Kagawa Prefecture (map by Lincun for Wikimedia Commons)

Kagawa is the smallest of Japan’s 47 prefectures. It has a total land area of about 1,870 square kilometers, making it about half the size of Long Island, New York. Most of Kagawa occupies the northeastern corner of Shikoku, but much of it is scattered across more than a dozen islands in the Seto Inland Sea. The 13-kilometer Seto Ohashi bridge hopscotches across a couple of the smaller islands to connect Kagawa with Okayama Prefecture, on the main island of Honshu.

The largest of Kagawa’s islands is Shodoshima, which boasts two major products: soy sauce and olives. Lots of places in Japan are proud of their local soy sauce, but olives are unusual. In 1908, this island became the first place in Japan to successfully cultivate them. The prefecture even has a local professional baseball team called the Kagawa Olive Guyners.

Ingredients in the olive curry I’ve picked to represent Kagawa include olives, olive oil, and olive leaf tea. There’s some Shodoshima soy sauce in there, too. The olives are green (and pitted) and taste like they were cooked fresh rather than first being pickled. You have to be looking for the olive flavor in order to appreciate it, though, because the dominant flavor is the peppery taste of the thin sauce. The ingredients list a mysterious “seasoning powder” several places ahead of “curry powder,” which may explain why this curry tastes more like pepper stew. In addition to olives, the solid ingredients are the usual onions, potatoes and carrots.

I purchased a single-serving package of this curry for 530 yen at Japan Food Market, a temporary-looking shop in the Koshigaya Laketown Mall in Saitama Prefecture.

Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?…

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?…

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Now, with those images in mind, watch this chilling video from the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper last summer in which the staff of Tennoji Zoo in Osaka hold a drill to prepare for the terrifying scenario of an escaped tiger running amok in the park.

There’s some very brief dialog in Japanese, but you don’t need to understand the language to understand the action.

Watch it here.

Kanagawa Prefecture (map by Lincun for Wikimedia Commons)

Yokosuka, in Kanagawa Prefecture, is the perfect spot for a naval base. It occupies most of the Miura Peninsula, which forms a natural breakwater protecting the mouth of Tokyo Bay. The establishment of an Imperial Japanese Navy base there in the late 19th century gave Yokosuka an unexpected connection to the nation’s culinary history.

In its early days, the navy was plagued by the painful and often fatal disease beriberi. Food historian Katarzyna J. Cwiertka writes in her excellent book “Modern Japanese Cuisine” that 12 percent of all Japanese sailors were found to be suffering from the condition in 1883. A high-ranking navy doctor named Kanehiro Takagi was aware that beriberi was rare in Western navies, whose sailors more often ate meat. He theorized that a high-protein diet might improve sailors’ health. Efforts were begun to Westernize navy meals by including more meat, and curry was one of the dishes used for that purpose. It became a staple of Japanese navy cooking.

Yokosuka shipyard underconstruction ca. 1870 (public domain photo via Wikimedia commons)

Today, we know that beriberi is caused by a lack of vitamin B, which is associated with the heavy use of nutrient-poor white rice. But Takagi’s theory was a good one for its time, Cwiertka writes, because the concept of vitamins was not scientifically understood until the 1920s.

Meanwhile, curry’s prominence in military cooking in an era of large-scale conscription, and the influence of military cuisine on other forms of institutional food – most notably school lunches – helped make curry a de facto national dish.

The varieties of curry now available in Japan are beyond counting. For a series of weekly blog posts beginning today, I plan to eat one type of curry from each of Japan’s 47 prefectures. From within each prefecture, I will have many to choose from. (I’m open to recommendations.)

Not surprisingly, a number of curries are marketed with naval themes. One of these is Yokosuka Navy Curry, which I have chosen to represent Kanagawa Prefecture in my “Around Japan in 47 Curries” project. According to the label, this particular curry is based on the dish served at the city’s popular Wood Island restaurant. I purchased a single-serving package of it for 580 yen at Japan Food Market, a temporary-looking shop in the Koshigaya Laketown Mall in Saitama Prefecture.

Unfortunately, I found it rather bland. The chunks of beef it included seemed to be mostly fat. As a snooty 21st-century gourmet, I was not too impressed. But if I were a malnourished 19th-century draftee, I’m sure I would have gobbled it with gusto.

And with 46 curries to go, I’m sure there are some good ones out there.

I’ve put together a list by cross-referencing the official Oscar site, IMDB, Metropolis magazine, Tsutaya, YouTube and other sources. Click on the titles to see Japanese trailers.

Argo

This film has been nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor (Alan Arkin)
Best Film Editing
Best Original Score
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Adapted Screenplay

Metropolis magazine lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here. (Also, it’ll be out on disc here in March.)

