Season’s Greetings from Yokohama Citizen Forest

 

Everything is a bit off for the New Year’s Holiday of 2020/21 … I’ve realized for us Japanese who are non-religious in majority, Christmas has been a party time, really. The things we meet in town now are all subdued … there was no queue for a popular waffle shop. It is very awkward … COVID thig. At least, we’re not locked down (yet). Maybe we’re lucky. Fingers crossed.

Please take care, and have a peaceful holiday season.

Love, Naomi 😷

Spilling the beans: I’ve found the wild ancestor for Adzuki beans in Megalopolis!

 

Without Adzuki beans (Vigna angularis), there is no Japanese sweets. We eat Adzuki beans in regular meals, of course. But in Japan the most popular usage of them is for sweets. Normally, after cooking the beans, we add sugar in the pan. From there, if we like to have sweet soup, we stop cooking while contents of the pan is still watery. When we aim to have Adzuki paste, we continue cooking until the residual liquid evaporates. The amount of sugar, and the control of heat is a sort of professional secrets for Japanese pâtissiers. I think there is national consensus which defines success of his/her shop depending on the taste of sweet Adzuki.

A day in a supermarket.
I realized all the sweets in this photo
contain sweet Adzuki paste, called Anko in Japanese.
 Hmmmmmmmmm …

Having said that, below is the latest method we home-cookers can easily employ for Adzuki beans.

1. Wash Adzuki beans, drain the water, and pat them dry with tea towels, paper towels etc. The bags sold in Japan seldom contain deficient beans or stones so that we consider this process very easy. If you’re nervous, please take the standard approach to start cooking any beans.

2. This is the unique point with this bean: we do not have to soak them. The latest scientific approach from Prof. Jun Kato 加藤淳 of Nayoro City University 名寄市立大学 is, first we dry roast the cleaned beans in a pan for 2-3 minutes. By doing so, Tannin in the bean becomes molecules large enough for our taste buds not to know its bitterness. Bonus: tannin processed in this way keeps polyphenol of which Adzuki has twice more density than red wine.

3. Add less than twice heavier weight of water than beans in the pan and cook them in high heat. When it starts to boil, add the water that makes the total amount of water for cooking is twice heavier than the beans. So, say, when we cook 300g of beans, start with 500cc of H2O, and add the last 100cc at the time the pan starts to boil.

4. Wait the pan to boil again, then put on a lid and reduce the heat to low. Check the inside occasionally and mix it to make the top and the bottom of beans switch the position frequent enough to receive the heat evenly.

5. Ideally, after 30 minutes or so, the water in the pan evaporates, and we can squash a bean with a strong push with fingers. That’s the sign beans are done.

From here, we can use the beans for salad, tacos, or sweets ... Er, that’s that, which is a bit off from the theme of this blog. The thing I want to tell you this week about Adzuki beans is, this year, I’ve found the wild ancestor for Adzuki beans in Yokohama’s forest.

These days, a sort of popular products for sweet Adzuki paste
 is a bag of paste with a nice piping corner.
 There are many brands of this type.
 This one happens to be in a supermarket near my home.

My indulgent snack under COVID threat these days …
 I piped sweet Adzuki paste over
a mochi rice cake soften by microwave,
 then pour the kinako (roasted soy flour) …
 Mmmmm.

It was a bit of surprise in my weekend stroll near home due to COVID. The wild ancestor for the bean, called Vigna angularis var. nipponensis, is tiny. Cute. The annual plant thrives in a corner of Yokohama’s forest together with ubiquitous mugworts, Cyperaceae, or smartweeds. The bean is so understating. Their yellow flowers are small, and the fruits are skinny 5-6cm pods. Inside, there are 4-5 beans whose size is about 4mm in length. When they mature in fall, the pods turn its color in dark brown or black, and twist themselves to push out the seeds, aka beans. Tiny beans spread out in the bush and sprout next spring. The popular kind of Adzuki beans for sweets, called Dinagon 大納言, is about 6mm long. Could you see how small the wild bean is in below photo?

A bag of Dinagon.
 You can find it (of many brands) in almost all
 supermarkets in megalopolis Tokyo.

Dainagon and var. nipponensis.
 See? Wild one is tiny.

