You Can Eat Them, Too
You can see cherry blossoms everywhere in Japan at this time of year. It’s wonderful to walk under the cherry trees or to have a picnic in a park where they are in bloom. But people don’t just look at cherry blossoms. They use the flowers and the leaves to make many different kinds of food these days. I had sakura soba the other day with my wife. It was a beautiful pink, and it tasted a little like sakura mochi. Sakura mochi is perhaps the oldest example of food made from cherry trees. It is made of sticky rice, sweet beans, and salt-pickled cherry leaves. It was first made at the Chomei Temple in Tokyo 300 years ago, but it became very popular. There are many new kinds of sakura foods, but sakura mochi is still my favorite. (139 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com