Maki san, one of the Kamiyama Juku students project was all about building friendships through food.  Let’s harvest together! Let’s cook together! Let’s eat together! Let’s clean up together!
The preparation and enjoyment of food is an excellent way to build a relationship with people (beer also is good).
We gathered in the Eta district of Kamibun, with two students from the Vacant Machiya Project, Maki san, Adam san, Eri san and myself.  We were off to help Nishimori san.  I have met Nishimori san quite a few times now, he is a master of wild meat.  He catches and prepares everything himself and his uniquely sensitive butchering process gives the flesh a wonderful flavour that I’ve never tasted in game before.  On this day, he brought out some special meaty bits including stomach, liver and some other bits and pieces.  It was delicious, fried in it’s own juice with a pinch of pepper.

After a quick intro and some name tags we started clearing Nishimori san’s garden and harvesting some vegetables: pumpkins, eggplants, and tomatoes.

Adamu collected some green tomatoes and it was very surprising for the Japanese.  They would normally be on the compost.  He stated he would make some American style fried green tomatoes.

He battered them in egg, flour and something else.  Shallow fried.  Tasted like cheese and tomatoes on toast, delicious.

Eri noticed that the hair on the eggplant matched Juju’s hair.  Nice!

The tempura went a bit wonky but the oba chans saved the day.

I didn’t take many more photographs because I was eating.

Did the project work out?  I think everyone enjoyed themselves, but the generosity of Nishimori san is hard to cope with.  For the small amount of effort clearing the garden, we were treated to a wonderful meal.  Perhaps with a little more preparation the balance between effort and reward can be equalised a little more.  It’s a nice idea for a project and there is scope for future development.  Good luck!