Without any foundation, I simply believed Adzuki were imported from China long time ago. Making dish with Adzuki beans is not Japanese specialty, but people in the continent also love it. Have you noticed Chinese mooncakes use lots of Adzuki paste? Well, even so, Japanese have enjoyed Adzuki beans for more than 6000 years. The oldest archeological evidence about Adzuki consumption in Japan is from the site thrived in around 4000 BC, near Lake Biwako 琵琶湖. The ancient beans were about the same size of ours now. It seems to me, scholars are debating the original place where human kids started to cultivate the plant. At least, DNAs for Vigna angularis and Vigna angularis var. nipponensis share the definitive connection, they say. Hmmmmm.

Vigna angularis var. nipponensis in a corner of Yokohama’s forest.
 I won’t tell you where. 😉

So, somebody long time ago tried that tiny bean of var. nipponensis, and thought out how to remove its bitterness just like Prof. Kato of the 21st Century. The first Adzuki eaters utilized Mendel’s Law without noticing this science (hey, it was at least 6000 years ago!) to make the “difficult but tasty beans” larger. They succeeded. I imagined the story and found it so delicious. The first person must have been very brave. S/he collected lots of lots of beans, or so hungry that s/he could not resist trying them. I collected a bit of beans from Vigna angularis var. nipponensis. The dried tiny beans are ready for cooking now … I’ve heard they are tastier than Dainagon … Though, mine is so small amount. I’m hesitating to gulp them down … admiring the spirit of the first penguin.

My Vigna angularis var. nipponensis, ready to be cooked …

In Japan, we cook sweet soup of Adzuki beans with Kabocha squash for winter solstice (; its recipe, for example, is here). See? Kabocha squash has very bright orange meat. When we add it in sweet Adzuki soup, they look like a sun floating in the night. Winter solstice is the bottom of winter. We have the longest night of a year. It means, tomorrow the day will have more sunshine! Sweet Adzuki soup with Kabocha is a sort of magic we perform every year. Don’t you think we do need it especially this year? Oh, by the way, the nutrients of this soup include high polyphenol and beta-carotene, lots of vitamins and minerals. They must help boosting our immune system ... against infectious diseases.

Vigna angularis var. nipponensis in late autumn

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Vanishing Kleshas, Nurturing Kleshas; making rosary with Yokohama’s forest

Fall is a time we can meet many berries in forests. Some soft, the others hard fruits are here and there on branches. Many soft red berries contain lots of alkaloid toxic enough for humans, but mouthwatering for birds … Some, like Indian soapberry (Sapindus mukorossi; my post last week) have so-so soft fresh with hard center that is a seed. In general, the berries with hard seed are not edible. Soapberry is for washing. As long as I know, the fruit of camelia is an exception, though we do not eat its fresh, but harvest high quality oil from the seed. It can be used not only for cooking but also for cosmetics as it is very aromatic. Sumo wrestlers coiffed their chignon with camelia oil so that when we meet them in towns, they smell so sweet. Cooking with camelia oil is extremely expensive, which is specialty in Oshima Island 大島 of Tokyo. I’ve heard tempura with camelia oil is exquisite … Mmmmmmmmm. Anyway, a hard seeds from forests can be very large. They look like a perfect material to make beads. Actually, large black seed of Indian soapberry is traditionally used for Buddhist rosary, akṣamālā.

Hair oil containing the extract from camelia.
 I’ve heard communities in Oshima Island have
 public oilpresses in their neighborhood.
 People there use them to harvest
 their annual supply of camelia oil.
 So, making tempura with their homemade oil is regular
 … At least USD 100 in Tokyo for one small plate …

According to Mokugenkyo 木槵経 Sutra, Virūḍhaka, the king of Kosala in ancient India, consulted Buddha for existential crisis with his inner hatred toward Shakya Clan, Buddha’s family. (The King had a birth secret with Shakya Clan, mate.) Buddha advised him to make rosary with 108 seeds of soapberry, wear it, and chant ratnatraya. A person with rosary then is to reel it for one soapberry bead per one mantra chanted. When this ritual is repeated one million times incessantly, Buddha said, 108 kleshas that torment our soul will disappear and we would reach nirvana. Alas, Virūḍhaka could not do this, engaged genocide of the Clan, and died in massive storm, 7 days later after he completed the mass-killing. So, making rosary with soapberries is fairly legitimate usage of the offering from forest, I guess. The problem is, the seed of soapberry is REALLY hard.

