paste in its hole and it is fried. it is special product in Kumamoto prefecture. Many tourists buy karashi renkon for souvenir. Karashi renkos is necessary for osechi in Kumamoto. It is very mach to sake. It's very spicy. Almost all of the people like this Karashi renkon.

Kumajouchu:Kumajouchu is the famous Kumamoto's alcholic drink. Its ingradients are good rice and delicious water.Rice is productes on foot of Aso. Water is prodused by Mt. Kuma. Kumajouchu is well known all over the world. Recently, kumajouchu company try to make liqueur using fresh fruits whitch producted in Nishiki machi. Gin no tuyu, Hakutake, Shiro, Batugun, Kanata, and so on.

Jindaiko:Jindaiko is popular sweets in Kumamoto. A rice cake is in the sweet bean jelly, and it is wrapped with plastic. It looks like drum, that's why this sweet is named Jindaiko. You should eat them with plastic knife. Many visitors buy them for souvenir. Jindaiko is not so sweet so if someone does not loke sweets can eat them easily.

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