>>> Item number 18502 from WRITERS LOG9310A --- (54 records) ----- <<< Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 18:00:05 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: BACKGROUND: Japan - Late Sept/Early Oct For me, late September and early October in Japan is marked by two delightful taste sensations. This time of year, in almost every grocery, we have the harvest of nashi and Kyoho grapes. Nashi (nah-she), sometimes called Japanese pear-apple and occasionally available in the U.S., here is a large fruit, shaped somewhat like an apple but easily four inches across even in the cheaper "medium" sized fruit. The color is a light green, dusted with brown - almost like fresh leaves or some apples in shade. These are tree-ripened and gorgeous. My wife and I like to put them in the refrigerator for a little, so it is crisply cool perfection. Peel, cut the middle out (which looks very much like a pear center to me), and then bite into the translucent white flesh of the fruit, with a consistency about the firmness of an apple but rich with sweet juice like a pear. Nashi isn't overly sweet, but it definitely has the sweetness of sun-ripened fruit ready to pour down your throat. Frankly, while high-priced nashi are now available at other times of year, I think the inexpensive nashi you get at this time of year beats it in terms of delight, partly because it is only available now and partly because it is naturally perfectly finished now. Kyoho grapes are the other taste treat that comes now. Like the nashi, these are sun-ripened and relatively inexpensive for a short period in the fall. These are dark-purple, large grapes, looking almost like a bunch of small plums. Typically an inch or so of meaty fruit in each one. To eat Kyoho in public, they are usually skinned, so you are presented with a bowl full of juicy pale globes. Put it in your mouth and enjoy - there doesn't seem to be any flesh to these when you bite them, just a burst of rich grape juice. Be a little careful - they do have seeds, big ones for grapes, which you may not want to swallow. If you chew one of the seeds up, it is bitter! At home, you can pop the grape with skin in your mouth. The skin is thick and faintly musty tasting, so most people don't eat it, just split it with their teeth, suck out the wonderful insides, and then delicately pluck the skin out of their mouth with the fingers and go on to the next one. Incidentally, a bowl of nashi and Kyoho grapes makes a splendid drink that you chew. Disappears faster than you might think possible around our apartment. tink