Hi Hivers. How are you?
It’s strawberry season in Kobe, Japan. The season usually starts in December and ends around May depending on the area and climatic conditions.
Japan boasts a wide variety of strawberries.
I’ve seen some of the biggest strawberries ever and have enjoyed some lovely strawberry treats.
Above is a treat or snack called “ichigo daifuku”. “Ichigo” means strawberry. If you don’t have a sweet tooth you might be reluctant to try but once, you do, there’s no turning back. The round, dumpling-shaped pink stuff is mochi made from rice. It’s beaten until soft and is stuffed with sweet red beans. Here it is topped with fresh strawberries but sometimes the strawberry is stuffed inside with the red beans. Either way, on bite, it almost just melts in your mouth and the combination of textures and flavor is just heavenly. I’m actually struggling to put words together to define how awesome it is. Whew!
They have a short life so they go like hot bread, sold quickly.
Just yesterday, I picked some up for the family.
Strawberry Picking
We can do strawberry picking at several local farms. Depending on the venue, you might pay a set price to pick and eat all you can, or pick, weigh what you’ve picked, pay accordingly, then eat.
Strawberries aren’t popular in Jamaica. We might get them at certain supermarkets but they are certainly not produced on a large scale and I assume that the ones available there, are imported. That being said, I was super excited when I first went strawberry-picking in Japan. The good thing too was that the farmed belonged to my friend’s grandparents. My family didn’t have to pay. That was a treat!
Big Berries
Now, I’ve seen some big, berrylicious berries! They’re not usually in the regular supermarkets but can be found at local farmers’ markets. Believe me, I didn’t go looking for those berries. They found me. I remember getting about five thick slices from just one. Imagine just giving a slice of strawberry to each member of your family...well, that didn’t work for mine, they wanted more. Haha! I was able to place one to the middle of one of my fruit arrangements. It was literally the center of attraction. I had two kids come up to me asking if they could have the big strawberry. The good thing is, they were brothers and the berry was big enough for them to share. So, that worked out well and easily.
There’s so much I could post here about strawberries. Please look out for my next post. You might find something berry good.
Love and respect.