Any vegans managed to survive a trip to japan, and eat sucessfully?? I hear its not very vegan friendly, but haven't been able to find info on vegan restaurants out there (bet if there are - they'd be ludicrously expensive - apparently one of my mates spent ��20 on a melan!???) _________________
"Do not try to understand them, and do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart, and make no sense."
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Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:56 am Post subject: Re: Vegan?
cerberus wrote:
Any vegans managed to survive a trip to japan, and eat sucessfully?? I hear its not very vegan friendly, but haven't been able to find info on vegan restaurants out there (bet if there are - they'd be ludicrously expensive - apparently one of my mates spent ��20 on a melan!???)
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:18 am Post subject: Re: Vegan?
krim wrote:
i think that's an Everyone issue.
My ex tried to bring me back a 2kg square watermelon, and it was $60 USD.
one must appreciate the japanese culture of gift giving....those types of gifts are presented as a matter of value not so much as just a piece of fruit....often times they are given as a gesture or to pay respect...not even with the primary intention that it will necessarily even be consumed.
here's a great article on that just published on Nov. 28, 05
Rich cornucopia: Japanese fruit
By Miki Tanikawa International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2005
TOKYO Remember the $100 Japanese melon? Lovingly swaddled in purple wrapping, and nesting in an individual wooden box the melon was emblematic of Japan's high-rolling economy of the 1980s, which pushed up consumer prices across the board.
More than 15 years of recession, stagnation and deflation have brought a new symbol - the \100 shop, where everything sells for less than $1.
Yet, despite relentless general deflation, the king of fruit - as the Japanese like to call it - has survived, and still greets the shopper with its old price tag: $100, and sometimes more.
At Senbikiya, an upscale fruit shop in Nihonbashi in Tokyo, melon prices starts at \5,000 or $40, and rise as high as \20,000.
A box containing two bunches of grapes can also set back a shopper \5,000 yen, as can a matching set of four pears.
The time may be ripe to explain the mystery of $100 melons and $40 pears.
For Japanese department stores and special vendors like Senbikiya, luxury fruit belongs to a special product categorythat exists almost exclusively for givers of gifts. Gift fruit - which can include grapes, cherries, peaches and pears - is cultivated in a special way, different from ordinary, everyday fruit.
"Japan is probably the only country in the world where you have fruit as a gift concept," said Ushio Ooshima, a director at Senbikiya, whose main store in Nihonbashi alone sells 40 to 50 high-priced melons a day and as many as 200 a day during the mid-year and end-year gift-giving seasons. At Senbikiya, "99 percent of the purchases here are for gift," Ooshima said. In the culture of gift giving, a melon may be offered as a special present to an important client, to a person to whom a debt of gratitude is owed, or to a sick friend as a get-well gesture.
The exceptional prices reflect exceptional methods used in growing the fruit. While an ordinary melon in a grocery stores rarely costs more than $5, the high-priced version, usually a variety of musk melon, is nurtured by special growers in specific locations, of which Shizuoka prefecture and Hokkaido are two of the best known.
In Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, melons are farmed in sophisticated green houses, complete with air-conditioners that fine-tune the temperate to optimal levels day and night. Melon vines are planted and cultivated in a soil bedding that is separated from the ground, said Tsuneo Anma, general secretary of a growers' group based in Fukuroi city that produces the "Crown" brand of melons. Producing 3.5 million melons annually, the agricultural cooperative is the biggest specialty-melon grower in Japan.
The soil separation is necessary to regulate moisture levels. "The moisture uptake by the tree roots must be optimized to promote proper amount of photosynthesis," Anma said. "If trees are planted in the ground, the roots will grow unregulated," making moisture absorption difficult to control.
Growers trim the vines so that only three melons will grow on each tree. When the baby melons grow to the size of a human fist, two are chopped off to allow the most promising one to monopolize all the nourishment from the vine. That one melon is expected to mature into the juicy, beautiful and revered $100 dollar fruit.
How different does the high-priced melon taste from an ordinary one? "They are definitely different, from the scent of it to the texture of it," said Shigeko Hoshi who lives in Tokyo and occasionally eats the expensive fruit when her family receives one as a gift. "The sweetness is exquisitely balanced with the sourness of it."
Many Japanese consider the special melon, like the special grape, cherry or pears, to be the perfect gift, set apart by its aura of luxury and added value from what is otherwise a mass-produced organic product.
"People go, 'What a difference does a gift melon make,"' Ooshima said. "People usually don't eat the very best for themselves. They set it aside for others as a gift," which is the very essence of Japanese gift-giving.
The \20,000 melon is the pick of the crop produced in the hothouses of Fukuroi.
"Less than 1 percent of the melons we grow qualify as 'fuji,"' said Anma, referring to the top grading, which combines the greatest potential for taste with a perfect shape and appearance. "They need to look perfectly round with the mesh-like surface pattern impeccably even."
While melons are the most expensive luxury fruit as a category, even fuji-grade melons can be out-priced by out-of-season fruits, Ooshima, of Senbikiya said. Cherries in winter, from Yamagata prefecture in northern Japan, can fetch a \50,000 price tag for just 300 grams, or 10 ounces.
Last edited by Tu_triky on Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:13 am; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:40 am Post subject: re.melan
An interesting article indeed (not too long - i think it was pasted a few times there! I wondered what that sense of deja vu was nearing the end of the post !!)
Well all is good if i don't have to spend $500 on fruits, just to get my 5-a-day!
Special melans huh! Fair enough.
Good links to veggie japan sites - i'll have to investigate further as to which restaurants specifically do vegan food on the cheap.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:20 am Post subject: Re: re.melan
cerberus wrote:
An interesting article indeed (not too long - i think it was pasted a few times there! I wondered what that sense of deja vu was nearing the end of the post !!)
Well all is good if i don't have to spend $500 on fruits, just to get my 5-a-day!
Special melans huh! Fair enough.
Good links to veggie japan sites - i'll have to investigate further as to which restaurants specifically do vegan food on the cheap.
sorry i f*cked up with the copy and paste job....hope you find the vegan links helpful.
Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 561 Location: Texas Country:
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:54 am Post subject:
That is HUGE.
Even though, I know that Tuna are ridiculously big fish. I still expect them to be very small when shown a picture. I think its because they come in such a small can.
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