The seeds of soapberry,
 collected after the flesh for soap removed.

With the seeds I separated from the fresh of the soapberry fruit, I tried to make beads. Yeah, I don’t have 108 of them, but my catch is enough to make a rosary for one hand, say with 27 beads? I tried to make a hole on one of the seed with a pin vise, and … struggled to pierce it for an hour. Doing it for 108 times!? Oh, no … Nirvana is at the edge of universe for me … Then, I recalled something traditional in Japan at the level of my kleshas.

After one hour,
 I decided to use a gimlet before pin vise.
 The seeds were about 1cm in diameter and hard.
 It was tricky to make a hole even with gimlet.

I was ecstatic when I reached here,
 I tell you!

Adlay millet, aka Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) is called Juzudama in Japanese. Their origin would probably in Southeast Asia. They arrived Japan in millennia years ago. There are 7 kinds of known Coix in the world, and we only have Coix lacryma-jobi in Japan. The plant thrives in banks of Yokohama’s natural streams. During summer it develops peculiarly egg-shaped bract, about 1cm long. It contains female and male flowers inside. Female flowers pokes only its small head of stigma from the bract, and male flowers dangle their stamen outside. In fall, inside of the bract contains a small seed for the grass. When the seed is matured, the bract becomes hard like enamel in several colors such as grey, brown, sepia, or black. It then falls off from the stem into the stream nearby. The bract has lots of space inside beside the seeds so that it can float reaching to another shore for them to sprout. Well, such anatomy makes the bract of Juzudama ideal for beads.

Coix lacryma-jobi in Yokohama

Bracts of Coix lacryma-jobi.
 Nobly colorful, don’t you think?

The anatomy of male flowers for Juzudama

Actually, there are lots of people on earth who use Juzudama as beads, or religious rosary. I’ve heard it was same for young student of Buddhism temples in Japan. For monks, having akṣamālā is a serious matter, following the strict religious protocol. They are allowed to have it after passing many exams in their monastery. Even though, students want to emulate their spiritual masters in many respects, right? They wanted to act like their professors … Moreover, rosary has a fairly useful utility during their meditation for counting (; this You Tube video has very practical how-to for rosary in temples). “Student needs rosary!” Now they looked around their neighborhood and found Adlay millet thriving along the streams crisscrossing rice paddies around their temple. Bingo. They used the plant for their tool for meditation. Job’s tears have the name Juzudama, Juzu = rosary, dama = beads, in Japan.

I think it’s matured stage of seed for Job’s tears.
 When we pull the papery thing out from the tip of Juzudama carefully,
such things come out.
 Inside of bracts conveniently becomes hollow to be beads.

… Er, Japanese founder of ethnology, Kunio Yanagita 柳田國男 said it was a folk tale. In his “The Road of Ocean 海の道” (1961), he wrote he could not find the evidence of the story. He concluded the naming of the plant is coming from pre-Buddhism Japanese endogenous culture using cypraea for animist rituals. He guessed kids watched their village witches and wizards prayed to gods, wearing ornaments, often called Zuzudama, made of precious shells. Similar to young monks in temples, kids wanted to emulate the magical powers of elders and looked around their environment to find Job’s tears. Zuzudama eventually became Juzudama, Yanagida said. So, Naomi who’s not passed the temple exams decided to take more relaxed approach about the matter, like Yamagita’s kids in yesteryears; let’s use Juzudama.

My collection of Juzudama, seeds of Indian soapberry,
 and the brown large one of which I’ll tell you what shortly.

