Inconvenient packaging and local produce

In Finland a liter of yogurt comes in tall house-like packages as on the right.

If you've ever used such a pack you've probably noticed how unpractical they are. The carton may be combustible and cheap to manufacture but not very consumer friendly. Some of the product is always left inside the package, because getting it out is much too troublesome. Waiting for the thick stuff slowly drip out of the pack takes hours; and scissoring the sides open is as messy as heart surgery.

Just a rough guess, but I think close to 0,5 dl of yogurt is wasted in each package. That's just enough a reason to make a call. I contacted Valio, one of the major dairy product suppliers in Finland.

Yes, you might think now, "Lauri is too bored," but believe me this issue has craved me for long. Plus reporting the thing here is a justified excuse to have a break of writing my final thesis, which is what I really should be doing!

Valio explained that ecological issues are their major concern, and a lot of research is spent in developing more nature-friendly packages. However, they had no immediate answer to why is the carton's shape is so unpractical.

Later Valio's R&D department explained that "...The packaging lines are unable to fold other types of packages," and added "As long as the machines remain same the packages won't change, and we don't see any change in near future." At the same time they admitted that getting yogurt out of the package can be troublesome and messy.

There are some alternatives, and one I warmly recommend is in the photo below.

Product itself tastes fabulous: a rich combination of creamy yogurt and berries; but the name "Ahon" caught my eye first, for it sounded like my sure name. Try it out...

...Now back to the thesis.

Knee-deep in Japanese culture

One of the salary-mens at work is from a real farmer family; living at the countryside quite surrounded by rice paddies and woodlands. He is out from ordinary, those people who manage to work in an office while taking care of crops and other duties of farming are not many. We visited him at the weekend to help in rice-planting. The following story is more or less about rice.


The farm is located an hour drive away from Oita City, at the Ōno-machi, behind some dense forests and rice fields. The absence of people, read: rural depopulation, was replaced by cats and kittens (these being the cute and small ones).


Muddy rice paddy behind us, rice seedlings on our hands, our team is ready to start planting. Soon after it started to rain but it didn't interrupt our grand mission.


The pre-grown rice is bought from an agricultural dealer. Growing the seedlings by oneself is troublesome, though rice can grow from a normal supermarket grains. The reason for using seedlings is because the they are less vulnerable to diseases and weeds than bare seeds.


The first step to the mud pool felt funny. Water in the paddy is cool but not really cold. Apparently rice doesn't need a flooded growing base (a common belief in the past), but still all the fields for rice are flooded. The over watering keeps effectively weeds away. We used white guide threads to plant straight lines so to later make the harvesting easier.


These sheets have been grown in a nursery, and one costs about 5,000 yen. In contrast, super markets sell 25 kg rice for 5,000 yen. Knowing this, it is easy to see why so few choose the career of a rice farmer (if it ever is a selection). It is so much easier to hop in a supermarket around the block, especially since 25 kg feeds an average Japanese for almost half a year.


Knee-deep in Japanese culture. A positive side is that the brown slush has a cooling effect. However, the blood-sucking insects that paddle and swim in the sludge have a very itchy effect. The red stings in my ankles itch even while writing this, which makes me truly respect the people who plant rice for days and days with bare feet.


After some hours of hand-planting, it was the time to see the revolution of a machine.


The revolution was named convincingly "Lovely mini". While for five of us it would have taken about half a day to bed the entire paddy by hand, the cute but squeaky machine could complete the same area within 40 or 50 minutes.


And not only was the planting apparatus faster, but by using it one would avoid the feisty insects and chronic backache, which makes old rice farmers look like hunchbacks.


As the day turned to an afternoon our work came to an end. Three months later it is harvesting time, and this specific rice paddy will yield about 1 ton of delicious sticky rice.

Dirty and tired, we were spent the rest of the afternoon bathing in a onsen, and talking over a bbq. It was a memorable day and one of the best Sundays in every respect!

クチナシ摘み

大変ご無沙汰しておりました。
遅ればせながら、新年明けましておめでとうございます☆
皆様にとって、今年もよい１年になりますように♪

３連休最後の今日は、知りあいの方のお誘いで、大分市内にクチナシの畑を持つ方の家に、収穫のお手伝い＋お茶会に行ってきました☆
Me kävimme Oitassa maatilalla auttamassa marjojen poiminnassa.