Brave

This film has been nominated for:
Best Animated Feature

You can rent this one at the video store now. See its Tsutaya listing here.

Frankenweenie

This film has been nominated for:
Best Animated Feature

Metropolis magazine lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here.

Fresh Guacamole

This film has been nominated for:
Best Animated Short.

Watch the whole thing now:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This film has been nominated for:
Best Makeup and Hair Styling
Best Production Design
Best Visual Effects

Metropolis magazine lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here.

Les Miserables

This film has been nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Actor (Hugh Jackman)
Best Supporting Actress (Anne Hathaway)
Best Costume Design
Best Makeup and Hair Styling
Best Original Song
Best Production Design
Best Sound Mixing

Metropolis magazine lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here.

Life of Pi

This film has been nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Cinematography
Best Director (Ang Lee)
Best Film Editing
Best Original Score
Best Original Song
Best Production Design
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Visual Effects
Best Adapted Screenplay

Metropolis lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here.

Marvel’s The Avengers

This film has been nominated for:
Best Visual Effects

You can rent this one at the video store now. See its Tsutaya listing here.

Mirror, Mirror

This film has been nominated for:
Best Costume Design

Note: Costume designer Eiko Ishioka appears to be the only Japanese nominee in this year’s Academy Awards. If she wins, it will be a posthumous honor, as she died in January 2012. She previously won an Oscar for “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992).

You can rent “Mirror, Mirror” at the video store now. See its Tsutaya listing here.

Moonrise Kingdom

This film has been nominated for:
Best Original Screenplay

The Warner Mycal cinema chain has some showtime and venue information in Japanese, starting here.

Paperman

This film has been nominated for:
Best Animated Short

Watch the whole thing now:

Prometheus

This film has been nominated for:
Best Visual Effects

You can rent this one at the video store now. See its Tsutaya listing here.

Silver Linings Playbook

This film has been nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Actor (Bradley Cooper)
Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence)
Best Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro)
Best Supporting Actress (Jacki Weaver)
Best Director (David O. Russell)
Best Film Editing
Best Adapted Screenplay

The Warner Mycal cinema chain has some showtime and venue information in Japanese, starting here.

Skyfall

This film has been nominated for:
Best Cinematography
Best Original Score
Best Original Song
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing

Metropolis lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here.

Snow White and the Huntsman

This film has been nominated for:
Best Costume Design
Best Visual Effects

You can rent this one at the video store now. See its Tsutaya listing here.

Ted

This film has been nominated for:
Best Original Song

Metropolis lists Kanto area theaters showing this film here.

Zero Dark Thirty

This film has been nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Actress (Jessica Chastain)
Best Film Editing
Best Sound Editing
Best Original Screenplay

The Warner Mycal cinema chain has some showtime and venue information in Japanese, starting here.

The Year of the Dragon has just ended, and the Year of the Snake has just begun.

To mark the occasion, I have made a very quick video guide to the next 12 years of zodiac animals.

The sculptures shown in this video are by Seibo Kitamura (1884-1987), a native of Nagasaki whose most famous work is the Peace statue in that city. It’s one of the few artworks I’ve ever seen that personifies peace in male form, rather than as a goddess. The blog “Nagasaki Perspectives” has photos, plus critical comments.

Meanwhile, to see my “12 zodiac animals in 12 seconds” from a year ago, go here.

These fruits grow on wild vines in Japanese forests, and my trip to Kyoto in November was the first time I had ever seen them. It struck me as quite a coincidence because October was first time I ever heard of them, even after living in Japan for many years. Chalk it up to the darake effect.

The English word “akebia” – which is just a Latinized version of the Japanese word “akebi” – became part of my vocabulary when I read about the fruit in Kevin Short’s nature column. It probably would have been a fleeting part of my vocabulary if I had not encountered the real thing so soon after.

The fruit is a fleshy pod that splits itself open when ripe, revealing a mass of glistening, gelatinous pulp inside. You can eat it with a spoon, or just dive in face-first. I chose a spoon.

According to Kevin Short, the “sweet pulp” is “downright delicious.” To my disappointment, the akebia I ate was almost completely flavorless. It was like eating paper.

The texture, however, was a little more interesting. The pulp was firm enough to hold its shape when I spread the rind open to get at it, and it continued to hold together as I dug in with my spoon. Once it was in my mouth, though, it felt softer than custard pudding – aside from the 30 or 40 hard black seeds in each bite. It turns out that, below the surface, there were more seeds than there was pulp. Fortunately, the pulp quickly turned into a near-liquid, and I was able to separate it from the seeds simply by straining it through my teeth. I spat the seeds out.