The photo next is a rosary I made, a bit imaging the style of Tendai sect. Er… the choice of the design is purely from my taste, no significant affiliation to Tendai sect. (Oh my Buddha!) For the “bottom” of it I wanted to have something slightly bigger fruit than soapberry to sustain 108 Juzudama and 4 soapberries. I tried a seed of Lindera praecox, the brown large one in the photo above. It has a sweet fragrance typical for plants in the family of camphor tree. I thought a rosary with it would be nice. Nope. The nuts of Lindera praecox look robust but easily crumbled with a first push of my pin vise, which is completely opposite to soapberry. In the end I could not find hard and large enough forest seed to finish my rosary. That may have been a reason why Buddha recommended to use soapberry … I’ve compromised my project with a glass bead from Amazon.co.jp and two wooden beads I found at the corner of my desk drawer. I feel my rosary is pretty but … I’ve heard Mother Teresa made her rosary with Juzudama and an old cross, no jewelry whatsoever ... My rosary tells something of my kleshas. Will they be vanished if I chant ratnatraya one million times with the Juzudama and soapberry?

My rosary of Juzudama

Lindera praecox.
 Their fruit looked perfect to be beads …

Oh, in Japan, black seeds of soapberries have another usage. During New Year holidays, kids play “Hagoita 羽子板,” a kind of badminton using sculptured wooden board, not netted rackets, and a shuttle made of feathers and a soapberry. Soapberry is very hard so that when we hit it with a board, it sounds like a woodpecker hitting wood. The sport itself has meaning. The soapberry is large black ball that looked like a head of large dragonfly when it flies in the sky of New Year’s holiday. Dragonflies are predators for mosquitos that can carry deadly viruses for humans. When we play Hagoita in New Years holidays, we are engaging in a good luck charm of large sound and dragonfly look-a-like, dispelling mosquitos with disease. The most famous market for Hagoita 羽子板市 in Japan is held at Sensoji of Asakusa 浅草浅草寺, Tokyo, during 17-19 of every December. In normal years, it is the very traditional festival at the end of a year with gorgeous Hagoitas shown along the street of Asakusa … Surprisingly, as of December 11, 2020, the merchants of Asakusa are determined to have it even this year with COVID-19 (; their web-site is here). Yeah, coming New Year we may need the magic of Hagoita to protect ourselves from the next “big” one … *Sigh*

Hagoita for New Year decoration.
 It is said that just placing the ornament
 in some main place of a house
 would do the magic against mosquitos.
 Really?

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Getting Ready for Winter with COVID-19: Naomi was busy this fall

Hm. Temperature drops in Yokohama. COVID-19 has been back in honest. Although there is no strict regulation about our movement here unlike some other parts of the world, we feel something foreboding to travel. Naomi, wearing mask of course, has resumed regular visit to the neighborhood greenery, rather than entering deep mountains. In the end, we must use some form of crowded public space to move long distance from the metropolis. Besides, nature my next door continues giving me a surprise. I’ve found the way making personal care products out of wild plants in forests. It is a fun! I tell you, I have a definite success with my potion made of bishop’s weed from backyard (my post on July 1, 2016). Since then, I’m using the toner for more than 4 years, and my skin keeps VERY good condition! Why not trying to get another win?

First, returning to Japanese mugwort (Artemisia princeps Pampanini), I noticed there are many products for skin toner made of mugwort. Well, I have more than enough harvest of mugwort tea this year. So I put some mugwort bunch in a glass jar and poured 35° liquor, like this.

I waited for one month, and the jar yields the mugwort tincture. The standard of such tincture for skin toner is diluting it with at least the same amount of glycerol water, unless you’re allergic to it. I have not yet tried the tincture for my skin. But, with my experience with bishop’s weed, I’m optimistic about the result with this lotion.

Mugwort tincture, made by Naomi.

Speaking of lotion, I’ve found ubiquitous Goldenrod (Solidago altissima), which is officially designated invasive species in Japan, is a medicinal plant for native culture of North America. With some reason, in Japanese cyberspace, it is commonly talked its “detox” power especially when we harvest the most matured buds of it. So, this year with COVID-19, I watched the buds of Goldenrod for several weeks, and harvested it when they’ve almost started to open, hoping the detox effect.

Goldenrod whose buds are swelling out …

This is already opened. So I skipped it.

