Because my parents are former Peace Corps volunteers and world travelers, as a girl I feasted on South American arroz con pato, African groundnut stew, Chinese noodles, Southeast Asian chicken with basil and so many other regional specialties that my parents learned to prepare.
Tokyo postcard: Visit flavors reflection on food, culture
By Christina Abuelo
Farmers’ Market manager
Caption: Christina Abuelo enjoys a bowl of udon noodle soup with her son, Benjamin, in Tokyo.
TOKYO – how appropriate that I am writing this from Tokyo, where I am staying for nearly two months while my husband is on an extended business trip. I remember when I was 5 years old that I loved to “read” my mother’s Time Life reference edition on Japanese cuisine.
Growing up, I returned time after time to gaze at the well-worn pages of the cookbooks and being so moved by the pictures of Japanese food presented in such a stunningly attractive manner. Even the most simple foods, it seemed, were elevated to exalted status – plain slices of fish delicately arranged in the shape of a bird, bright, colorful garnishes and beautiful stoneware stoked my passion for fine foods at an age when other children were chowing on hotdogs and marshmallows.
Because my parents are former Peace Corps volunteers and world travelers, as a girl I feasted on South American arroz con pato, African groundnut stew, Chinese noodles, Southeast Asian chicken with basil and so many other regional specialties that my parents learned to prepare.
Later, as a college student I came to Japan as an exchange student. After school, when I should have been studying, I explored Tokyo’s back alleys, home to many of the city’s tens of thousands of small restaurants. As cherry blossom leaves fluttered down from the sky, I took in the aromas wafting from the mom-and-pop eateries I came across and carefully examined the plastic food displays in front windows.
I learned that the Japanese take their food very seriously. Restaurants often specialize in one type of dish and are run by families for generations. Supermarkets clear prepared food off their shelves once it is a few hours old. Regional ingredients and recipes are so appreciated that most train stations have stores that sell pre-packaged samples as omiyage, souvenirs brought home by travelers to share with family and friends.
To wit: on my way back from visiting the temple city of Kamakura, I faithfully picked up an $11 cooler pack of that area’s specialty – yuba tofu – to bring back to my Tokyo hosts.
Although I can tell you that our family returns to Auburn this week with a large box of assorted Japanese fare, I am already looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with Placer County foods.
Before I became the market manager of the Foothill Farmers’ Market Association, I was a lurker at the Saturday Auburn Farmers’ Market near Old Town. Week after week, I came back for the juicy ripe fruit, the enormous heirloom tomatoes and the banter with local farmers. But more than anything specific, I was after what foodies refer to as terroir, a French word referring to “taste of place.”
Originating from the wine industry, the term terroir encompasses the cluster of regional qualities – soil, climate, savoir faire – that give agricultural products their particular personality and flavor.
Placer County’s terroir
With its unique topography and social and cultural history, Placer County has achieved renown for many of its agricultural products. The first attempts at fruit growing by European Americans occurred in 1846, when peach and almond seeds were planted on the alluvial soils of the Bear River.
This experiment was so successful that other plantings followed and eventually an industry would be spawned. Agricultural production soared in the latter half of the 1800s and into the first half of the next century.
According to the Soil Survey of the Auburn Area, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1928, Placer County’s warm soils were “found capable of producing good quality fruits and vegetables that ripened early in the season” throughout the western slope of the county – from the plains to the smooth, rolling, granitic foothills to the sandy soils at slightly higher altitudes.
Snow melt from higher elevations meant that farmers had a reliable source of water for irrigation. The warmer ridges of the foothills provided growers with early season crops that extended their seasons. The wide variation of soil in the area has led to a diversity of agricultural enterprises including grain crops, livestock and poultry that continue even today.
But in the early part of the 1900s tree fruit was king. In 1923, the Soil Survey tells us that 1,757,265 boxes of peaches, each weighing 21 ½ pounds were shipped out of an approximate yield of 69,500,000 tons grown on more than 10,000 acres. That same year, 50,000,000 pounds of plums, 1,442,650 pounds of cherries and a staggering 23,603,300 pounds of grapes were shipped out the of area. Other fresh fruit included pears, persimmons, apples, quinces, apricots, nectarines, figs, pomegranates and strawberries.
As many settlements had developed along the railroad during mining times, towns like Loomis became shipping points for fruit crops and other agricultural commodities headed to eastern destinations.
Back in 1920 when Auburn’s population was 2,289, more than 10 percent of the county’s inhabitants were described as “oriental;” many were Japanese farm families who took part in the thriving orchard industry and were responsible for Placer County being first in the state in the production of persimmons. Unfortunately, in 2004 many of the old Japanese family farms are casualties of development pressures and of a modern age when youth abandon the family business for more lucrative careers in faraway cities.
For me, Japanese cultural values pertaining to food – including a strong commitment to quality, flavor, attractiveness and regional specialties – persist as an emblem for Placer County agriculture.
Consider this: An 80-plus year-old grower tells me with pride that he would never water fruit before picking it, avoiding a practice performed by some commercial outfits, which results in diluted flavor. In another orchard once owned by a Japanese family, chocolate persimmon trees dangle with their dark-fleshed fruit which, when ripe, is so pudding textured that it must be handled like a new-born baby. At the farmers’ market, one stall offers up the pale pink, soft-fleshed momotaro tomatoes.
It is significant that in the patchwork of farms that have not succumbed to the tide of development, been turned into golf courses and trophy mansions, there lie treasures for the thoughtful connoisseur to discover: vines, trees and rootstalks remain from the golden age of agriculture in Placer County. On the truck farms and ranches, small-scale producers, many with ties to the land that go back generations, ply the land using time-honored techniques while maintaining an eye to the future.
In Japan, the sense of perfection and pride in fresh, high quality regional foods pervades this traditional society. Restaurants order their food from farmers; people know where their food comes from, and a treasured family recipe is considered a sacred secret. It is gratifying to know that Placer County has similar virtues, both in the availability of fine local foods and the many restaurants that place high priority on achieving culinary excellence.
Cooking and eating locally grown food at home is something I make sure to do even during frantic 60 or 70-hour work weeks. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t pop into one of the local Japanese restaurants for a taste of my “home away from home.”
