Wednesday, July 9

exotics

What with shiso (fancy mint!) and soba noodles (fancy pasta!) and konbu (let's freak out about umami!) being big gastronomical hits these days, I thought I'd post a few of my own Japanese market findings to the interwubs. These are two Japanese foods for which I cannot find any common English name, or any English presence on the web (it was hard enough finding the scientific names!).

Really, I don't even know why I'm posting this. Perhaps just for my own reference. I suppose I could always add to the list...or you can post your own quandaries in the comments.

コリンキー南瓜 (korinkii kabocha)
- Lies somewhere within Cucurbita Maxima (western pumpkins)
OR Cucurbita Moschata (Japanese kabocha pumpkins)
- Korinki's appeal is that it can be easily peeled, sliced, and subsequently eaten raw. This is pretty novel in the Japanese squash department. The skin peels like a butternut squash, no hard rind like a green kabocha. The taste is not incredibly striking, but squash-y and slightly sweet. The texture also sets it apart - where raw green kabocha is dry, a bit grainy, and quite firm (almost like a potato?), the korinki is much moister and has more give (like a cross between a potato and a canteloupe?). Disclaimer: I am not a food writer.



ソルダム (sorudamu)
Prunus salicina Lindl. cv. Sordum
- This may be a fairly common type of plum in Japan, but it only seems to exist on the web in scientific articles and breeding experiments. This worries me because they're popping up in all my supermarkets and I want to try them. Hard to choose a good bunch because they don't really give off any aroma compared to the other kinda of plums. I guess they can range from deep yellow-green to red to purple, but the ones I've seen have all been greenish purple. The one defining characteristic seems to be a really significant wax bloom obscuring most of the vividness of color (that whitish haze that appears on the outside of plums and some other fruit). I'll update on the taste and texture later, maybe.



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