I washed and dried them planning to use it as a sort of bath salt. Then, one of my Niiharu Senior volunteer ladies told me. “Oh, Naomi. Goldenrod is uber strong! I had a problem with my face when I applied it. You’d better be careful with them.” Hmmmmmm, that’s why Japanese cyberspace recommends it as a detox herb, I guess. I decided to play it safe. I’m using it for my foot bath. So far, no harm done to my toes. Rather, it seems to me, anti-inflammatory effects from its saponin works well for my callus …

Drying washed Goldenrods

Dried Goldenrods for me.

I cram some of them in a tea filter bag and made “tea.”
I stored this tea for my foot bath.
 For about 2 tablespoons of dried Goldenrods,
 I made about 600cc of Goldenrod “tisane,”
 and used it up in 3 days.
 I don’t think it can last more than that.

And here comes saponin. Traditionally, Japanese villagers used nuts of Indian soapberry for washing. Indian soapberry (Sapindus mukorossi) is tree for tropics or subtropics, but some wild specimen live in the region west of Niigata 新潟 and Ibaraki 茨城 Prefectures of Japan. The tree we normally find in Yokohama is in a park or a sanctuary of shrines or temples. They are well-taken care of, and yield lots of nuts. The flesh of the nut contains lots of saponin. When we put them in a well-secured cheesecloth and throw it in a washing machine with dirty clothes, the laundry comes out sparklingly clean, they say. Oh, is that so? I’ve found a large Indian soapberry tree near my house and waited late fall when their nuts were matured enough to fall off. Bingo. One morning after a windy night, the foot of the tree had lots of nuts!

One of them must be a tree of Indian soapberry,
 near my home …

Indian soapberries I’ve found.

My catch!

We can use the nuts as it is for washing, but I had another idea. (More to it, next week.) So, I opened the nuts and separate flesh and seed. What is effective for washing is the flesh of soapberries. I first rinsed them with running tap water for removing dirt and the other debris of the ground. It was amazing! They became soapy and blew lots of bubble. I then dried them under direct sunshine in order to store. For washing, it is said that 10 or so nuts would be enough for 30-40kg of washing load. Moreover, the bag of berries can be used for 3-4 times. It does not use any fossil-based ingredients to be washing agent. i.e. The ultimate eco-friendly product. I haven’t used them for my washing yet. But I know after preparing the berries to dry, my hands certainly become clean, and keeping the moisture unlike the other chemically processed hand-washing materials. I don’t know if Indian soapberry is effective for sanitization against COVID-19. If so, it should be very good news for us these days damaging our hands many times a day with soaps and sanitizing alcohol. Is there anybody who can scientifically prove the sanitizing power of soapberry?

Separating flesh and seed of soapberries

Just rinsing lightly the flesh yields this much of soapy bubble.

Drying the flesh

Flesh and seeds of Indian soapberry.
 Oh, by the way,
I’m nurturing moss in my room that is in the bottom of this photo.

Er, yeah, sanitization and boosting immune system is uber important these days … But it’s not easy to be preoccupied with such things 24/7 … So, another thing I tried in forests is Osmanthus tincture. Just a brief period of early fall, normally 5 days or so, Yokohama is filled with the fragrance from orange flowers of Osmanthus aurantiacus. The plant itself is not Japanese native. It is said that people imported the plant from China in the 17^th century. In China, their flowers are used for Osmanthus scented wine, Osmanthus tea, Osmanthus source, etc … Of course there are many brands of perfume from Osmanthus, like “Osmanthus” of Aux Paradis.

Fully opened Osmanthus.
 For making tincture, we need to pick them at this stage.

I’ve found lots of recipes for Osmanthus adventure (like here), but without fail, they demand lots of fully bloomed flowers to make. In Yokohama, Osmanthus are in our private gardens or public parks, which I find it unethical to collect substantial amounts of flowers at their peak. So, I picked flowers from my garden for the half full of a small glass jar, gently washed them with running tap water and steeped them in 35° liquor enough to fill the container. Next morning, the contents of my jar had color of flower like this.

In less than 24 hours, the flowers made this color.

Leaving the jar for 2 months and we have fragrant tincture. Add 1 tbsp of tincture to 100cc distilled water and spray it in the room. The sweet smell of Osmanthus will waft in our cloistered room running away from COVID-19. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … We’re entering a strangely restricted festive season. At least the smell of Osmanthus is so delightful ...

2 months later.

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657

Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/