My Peach not Yours
In a previous entry I wrote about peaches（もも – MOMO） in Japanese and, how we have the same type of peaches in Hawaii as they have here in Japan.
Today as I did my afternoon walk (I try to walk at least three to four times a day now), I stopped by one of our neighbors orchard and was TRYING to talk to her. I told her that the peaches that were growing around her lot were delicious. She looked at me with a puzzled face and told me that “no you only eat the flower”, we don’t eat the peach.
We quickly came to an impasse as I’m used to eating the peaches not the other way around. I explained to her that my mom pickles them and they become sweet and tender. She looked at me as if I was crazy.
In any case she gave me permission to pick as much as I wanted, I assume in the hopes of getting rid of her crazy Hawaii neighbor.
The peaches here are smaller then those in Hawaii, I think maybe because of the amount of sun / cold. It changes so much here I’m sure the plants have a hard time adjusting so quickly. I picked the ones I assumed to be ripe and headed home.
After a quick text to my mom about the recipe I started to clean them with water and some Hawaiian Salt. She told me to salt them and let them wilt in the salt for a few days. I’m hoping that this works for two reasons. One is so that I can enjoy something that was part of my childhood, my mom and grandma would make these for me as a child and although I didn’t appreciate them then (as much) I really do now AND so I can share them with my neighbor to show her that I wasn’t talking nonsense.
I’m still impressed with my neighbors. ALL of them are in some way working the land to either eat healthier or save money so they don’t need to go to the store. Vegetables here are so fresh and due to the huge quantity surrounding us the prices are incredibly affordable.
The notion of my brother and I farming keeps coming up. And maybe its due to repetition or the aspect of us spending less on food, we’ve been talking about what we would grow it we were to start doing something along the lines of farming.
As of right now, if it was to happen; tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, egg plant and some root veggies. But again, these are all hypotheticals.
But back to the story at hand. My peaches. I continue to be surprised with the similarities yet differences in our food. These peaches like I said are in my front yard in Hawaii, grew up eating them and I’m certain they’re the same. But the Japanese here won’t touch them.
It’s a nice eye opening moment for me. It makes me wonder, who was the first person to try this type of peach and why? Was it out of necessity? Was it because they wanted to just try? And why would they if in their homeland it wasn’t a thing. I’m going to have to do some research on this and see what is up.
In any event it’ll take me two months to complete this task. It’ll either be an amazing finish or an utter disaster!
