Momotaro

Japanese folklore tells a tale of an old woman finding a peach floating down the river which turns out to contain a boy whom they name Momotaro (Momo meaning peach and Taro being a popular boy's name, often associated with the first son of a family). Amusing though this story is, it wasn't until I actually saw a Japanese peach that I realised it was entirely plausible. They are huge! Never mind one boy, this could be the Japanese equivalent of the Trojan Horse, concealing an entire army within its fruity interior.  

The fruit above does not really do the subject justice. While it is mutantly large, I have seen bigger peaches that are the same colour of apricots. It does indeed sit in its own little padded jacket, due to an obsessive compulsive complex the Japanese seem to have in regard to wrapping up fruit.

Next to the peach you will see my newest find of an ash-gray ice cream. I have not in fact dropped this milky delight on the path up Mt Fuji to allow it is grow a gravel coating, it is the true shade of a sesame seed flavour ice cream. It is also quite delicious.

A final note on food is a comment on the abundance of raw eggs. It seems entirely normal here to crack an uncooked egg onto your noodles or use it to make an eggy dip for your meat. I'm pretty confident that in the west this is an utter no-no due to salmonella poisoning. Is this an ingenious way to keep the population down? Or are Japanese eggs too high tech to have such a poison in them? Did in fact neither chicken nor the egg come first but a machine to detect bacteria in shells? One can only ponder.