クチナシの実がどんなものなのか、想像もできなかったのですが、こんな感じでした☆
Minä en tiennyt minkälainen marja on. Se on tämmönen.


実を摘む作業は、フィンランドのベリー類を摘む作業を思い起こさせられるものでした。
Gardenian, eli Keikarinkukan marjan poimiminen muisututtaa marjojen poimintaa Suomessa.


この実をこのようにしばらく乾かすと、いろいろな染料として使えるそうで、ご飯と一緒に炊いて「黄飯」にしたり、たくあんや栗の甘露煮の黄色もこのクチナシの実で染めているとか！
臼杵市では、お正月料理として、黄飯を食べているそうです。
Kun kuivattaa nämä marjat, niitä voi käyttää väriäykseen. Jos esimerkiksi niitä keittää riisin kanssa, riisi muuttuu keltaiseksi. Oitassa syödään sellaista keltaista riisiä uutena vuotena. Se on juhlaruoka.

実を摘む作業の合間には、お抹茶をたてていただき、畑の中で一服…。
自然の中で飲むお抹茶は一段とおいしく感じました☆
Poiminnan välissä joimme macha-teetä marjapuskien keskellä. Ulkona maku tuntui paremmalta kuin sisällä.


お昼ごはんには、黄飯や、山菜、漬物、金時豆の甘煮、はえ（川魚）、金柑の甘露煮などなど、食べたことのないようなものまでたっぷりご馳走になってしまいました！！
Lopuksi me söimme paljon erilaisia ruokia, myös keltaista riisiä, säilöttyjä vihanneksia, makeita papuja ja jokikalaa!!

ちょっとしたご縁から、貴重な本物の田舎体験ができて、誘ってくださった安藤さんありがとうございました☆
Kiitos Ando-sanille, joka kutsui meidät sinne! Saimme arvokkaan kokemuksen oikealta maaseudulta.

The local farmers' market

Once a month near the center of Oita a busy market opens up. There one can find domestic meat, fish, vegetables fruits, all fresh, excellent quality and very affordable! Even more, in the atmospheric early morning market one can see a huge tuna fish being sliced into bits by smooth moves of master's knife, and if one so wants he can taste the freshly cut tuna for free. We went there today, January 9. Next time it will be held on February 13, from 9:00 to 12:00.


Cut-master is eying the 107 kg tuna, which still is in one firm piece. Boy, it would be something to hook one like this to the dinner table. On the other hand, I'd better keep on fishing ordinary fishes since growing demand has made bluefin tuna an endangered specie that might soon collapse.


Ten minutes or so passed and a quarter was left of the body. On the background someone is giving bits for everyone to taste. I tell you, people went nuts, pushing around rushing forward through crowds to get a tiny bite. One man even forgot he was wearing a mask on his face as he snagged a piece and quickly tried to push it thorough the mask into his mouth.




Mom, if I buy all these what would you prepare of them? Perhaps a nice tentacle soup? The last octopus in the box was so freshly caught it was still moving and obviously alive.


Can you guess what is this? Look at the drawing on the price tag to get a hint. Yep, it's whale meat. Probably for research purposes. The man who was selling this said "Uhh frightening... a foreigner taking photos of my whale meat, I'm a little troubled". Any comment on this dear readers?


Fugu - poisonously delicious.


Look at this! No octopus or whale, but potatoes, apples and mandarins totaling 1640 yen or about 12 eur. Good buy, huh?


See you there next time on February 13!

これはなんですか。What is this?

こんなキレイな箱、はじめてみました！
中はなにかなあ。みてみましょうか？

First time to see this kind of beautiful of box.What could it hold inside? It's almost too nice to open but shall we have a look?


おお！バームクーヘンです！
うすいシートがいっぱいあります。
バニラのにおいがする。
めちゃくちゃおいしいです！

It is the German Baumkuchen The king of cakes, made of dozens of thin layers of lightly baked batter. This one, however, is not from Germany but from Yufuin, and its layers are flavored with Yuzu citrus fruit.