It was a lot of effort to obtain a small volume of edible matter from a fairly good-sized fruit. Considering that I had paid 500 yen for it, the cost-benefit ratio was rather unfavorable.

After the fact, I did some Internet research on akebia. According to Wikipedia, “Sweet but rather ‘insipid’ taste is probably an apt description.” I’d put more emphasis on the second of the two adjectives they used.

On the other hand, the gardening website Paghat.com had this to say: “When the pod first cracks open, it reveals what resembles a sack of insect or amphibian eggs. The sticky pulp is at that time at its sweetest, & very pleasant on the pallate [sic], reminiscent of a mild melon-flavored or guava-flavored tapioca.” It seems that Short and Paghat had better luck with their akebia than I had with mine. Even so, I’m not tempted to spend 500 yen for another shot at it.

However, Short’s column also contained this intriguing statement: “In most parts of Japan, the thick rinds are simply discarded, but in some parts of the Tohoku region, it is these rinds that are greatly prized. Here the pulp is discarded, as the rinds are packed with miso-flavored ground meat and various vegetables and fried to make sumptuous snacks that are eaten during the winter months.”

Hmm. If I ever see that on a menu, I may try akebia again after all.

Trees have it hard in Tokyo. There aren’t very many of them (at least outside of parks), and those that do exist are often subjected to extreme indignities. Instead of being carefully pruned, they tend to be thoroughly de-branched. Victims of this treatment look more like lumpy telephone poles than living organisms. In the fall, as soon as the foliage changes color, it is common to see crews of workmen methodically knocking every leaf to the ground so they can all be swept up and trucked away as quickly as possible.

That is why it has given me so much pleasure to see the ginkgo trees along Showa-dori avenue in Ginza left unmolested. Here is a Tokyo street where trees are allowed to be trees.

Vikas Swarup presented a sneak preview of his next novel, “The Accidental Apprentice,” to the Japan Writers Conference in Kyoto yesterday (Nov. 10, 2012). The book will be published in Janaury.

Swarup’s previous novels are “Q&A” (the basis of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”) and “Six Suspects” (which Swarup mentioned is also in the process of becoming a film).

Swarup, appearing at the Japan Writers Conference for a third consecutive year, gave a reading of the opening pages of “The Accidental Apprentice” before taking questions from conference-goers.

It begins with a young Indian woman named Sapna Sinha sitting in a jail cell, reflecting on how she came to be accused of murder. She traces her troubles back to the day when, on a lunch break from her sales job at an electronics store, she visited a temple seeking expiation over a death for which she feels responsible. (It sounded as if this was not the death that led to her murder charge, but presumably all will be made clear as the novel unfolds.) At the temple, an old man plucked her out of the crowd, introduced himself as a fabulously wealthy industrialist whose companies produce everything “from toothpaste to turbines,” and said he wanted to recruit Sapna as his heir — if she would agree to undergo seven tests.  It sounded like a fishy deal, so Sapna sensibly refused. At least, she refused at first…

In the question-and-answer period after the reading, Swarup said he believes it is important to start a story with a strong hook, so readers will stick around to see what happens.

In addition to being a best-selling novelist, Swarup is also the consul-general of India for the Osaka-Kobe area. He therefore referred to himself as a “weekend writer” whose day job keeps him too busy to write during the week. But he cheerily remarked that having a non-writing career freed him from some of the concerns that likely burden full-time fiction writers, such as meeting deadlines or trying to guess the tastes of the market.

All three of his novels so far have been set in India. He said that people in this country sometimes ask why he doesn’t write about Japan. He tells them that if he did, his stories would be all about yakuza gangsters — and his Japanese friends might not like that. But his characters couldn’t be ordinary Japanese people, he says, because they are too nice, calm, polite and orderly to write exciting stories about them.

Spoken like a true diplomat.

Having arrived in Kyoto today for this weekend’s Japan Writers Conference, I spent an the afternoon wandering around town, with a particular focus on the always enjoyable Nishiki Market. I treated myself to various goodies, including this boiled octopus on a stick. If you think this looks good simply as an octopus, wait till you see what happens when you bite into its head…

There’s a boiled quail egg inside!

This is every bit as delicious as it looks.

It’s true – but I’m not that Tom Baker. (His website is here. )

The Tom Baker whose blog you are reading now is neither stylish nor British, but I can lay claim to a half-evening-long career as an animator. The following video contains all 65 seconds of my entire body of work:

The point of this video is to promote the 6th annual Japan Writers Conference. I’ve been to the past three JWCs, and I highly recommend them to anyone in Japan who is interested in writing in English.

This year’s event will be held Nov. 10-11 at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto.

For all the details, visit http://www.japanwritersconference.org