It's real after all. Ehk yakiimoauto kutsele vastasin eile jälle õhtusöögi pähe. Tuleb tunnistada, et tüübi hoiatus, "Ettevaatust, kuum!", mis esialgu umbes "Duh, otse ahjust ju!" reaktsiooni sai (ainult mõttes küll muidugi, tegelane paistab väga vahva olema), oleks sügavamat süvenemist väärinud, kui arvestada, et esihammaste taguse valusasti ära kõrvetada suutsin. Odav see kraam küll ei ole (550 yen läks eilne päris pirakas maksma), aga superhea endiselt.
... oh sinnsasamusesse küll, eesti keeles on võimatu kirjutada praegu.. jälle.
Hearing the yakiimo cart calling was a neat and timely solution when lost about what to do for dinner yesterday. Followed by a similar jump-up-grab-wallet-pull-on-shoes-almost-forget-keys routine as last/first time, I reached the cart that had a doll-like-made-up girl on a bike for a customer and quite a bit of the potatoes left to choose from. The sales dude, younger than I had thought at first, remembered me, asked whether I lived close by, even sort-of-saved me from a passing car I was getting in the way of going backwards when saying thanks - you know, full-on Japanese style. And you know what, walking back home through cold weather in indoors clothes (cause who'd ever bother with a jacket, right...) but cradling the paper bag with the hot yakiimo between cold hands, anticipating getting back, maybe putting in a good movie and digging in - it might have been just a minute or so, but with the amount of thoughts and gratitude going through the head it felt like the length of a whole trip. No complaints there, wishing it were possible to stay in that sort of state-of-mind forever.
Although, have to admit that I should have paid more attention to the warning of "Careful, it's blazing hot!" that I blew off as あたりまえ！(haha, should have blown ON, instead...) Ended up burning the back side of my front gums bad (hate when this happens, will take a week or sth to heal again because they get hurt again every time I bite into anything, ughhhh..). But can't deny, the thing is absolutely heavenly, even for the not-to-cheap price of 550 yen that the medium size I got yesterday cost me. All in all I suspect I will be one good customer this winter, especially when so many of the other things I love to eat are out.
Which brings me to reporting that I went and scrutinised food labels in Fresco too (a.k.a the conveniently-24-7-open-foodstore). Sad times - is the summary. I really have no idea how people with actual coeliac disease survive (prefer to think I do not have the real one...). The thing is in everything! For example potato chips (crisps, for the Brits among us ;P) are supposed to be made of potatoes, right? Well, technically yes, but reading the labels of different packages of the same type of chips from the same company with the only difference being in seasoning, you may find that one of the three does contain wheat. Not to mention the endless warnings that a product has been produced in a facility that also processes gluten products. Or that ALL types of muesli and almost all sweet things contain it. I already complained that I'm losing all karaage and tempura products. Well, turns out I am also losing soba - the famous buckwheat noodles, because every single one I read through (around 20 or so packages) also contain wheat.
Further discouraging news (from wiki) are that it's not only wheat gluten that triggers all those adverse autoimmune effects, but also the ones in barley and rye (and oats) which would mean that... oh god. Moreover, the recovery of the intestine tissue is said to need a !year! of gluten-free diet so even if I do this month's test but things don't improve, it may just mean that I've messed up my system bad enough to need a longer period. But if I continue this and the real issue is something else then...
Ok, need to return to happier thoughts. Have I even described what yakiimo is? Sweet Japanese potato (the satsuma-imo), purple-red skin, white-yellow interior (not the terrible orange thing I once accidentally got in Estonia not the Okinawa-speciality with a purple inside) - cleaned and magically grilled in an oven whole without any additions. Contains a large quantity of sugar (the sweet type, in addition to the starch-type... yes, reminder of chemistry lessons - that is also a sugar) so the layer right under the peel becomes caramelised and wonderfully sticky. Older or larger tubers also have quite a bit of fibres but when properly cooked those also become soft making the entire thing edible. Taste is... well, wish I were able to describe tastes... sweet but still planty and fresh (is the best I can do) and the heat capacity is huge, thing is still hot, even when by any natural laws it shouldn't be anymore! ;)
Cheers,
Hedi
