The One-Straw Revolution_ An Introduction to Natural Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka [50]
Beneath the bright midsummer sun, eating melons and licking honey in the shade of a big tree is a favorite pastime. The many summer vegetables such as carrot, spinach, radish, and cucumber become ripe and ready for harvesting. The body also needs vegetable or sesame oil to hold off summer sloth.
If you call it mysterious, then mysterious it is that the winter grain harvested in spring goes well with the decreased summertime appetite, and so in summer barley noodles of various sizes and shapes are prepared often. Buckwheat grain is harvested in summer. It is an ancient wild plant and a food which goes well with this season.
Early fall is a happy season, with soybeans and small red azuki beans, many fruits, vegetables, and various yellow grains all ripening at the same time. Millet cakes are enjoyed at the autumn moon viewing celebrations. Parboiled soybeans are served along with taro potatoes. As autumn deepens, maize, and rice steamed with red beans, matsutake mushrooms, or chestnuts are eaten and enjoyed often. Most important, the rice which has absorbed the sun's rays all summer long ripens in the fall. This means that a staple food which can be plentifully obtained and is rich in calories is provided for the cold winter months.
At first frost one feels like looking in on the fish-broiler's stand. Deep-water blue fish such as yellowtail and tuna can be caught during this season. It is interesting that the Japanese radish and the leafy vegetables abundant during this season go well with these fish.
The New Year's holiday cooking is prepared largely from food which has been pickled and salted away especially for the great celebration. Salted salmon, herring eggs, red sea bream, lobster, kelp, and black beans have been served every year at this feast for many centuries.
Digging the radishes and turnips which have been left in the ground, covered with a blanket of soil and snow, is an enjoyable experience during the winter season. Grains and various beans grown during the year and miso and soy sauce are staples always on hand. Along with the cabbages, radishes, squash, and sweet potatoes stored in the autumn, a variety of foods are available during the months of bitter cold. Leeks and wild scallions go well with the delicate flavor of oysters and sea cucumbers which can be gathered then.
Waiting for spring to arrive, one catches sight of colt's foot shoots and the edible leaves of the creeping strawberry geranium peeping out of the snow. With the return of watercress, shepherd's purse, chick-weed, and the other wild herbs, a garden of natural spring vegetables can be harvested beneath the kitchen window.
Thus, by following a humble diet, gathering the foods of the various seasons from close at hand, and savoring their wholesome and nourishing flavor, the local villagers accept what nature provides.
The villagers know the delicious flavor of the food, but they cannot taste the mysterious flavor of nature. No, it is rather that they taste it, but cannot express it with words.
A natural diet lies right at one's feet.
* A circular diagram in eastern art and religion, symbolizing the totality and wholeness of its subject.
** A Buddhist term which describes the state in which there is no distinction between the individual and the "external" world.
*** In most of Japan the rainy season lasts from June to mid-July.
The Culture of Food
When asked why we eat food, few think further than the fact that food is necessary to support the life and growth of the human body. Beyond this, however, there is the deeper question of the relationship of food to the human spirit. For animals it is enough to eat, play, and sleep. For humans, too, it would be a great accomplishment if they could enjoy nourishing food, a simple daily round, and restful sleep.
Buddha said, "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form."