Category Archives: Photos

FUKUSHIMA, Oct. 21 ― Autumn is the season when rice is hung to dry. So Naoshi Tsuchiya used golden rice bundles to create an icosahedron, like a giant soccer ball, in the rice paddy fields. “Bundles of rice stalks hung out to dry is a symbol of co-existence between humans and rice,” says the 34-year old Japanese rice farmer. Tsuchiya manages 18 hectares of rice paddy fields. A harvested rice field at the end of growing season is symbolically centered in Inawashiro, Fukushima prefecture. Tsuchiya stresses that rice to be hung to dry is a unique cultural scenery in rural areas in Japan and said with a big smile, “I … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Sep. 26 – A Tokyo-based leather goods manufacturer and seller has released a line of items made of leather looking exactly like the skin of Shizuoka crown melon. The company, Earl’s Favorite, has succeeded in delicately recreating the beautiful webbing seen on the surface of the king of fruits in Japan by embossing the pattern on domestically-tanned cow leather. Currently, it sells wallets, smartphone cases and several other items made of the melon-skin leather with excellent texture. Even the color inside its products is chosen very carefully – juicy pale yellow-green, which is the color of the flesh of Shizuoka crown melons. To recreate the perfect texture and the … Continue reading →

TOYOAKE, Sept. 5 ― Edible flowers are making their way, not on top of menu items, but by blending with sea salt, into a variety of food and beverage. Hamataco Co. Ltd., an Aichi prefecture-based restaurant that makes takoyaki, or an octopus ball, has blended sea salt with locally made edible flowers. “In this way, it adds fresh floral flavors and aroma to salt,” said Masahito Hamada, Hamataco’s president in Toyoake city, which is well-known for the floral market. “I hope people will become interested in floral flavors in foods,” Hamada added.

TOKYO, Aug. 29 ― A new exhibit in Tokyo allows visitors to experience what it feels like being umeboshi, a Japanese salt plum, in a bento box. The bento, developed by Perfektron, is one of showcases in the “Design Ah! Exhibition.” The exhibit runs at Miraikan museum, or the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, in Tokyo’s Odaiba from July 19 to Oct. 18. Bento is a Japanese box that contains all the pieces of a traditional lunch in one small container. And a hinomaru bento resembles the national flag of Japan: plain white rice with a red salt plum in the middle. The exhibit of the hinomaru bento … Continue reading →