It was terrific!Thank you Yumiko's uncle, aunt and mother!

The big fish hunt

The Oita River runs only 200 meters away from our apartment. Plenty of fishes jump at the river, making fishing a very tempting hobby.

So few weeks ago, with a big catch in my mind, I purchased fishing gear from the local store, 神力商店 （こうりき）, downtown　Oita city.

Two weeks passed. Alas, all I caught was some random seaweed, empty seashells and a Fugu - the poisonous blow fish. Some might consider Fugu a lucky catch, since its high price at high-end restaurants. But not wanting to die yet by eating its poison I released it back to river.


Yesterday, in turn, was a glorious day in the history of fishing in Japan! There it is! The first big catch: Japanese Sea Bass, or in Japanese: Suzuki - as the car maker.


Having no scale or gauge leaves its weight and length a mystery. Yet, for the record Suzuki can grow to a length of over 1 meter!

Big thanks to 神力さん and the fisherman who kindly advised in techniques and gave the lure for this one!

蜂蜜 - Jar of honey

-"Luscious and flavorful honey from the flower-fields of Yufuin", I thought when I bought a jar of honey from an idyllic store in Yufuin-city.

After the reading label more carefully during breakfast, the truth came up. Content is actually a mix of Canadian and Argentinian honey! Not quite from Yufuin, as I first had assumed. Never the less delicious it was and cheap too!

大分みのりフェスタ Oita harvest festival

On Saturday I'd say one thousand Japanese packed to one park in Beppu to take part in Oita harvest festival. The mass event promoted regional seasonal products.

Why it was great festival? For two reasons. Firstly, fresh fruits, vegetables and fish with half of the price of that in supermarkets, and secondly, lots and lots of tasting-spots to try out new foods! There we've got to know Dango-jiru（だんご汁）, a tasteful but quite vegetableish broth soup that is typical to Kyushu.

On the way to Beppu. We met a chipper fisher man, who taught us phrases of Oita dialect. Many of them I don't remember, but these two I do:

どげんしちょんのかえ。- How are you?
よだき。- I'm tired

Cheap!

Grocieries are a little expensive in Japan. But if something is cheap it is chicken breast. They are almost free. This 535 g package was on sale with 133 yen (1 eur). Per kilo that makes 250 yen (1,9 e).

In Finland chicken breasts can be as expensive as 1,500 yen (11 eur) per kilo! So the same package above would cost about 750 yen.

Apparently Japanese like more the thights of chiken as they are more tender and juicy. Chiken breasts are dry for their taste. Finnish, and many other europeans on the other hand regard breast higher because it has less fat and more protein.

I feel that from now on, we'll eat chiken more often.

Japanese Bread

I need my daily rye-bread! In Finland I used to eat rye-bread daily. Not only with breakfast but with other meals too.

What are the options Japan has to offer? Extra white, extra soft! I feel it's close to eating air. If I take a thick slice and squeeze it into a ball with my fingers it will be probably one centimeter of diameter.

On the other hand white bread tastes very nice and smells delicious, especially the ones from bakery. Mmm, that buttery smell is irresistible...


But why in earth Japan has no rye-bread? I would dare to guess that many Japanese would be delighted to eat it. Especially if they knew the healthy sides of rye and its rich fiber content.

Apparently many Japanese suffer from high blood pressure. Some body tell me if I'm wrong, but could it be due to the combination of too salty food and low fiber intake? If this is the case, I'll start a rye-bread bakery here in Japan and save the ones who suffer from bursting blood pressure.

(Just for the record, 200g bag of white toast costs roughly between 0,80 e - 1,50 e)

City of Toyota Part 2/2

Grande finale of this day-trip was Café De Chef. A cafe with great atmosphere and mood and most of all fantastic coffee.

Solid experience. After training in various countries the Japanese barrister and owner, Kazuo Nonoyama, opened this lovely place. He has run the place now for 18 years with his wive.

Smalltalk. Their smalltalk and friendly chatter turns the place cozy and warm to visit.

Art. His and her wife's attention to detail and style is marvelous!

If ever in Toyota city, this place is one to put on the list!!